Manny Charlton, Nazareth Guitarist And Co-founder Passes On At 80

Its a black Thursday as the music world will miss an old horse in the game to the cold hands of death.

Manny Charlton, the co-founder and longtime guitarist for Scottish hard-rock legends Nazareth, has died at the age of 80. Charlton is proudly know for his brawny, shrewd character.

Born in Andalusia, Spain in 1941, Charlton moved with his family to Dunfermline, Scotland as a young child. It was there that in 1968, he would co-found the band, Nazareth with vocalist Dan McCafferty, bassist Pete Agnew and drummer Darrell Sweet.

The guitarist song, Hair of the Dog marked the beginning of Charlton's tenure as the band's producer, a position he would retain throughout the band's trending day.

In an interview last year, Charlton explained
"I wanted the song [Hair of the Dog] to have a groove," . "I wouldn’t worry too much about the solo until the actual solo part in the song. You’ll notice I didn’t really play a lot of guitar fills. I played a pretty tight, heavy, rhythm part. And I continued that, and played the solo over the top. That was the methods

“There were just too many personal problems in the band during that time,” he told Legendary Rock Interviews.

“We should never have been in the studio at that point and I’ll take my share of the blame for all the bullshit that went down.”

In 2012, Charlton decamped to LA to record Hellacious. Released the following year, Hellacious featured guest spots from former Guns N' Roses drummer Steven Adler and Def Leppard's Vivian Campbell, who played on Stone Crazy and Bringing Me Down. His final solo album, Solo, arrived in 2016.

Charlton's cause of death has yet to be medically confirmed.