Brussels became guitarist Charlie Cullen’s last love: ‘charming and tormented’

‘Single’

Gallery owner Cecile Kerner at the Minimenstraat looks sad when we tell her that her neighbor Colin has died. “The Corn Nun“He was beautiful but had a tortured soul,” she says. “The guitarist lived next door to the Jewish Museum.

Kerner paints a rather bleak picture of the American musician. “He once walked into my gallery and stayed there for hours talking as if I were his psychiatrist. I think out of loneliness, out of sadness. He said he had performed in front of thousands of people, but felt lonely as soon as he got off the stage. His childhood friend had recently died…”

As time went on, Kerner got the impression that it was getting a little difficult. “Sometimes he was talkative and other times he wouldn’t stop crying. But he felt forced to leave the United States, and he felt completely alone there – partly because of his fame.”

Colin left his life in the United States to free himself from the demons of addiction, Kerner and Hajdu say. “I get the impression he didn’t really succeed at it,” the gallery owner said. “But he loved the city, the neighborhood streets, the art scene and the people. Brussels was a comfort for him. He found the atmosphere here much more humane than in the United States.”

According to Haidu, Colin wanted to “escape the pressure to be sober in California” in Brussels.

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