Tattoo Tours Ep.1 - Good Time Charlie

welcome back to the artist Connection YouTube channel this is the first episode of tattoo tours where we take a deep dive into an individual's tattoos what better person to kick off the series than the legend Charlie Cartwright better known as Good Time Charlie if you don't know who Charlie is you can learn more about him by clicking the link to the video on screen but if you don't want to watch that a short version is Charlie's one of the Godfathers of black and gray tattooing him and others popularized black and gray custom work basically sparking a revolution in the tattoo industry that laid the foundation for What modern day tattooing is when filming this I asked Charlie if he had ever filmed anything like this before and he said no so this is going to be the only video currently out where Charlie is talking about the tattoos he has so we wanted to go over some of your tattoos now obviously we know you're covered head to toe so we might not hit all of them but uh what year do you remember the year you got your very first tattoo yeah 1955 and uh what is that tattoo yeah it's like three tattoos under this area yeah most of most of this arm is multi-layered and a lot of this one is too so a lot of my original tattoos of even though they were good tattoos I still covered them up because I was layering as they say I remember hearing an interview where you say that you've done maybe about 40 plus tattoos on your own self yeah yeah including this Eagle on my chest with the banner and the hot and cold under my tits how were you able to do that on your chest I just did it in the mirror okay yeah and was that one um yeah it was hand poke yeah all that that hot and cold and the banner and the eagle and uh and the Seven Stars I did too but Owen Jensen did born to win with the two stars and I said oh and he looked straight at me and put cricket stars on me and I did all those seven in the mirror at the time they were straight because I wasn't so fat but anyway he says so what do you want for five dollars so that revealed the Carney aspect of that doing to me you know what what's your most recent tattoo what was the last tattoo that you got this one right here that says love one another on the side of my hand and who did that one Mario Cordoba who rest in peace he uh he died two years ago during coven I know you have so many do you have a favorite no no and then here's the thing who did your back piece Mike did the the bull to cover up the tiger and Jack Ruby did the arena and all the Roses around it do you ever wish that you I mean you got a lot of stuff filled you wish you had more space on your body to get more tattoos are you content with what you have no I'm content with what I've I've got because I like skin as being part of the designs too Ed Hardy did my ribs uh with all this uh lightning and so forth and my son did all this Nick he tattooed 40 years so he did all of that but I've got stuff on me from uh like uh Fred Thorson from The Pike in Long Beach and uh Fred did a couple things on my back too better covered up now but I was tattooed at the Pike by Owen Jensen Fred Thornton did a lot of things Bert Graham did this he this uh Indian girl and uh one time I was in there wandering around and and Bert says uh what are you doing in here and I says well I don't have any money I'm just looking and he said oh you got five bucks I'll tell you a rose so he did this Rose but Tennessee Dave did most all these girls most of it did some of them Jack really did a couple of them the one on the back and so Johnny Anderson did all this patch through here at in El Paso Texas Flame who I worked with at the Pike he did all this uh Bob Bob us did this water in honor of Greg irons when I told him I said don't need some Greg irons water he said I'm Bob Roberts I do Bob Roberts kind of water and I said well do something in honors down there so he did that and uh Fred Thornton also did this uh peacock and uh I was tattooed by painless now and her cousin or sister I guess they they called each other he had a peg leg wooden peg leg and one outlined and one and the other one shaded he just moved to another chair and so even though they did some cool stuff they're they're all covered now except this one here that that Rose was done by uh painless smell this is the first professional tattoo with this anchor done by Tahiti Felix Lynch in San Diego and uh decorated did all this single needle stuff wallet-sized photos can you imagine Nobody Does that anymore wallet-sized portraits you know and who are those those people are this is my wife when she was 19. I really liked that picture of her and I had the kids put in her hair it kept it covered up a panther and snake here that covered accident actually covered up another lightning and banner design well you know I've been tattooed by 100 or 50 times I think uh by and sometimes by different you know multiple but the same guy right you know but uh like dick warsaki he did this uh lightning all down my arm and uh Mike Brown he did the Mike Brown did the lion on my elbow and he did all my kids names around my wrist and he said Charlie you don't want me to tattoo I said of course I do are you kidding me yeah the guy was really something and Jack did the back of the back of his hand years ago probably 1983 or something in Kansas Kevin Brady did this got got bless this so I did this thing left-handed by Anne and uh permanent Mark did the Stars on my knuckles I did this on the back of my hand and I did this I did this one by hand when I was in the Navy the Donald Duck and the three stars and uh Nick my son he put the smoo on me eight different guys from tattoo landed all these crosses on my fingers and uh and unfortunately there was nine guys working there and I said I don't have nine fingers stand so just give me a little glow around my stars here with some extra fine single needle lines that just kind of gives it a little glow and he did so that worked out Jimbo Laporte did this one I was gonna draw I was gonna tattoo myself and and he said oh let me do something on you so I said okay he said he did that and I I did this in here it just says I love Olivia in in Thai anti-lighting and they tell me that when I saw them through in the restaurant what does that say I love Olivia they say did you did you just have to trust whoever told you how did you get that translation just Google oh I asked a guy in a restaurant to let it down for me and many times it's been you know confirmed that's what it really was you know if you were to get tattooed by anybody today do you have somebody that you'd like to get a piece from that you haven't oh I don't know maybe Philip Lou maybe I love that kid I remember winning the 16 years old because I started to travel the world his dad sent him on around the world to learn tattooing from other people so he he did actually make the rounds look what he became I know that you kind of honestly started the trend of custom tattooing you would you give the customers as you say the the tattoo haircut they want yeah when you would go get these pieces done by artists did you let them do what they want did you always have requests oh I let them do what they did yeah except like when I when I had this done i i i i i sketched it all in with a ballpoint pen and I told Tennessee Dave when he opened I said I want you to do this and he says oh man I I'm not like you I don't just scribble on people and start tattooing I need a pattern I said well I'll guide you through it he said no you make me a stencil man so I made him a stencil and uh and he did he did what he could you know with it I know a very common thing was when people get tattooed nowadays people are always going to say well what do you you know how's that going to look on you when you get older I'm sure maybe that was told to you a few times and now you are older and your tattoos are still holding up but yeah you know they look good how do you feel about that just tattoos and them lasting over time well that's the reason most of my tattoos are just black because they stand the test of time when people would ask me or when they were getting a tattoo and I would ask them so is this going to be color or black and they go well how would you do it and I'd go well I would always do it black and I go wide and I go well it's going to heal faster it's probably going to be cheaper and it's going to last longer it's going to stand the test of time because all indigenous people all they used was black in their own skin and so that tells the story right there to me the the combination of that that Darkness against whatever tone your skin is uh so to me it's all back to the Primal Roots you know you can't beat it black is where it's at you know foreign [Music]

Channel: The Artist Connection

Views: 122,576

Keywords: TattooTour, GoodTimeCharlie, Tattoos

Id: 6pgEWSsaaDM

Length: 12min 36sec (756 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 01 2022