sounded good with four-part harmony. I played my Les Paul guitar for that group. The four of us went to the First Baptist Church together and joined the Texas National Guard at the same time. We were having fun making music and getting better at it. We were a group. That’s where I felt most comfortable.
We took turns singing lead and sang a lot of harmonies, because doo-wop and R&B harmonies were the music styles of the times. Although I played guitar, we were primarily a vocal group. I think I was the only musician in the band. We rehearsed in the basement of the church and ended up playing for sock hops at every school around. We were in high demand, or so we thought. Performing for free added a lot of luster to our career.
It wasn’t long before we felt that our sound was good enough to play for bigger audiences. My brother Lelan was a clothes salesman at the time, but he agreed to be our manager. Now we were pros. We had a manager.
Lelan was something else—a good-looking, slim, five-foot-eleven guy who always had a smile on his face. Nothing ever seemed to get him down. He always had a hello or a pat on the back when someone needed it. He was also a bit of a street hustler. If you weren’t streetwise back then, you’d get chewed up in that world of indie labels, major labels, promoters, producers, and clubs, both paying and nonpaying. Nobody chewed up Lelan Rogers, and he never tried to chew up anyone else. If anyone could help me maneuver through the mine fields of this business, it was Lelan.
Somehow, Lelan got us booked for a show at the officers’ club at a military base in San Antonio. So off we went, in a 1956 Ford Fairlane, for the 340-mile round trip. After playing two twenty-minute sets, we each got paid $13. Hell, we were professionals now!
What was important to us was that those air force officers had no idea that this was the band’s first real-for-sure paying gig. They treated us like professionals, and I believe that when you’re treated like a professional, you become a professional. After that night at the San Antonio officers’ club, we were off and running, at least as a cover group.
The hottest venue the Scholars ever played was a strip joint in Dallas allegedly owned by Jack Ruby, the mob-connected guy who shot Lee Harvey Oswald. This was a club where patrons would put up with twenty minutes of band music to see the main attraction: dancers like legendary Texas stripper Candy Barr. We would put in our twenty minutes, then trip over each other racing to the balcony to see Candy in action. And not one of us was of legal age.
Life was good.
Chapter Five
Goin’ Solo
The Scholars formed in 1956 and developed throughout 1957, but in the middle of all this, an abrupt, unforeseen event turned my life upside down. The first girl I had ever had sex with got pregnant. Her name was Janice Way and I met her at one of the high school talent contests, where every band in the area took a shot at local stardom. Janice was beautiful and truly one of the sweetest girls I had ever met. She was a dancer, and a good one, a student of Patrick Swayze’s mom, Patsy, a fixture in the Houston dance community long before her son became a movie star. Janice and I had a few dates, and while we weren’t looking down the road to a future, we did care for each other. We didn’t know it at the time, but we had a future looming that read “big time.” This was the same time my brother Lelan decided that I should try to make it as a solo artist, as I’ll explain in a moment. But first, Janice and I had an appointment with a justice of the peace.
I got the call from Janice’s mother on a Wednesday. “You better get over here right now, Kenny,” Mrs. Way said. “I need to talk to you.”
“How about Saturday?” I replied, thinking foremost about my music.
“I don’t think so,” she barked. “You need to get here right now. We have plans to make. You and Janice are getting married on Saturday. My
We took turns singing lead and sang a lot of harmonies, because doo-wop and R&B harmonies were the music styles of the times. Although I played guitar, we were primarily a vocal group. I think I was the only musician in the band. We rehearsed in the basement of the church and ended up playing for sock hops at every school around. We were in high demand, or so we thought. Performing for free added a lot of luster to our career.
It wasn’t long before we felt that our sound was good enough to play for bigger audiences. My brother Lelan was a clothes salesman at the time, but he agreed to be our manager. Now we were pros. We had a manager.
Lelan was something else—a good-looking, slim, five-foot-eleven guy who always had a smile on his face. Nothing ever seemed to get him down. He always had a hello or a pat on the back when someone needed it. He was also a bit of a street hustler. If you weren’t streetwise back then, you’d get chewed up in that world of indie labels, major labels, promoters, producers, and clubs, both paying and nonpaying. Nobody chewed up Lelan Rogers, and he never tried to chew up anyone else. If anyone could help me maneuver through the mine fields of this business, it was Lelan.
Somehow, Lelan got us booked for a show at the officers’ club at a military base in San Antonio. So off we went, in a 1956 Ford Fairlane, for the 340-mile round trip. After playing two twenty-minute sets, we each got paid $13. Hell, we were professionals now!
What was important to us was that those air force officers had no idea that this was the band’s first real-for-sure paying gig. They treated us like professionals, and I believe that when you’re treated like a professional, you become a professional. After that night at the San Antonio officers’ club, we were off and running, at least as a cover group.
The hottest venue the Scholars ever played was a strip joint in Dallas allegedly owned by Jack Ruby, the mob-connected guy who shot Lee Harvey Oswald. This was a club where patrons would put up with twenty minutes of band music to see the main attraction: dancers like legendary Texas stripper Candy Barr. We would put in our twenty minutes, then trip over each other racing to the balcony to see Candy in action. And not one of us was of legal age.
Life was good.
Chapter Five
Goin’ Solo
The Scholars formed in 1956 and developed throughout 1957, but in the middle of all this, an abrupt, unforeseen event turned my life upside down. The first girl I had ever had sex with got pregnant. Her name was Janice Way and I met her at one of the high school talent contests, where every band in the area took a shot at local stardom. Janice was beautiful and truly one of the sweetest girls I had ever met. She was a dancer, and a good one, a student of Patrick Swayze’s mom, Patsy, a fixture in the Houston dance community long before her son became a movie star. Janice and I had a few dates, and while we weren’t looking down the road to a future, we did care for each other. We didn’t know it at the time, but we had a future looming that read “big time.” This was the same time my brother Lelan decided that I should try to make it as a solo artist, as I’ll explain in a moment. But first, Janice and I had an appointment with a justice of the peace.
I got the call from Janice’s mother on a Wednesday. “You better get over here right now, Kenny,” Mrs. Way said. “I need to talk to you.”
“How about Saturday?” I replied, thinking foremost about my music.
“I don’t think so,” she barked. “You need to get here right now. We have plans to make. You and Janice are getting married on Saturday. My
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