Charlie Docherty, a Bolinas musician and artist who traveled the world and regaled his many friends with tales of his adventures, died unexpectedly on Jan. 22 in Costa Careyes, Mexico. He was 79 years old.
Often referred to as a human encyclopedia, Charlie left his native Scotland at a young age and traveled the world his entire life, playing music and painting the whole way, his craft evolving as he met new cultures. Even after settling in Bolinas in the late ’70s to raise a family, he set aside time to travel. A fixture of the music scene and patron of local arts, Charlie’s gumption was often hidden beneath his modest demeanor.
“He seems to embody what it means to be from Bolinas,” his son Brett said. “He was kind and cared about what was going on in people’s lives. When I was a kid, even my friends went to him to talk about troubles they were having.”
Born on July 4, Charlie’s birthday begged for celebration. He and his many bands played almost every holiday in Bolinas, and his favorite was Labor Day, when his bands headlined many years of the town’s celebration of music and community. He was a mainstay behind the counter at the Bolinas People’s Store and worked as the manager of the community center for close to a decade.
Charlie was born in Glasgow to a working-class family. His father, Charles Patrick Docherty, was an engineer who worked on industry boats carrying cargo in and out of River Clyde. His mother, Nancy, took care of him and his brother, Paul. Charles senior was a casual trumpet player, and always encouraged music and art in the home.
Charlie picked up the saxophone at a young age and was competent in many instruments by age 14. By age 15, he led The Fleets, a rhythm and blues group whose set staple was the theme music to the private eye television series “Peter Gunn.” The lads were regulars around Glasgow, playing at historic venues like the Barrowland Ballroom and even accepting an invitation to play in West Germany in the early ’60s.
At the same time, Charlie’s painting caught the eyes of his parents and academics and won him a gold medal at a local art gallery. Though he wanted to continue with The Fleets, his parents pushed him to study at the Glasgow School of Art, and he capitulated. During his studies, his family left for Melbourne, Australia, and in 1964, Charlie left school to meet them. Thus began a journey that lasted over a decade and spanned over a hundred nations.
“I intended to join them by traveling overland as far as possible,” Charlie wrote for an exhibition of his art at the Bolinas Museum in 2021. His work told a story depicting myriad cultures and the characters he met along the way. A drawing of his departure from Glasgow shows him trotting east through the foothills of Scotland, a thin beard wrapping his face and his thumb sticking up to a Celtic sun that illuminates the patterned path beneath him.
Charlie hitchhiked through Europe to Istanbul. On Christmas Eve, he slept in an Arab bakery in East Jerusalem, just miles from Bethlehem. From there, he went to Givat Haim in West Jerusalem, where he lived and worked in a kibbutz, a Zionist farming commune. Traversing the Middle East, Charlie toured ancient cities, sleeping, performing and painting on the streets of Damascus, Amman and Bagdad. He had a rule when it came to travel: If he couldn’t carry it in a rucksack, he’d gift it to a stranger. He sailed to Mumbai as a part of the pilgrimage many Westerners were making after The Beatles helped popularize the Hare Krishna movement.
“He got there and he was smoking dope and playing [guitar] on the streets,” his brother Paul said. “The Indians didn’t like that, so they contacted the Brits and they shipped him off.”
After walking east across the Himalayas, Charlie finally made his way to his family in Melbourne, frail from his voyages. His mother was happy to have him home, where she could cook for him again. Charlie was fascinated by aboriginal art, which was not yet widely appreciated or present in mainstream galleries, but he found the culture of Australia too aggressive for his taste, Paul said. Still full of wanderlust, he left for Southeast Asia.
In 1967, while Charlie was making a living drawing Hindu gods and goddesses on the streets of Malaysia, he was featured in a local newspaper. In 1968, amid the Vietnam War, he traveled the Mekong River to a shamanic ceremony in a Meo tribal village. Soon after, he formed a rock and roll band in Laos called The Voyagers. The trio went on tour and scored a residency at The Red & Blue Club, a nightclub in Bangkok. As Operation Rolling Thunder was ending, American soldiers were partying with the Vietcong, according to a story Charlie told Paul.
“Charlie disappeared into the background as the entertainer. That was his role,” Paul said.
The Voyagers moved on to Japan, where they achieved some commercial success until the other two members were busted for drug possession. Charlie stayed in Osaka, making chalk art to subsidize a solo exhibition of Tantric-inspired art at the Iteza Gallery in Kyoto.
“There, I met my first wife, Johanna,” Charlie wrote. “We became involved with Japanese artists and a counterculture group called the Buzoku (the Tribe) and created a Japanese ‘Woodstock.’”
Charlie and Johanna, whose great-grandfather was James J. Hill, a distinguished railroad baron, left Japan and headed to her home state of Minnesota. Their daughter, Candra, was born in Ontario, Canada, in 1970.
“One time the Hill family asked Charlie to play a tune for them,” Paul said. “When Charlie played ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ for them, they threatened to cut off Johanna from the family.
After Johanna sold her two-seat Mercury Cougar for a Volkswagen bus, the two road-tripped with a newborn Candra across the United States. The family spent the summer of 1973 as residents of the Chelsea Hotel, a hotspot for bohemians in New York City. Charlie met Andy Warhol and the two shared a meal on more than one occasion.
In the early ’70s, the family explored native ruins across the Americas. Charlie was deeply inspired by Indigenous cultures and art, from the Incas to the Kwakiutl people of Canada. During a stay in Mexico City, Charlie hiked Popocatépetl, an active volcano. He was unfazed by below-freezing temperatures and summited the mountain. A week later, a bad case of frostbite had turned to gangrene, and six of Charlie’s toes had to be removed. After a stint in the hospital, he was on his feet, skiing in Argentina.
While the family was in Brazil celebrating Carnival, they met Magda Cregg, the mother of pop star Huey Lewis. Magda told them about a small bohemian hamlet north of San Francisco where she thought Charlie would fit in perfectly.
But before they made it to Bolinas, the family continued their travels down West Africa and then up the Nile and through Europe. Twelve years after leaving his home in the British Isles, Charlie and his family moved to Scotland and settled down. He was impressed by how much Glasgow had changed in his time away.
“I was surprised to see how hip Scotland had become,” Charlie wrote. “With counterculture shops, natural food stores, alternative newspapers, and rock and roll music.”
These were the same qualities that finally drew him to Bolinas in 1978 after a stint in Carmel. He and Johanna soon separated, and in 1980, Charlie met Bolinas native Patrice Daley at the community center.
“He asked me to dance,” Patrice said. “And we’ve been dancing ever since.”
The two married and had two sons, Brett, who lives in Eureka, and Gregor, who lives in Bolinas. Both are artists.
Charlie’s passions only grew stronger when he arrived in Bolinas. Elia Haworth, curator of local history at the Bolinas Museum, said Charlie came to each exhibition, always returning for a second or even third look. His own exhibition two years ago showcased ink drawings and gouache paintings.
Music remained large in his life. In his 44 years in Bolinas, Charlie performed solo and with several bands, playing rhythm and blues, Americana, rock and roll and more. He knew hundreds of songs by heart. After his group, Band of Locals, was struggling to take off, a new group formed in 1992 called The Music Club. The band, according to keyboardist Magi Barror, was more of a club than a band, as members came and went and payment was rarely settled before a show.
“They’d ask us, ‘What do you charge?’ And we’d say, ‘Make sure you have a case of beer and a bottle of wine for Charlie!’ He always enjoyed a good red,” Magi said.
Charlie Docherty & Friends started up in 2008, though it was redubbed “Just Friends” at Charlie’s insistence. The band headlined many Labor Day festivals and was a regular at Smiley’s Schooner Saloon.
“We’d play Smiley’s from 9 until 2 and Charlie never wanted to take breaks,” bassist Jerome Bohlman said. “We played ‘Dancing in the Street’ one night and the whole bar cleared out and started dancing on the road.”
Charlie created nearly every gig poster himself. On one edition of the KWMR show he had with Howard Dillon, “Top of the Morning,” Charlie casually dropped the fact that he had played 86 gigs in one year with The Music Club, Howard said.
Charlie’s politics were shaped by his travels, and the radio show was an opportunity for the two to discuss the absurdity of America, protest music and British royalty—which Howard, who is Irish, cherished, and which Charlie vehemently opposed. Howard said no matter the subject or place, Charlie could wax poetic on its history and provide a personal anecdote.
“He lived everywhere except Antarctica,” Howard said. “And he probably went to jail there, too. Always for visa things or smoking dope on the streets—he was a hippie and that’s why he belonged in Bolinas.”
Charlie died last month while visiting Candra on the coast south of Guadalajara.
Charlie is survived by his daughter, Candra; his sons, Brett and Gregor; his grandchildren, Kaelan, Everett and Breanne; and his longtime wife, Patrice Daley. On March 4, The Music Club will play a tribute show at Smiley’s.