"There are probably more anecdotes about Charles than any other singer, most of them involving his peculiarly abstract relationship with time. To say that he exists in another temporal dimension is a polite way of saying that he's often late - unless he's early, such as the occasion when he was exactly one year early for a rehearsal. He remains the only person I know who's safely checked in for a flight only to miss it. My Orlando colleagues and I weren't as surprised by that as we were by him arriving in plenty of time for check-in.
But the strangest phenomenon we observed with Charles's time in the Orlando Consort came to be named The Daniels Effect. This meant that anything within a radius of twenty feet was likely to stop working for a short period, or break entirely. My cars have suffered particularly, one stopping when Charles was a passenger, only for the garage to proclaim it in full working order. The second car was not so lucky and broke down for good, the interior flooding with smoke almost as soon as Charles sat in the passenger seat. Elevators, telephones, recording equipment, all malfunction when Charles is around. Gravity is no longer a constant: the universe crumbles. When recording one of our jazz projects and taking a break for photos, Charles enquired how Huw (Warren's) accordion worked. 'Well,' he began, picking it up to demonstrate. 'Oh...Well it doesn't work actually.' The Daniels Effect.
For all that, what does work wondrously is his voice and his impeccable musicianship, neither of which belong in any other dimension. I could go on 'singing his praises', but I fear my laptop might break if I spend any more time writing about him, and, in any case, he'd only protest that I was exaggerating."
Donald Greig is a member of the Orlando Consort, which we are delighted to be able to say is still in perfect working order.