Charles Rosenay
Charles Rosenay wears many hats: entertainer, emcee, deejay, producer, actor, impresario, tour organizer, promoter and haunted house operator. And every job revolves around music. Asked why, the cites something that happened six decades ago. “As far as I’m concerned, my life began on February 9th, 1964, when The Beatles first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show,” he says. “It’s actually my first memory in life and nothing was the same after that.”
Musical beginnings
Rosenay’s mother Rose was a real “New Yawker,” a Bronx native with a larger-than-life personality who was very musical and played piano by ear. Rosenay was born and raised in the Bronx until his family moved to Connecticut (New Haven) when he was 10. “They were the greatest, most loving, and most supportive parents on the planet,” he says. “The radio was always playing in the background and in the car, and we were always singing.”
Though he doesn’t play any instruments, he took accordion and classical guitar lessons growing up, eventually abandoning both. But he’s always loved to sing. “Years later, I portrayed Davy Jones in a tribute band, MonkeeMania, and I was spot-on with the tambourine and maracas,” he says. “I think if I had learned guitar or bass I would have auditioned for “Beatlemania,” but The Beatles’ world had different plans for me.”
Liverpool Productions, Good Day Sunshine
In the late ’70s, Rosenay heard about a Beatles convention presented by Joe Pope, a pioneer who produced the first Beatles fan convention in America at Boston’s Bradford Hotel. Pope also published a Beatles fanzine, Strawberry Fields Forever. Without knowing it, Pope was Charles’ inspiration, but the event that inspired him to produce him own Beatles convention in Connecticut was seeing “Beatlemania” on Broadway in 1978, when he was still in high school. Liverpool Productions was born.
By 1980, Rosenay felt he couldn’t keep up with all the fans who were begging to have him present conventions in their own towns, so he decided to start publishing his own fanzine (mostly as a networking tool) to keep in touch with all of his new friends. Good Day Sunshine was born. Neither the conventions nor the publication earned him enough to make a living, but that was fine because Rosenay had become a popular deejay on the air on college radio stations and even some major ones. He has been one of the most in-demand deejays/emcees in Connecticut for four decades now.
Rock Apple Tours, Magical History Tour
In 1983, after three years of publication, Good Day Sunshine had become one of the most-read Beatle mags in the world and the conventions were hitting their stride. Charles was getting invitations to produce and host conventions in other parts of the US and overseas. That’s when a Massachusetts upstart, Rock Apple Tours, approached him to host a tour of Liverpool, the home of The Beatles, which was the brainstorm of rock impresario Tony Raine, who lived on Cape Cod and currently operates the Cape Cod Melody Tent and the South Shore Music Circus.
The tour morphed into Rosenay’s own Magical History Tour and he started meeting a long line of Fab Four insiders who became guests at later conventions including original drummer Pete Best, Cynthia Lennon, Mike McCartney, John’s sister Julia Baird, Billy J. Kramer, Tony Sheridan, Horst Fascher, Alan Williams (the studio drummer on “Please Please Me” and “PS I Love You”), Sam Leach, Joey Molland, Alistair Taylor, Alf Bicknell, Norm Rossington and Gordon Millings.
Rosenay has hosted dozens of famous guests at conventions stateside, and thousands of satisfied travelers to Liverpool. “I never met John,” he says, “but thankfully had close encounters with Paul numerous times, George once in the Tokyo airport and Ringo at press conferences and on TV shows. I wouldn’t say I’m famous in Liverpool, but I’m definitely recognized when I visit The Cavern.”
Unofficial Ambassador to Liverpool, Top-10 Horror Lists
Over the years, Rosenay has been honored in official ceremonies hosted by the various lord mayors of Liverpool acknowledging and officially recognizing him as an Unofficial Ambassador to Liverpool. “In the future, expect more conventions, more tours, more promotions, more emceeing and deejaying gigs and who knows what else,” he says.
For many moons, people have asked him if he’ll ever write a book on all his experiences, travels, and adventures, as if people expect him to be a real life “paperback writer” and come up with a Beatles book of some sort based on his interviews and encounters. He hasn’t done that – yet – but in August 2021 BearManor Media published The Book of Top 10 Horror Lists, his collection of his favorite monster movies and actors. He’s credited as “Cryptmaster Chucky Charles F. Rosenay.”
Asked what his greatest production has been he says it’s the three children he and his wife Melissa have brought in the world: Lauren, Harrison and Ian. New Englander Charles F. Rosenay is truly a renaissance man who has his hands in many activities. But more than that, he’s a really nice, down-to-earth guy who loves what he does, and has brought a lot of joy to thousands.
(by A.J. Wachtel)
