It's a perfect song to use in a movie that takes place in the 1960s, as "Treat Her Right" is just one of those songs that is captured perfectly in just over two minutes of vinyl--and the man responsible for the piece of pop music history is a classic Texas rock & roll icon named Roy Head.

Roy grew up in South Texas in the 1940s & 50s, listening to the new blues sounds of up-&-comers like Bobby "Blue" Bland--a Memphis-born soul singer who found great success at Houston's Duke-Peacock Records--and a guitar man named B.B. King. "I grew up with a lot of black friends," explains the 61-year-old singer, "so it was natural to like (musicians) like Junior Parker.

Like another rock & roller who came up during those years named Elvis Presley, Roy Head not only heard lots of soul and R & B, but was--not surprising for a Texas boy--also grew up with a steady diet of country music, especially early Lousiana Hayride stars like Ernest Tubb and Hank Williams, Sr. "It was my parents' influence", he recalls.

When Roy Head was a teenager, his family moved away from their home in the South Texas town of Crystal City to move to San Marcos, where, in 1956, he formed his best known band, The Traits. The band was an immediate hit in the hopping little Central Texas college town, where Roy Head was as well-known for his hip & happening dance steps on stage as that Elvis guy was for shaking his leg.

Roy Head was only 16 when the Traits recorded their first single, a regional top 10 hit called "One More Time", which got airplay on Gordon McLendon's chain of Texas radio stations: KILT in Houston, KTSA in San Antonio, KLIF in Dallas; suddenly Roy & The Traits were on the road with other future Texas legends like Roy Orbison, doomed rock idol Eddie Cochran and Sun Records' false savior Jerry Lee Lewis--while also sharing stages with early musical influences like Bobby Bland and B.B. King.

In 1963, Roy Head & the Traits came to Houston, where a concert promoter introduced the band to producer Huey P. Meaux--the self-proclaimed Crazy Cajun responsible for early 60s Houston landmark soul hits like "You'll Lose A Good Thing" by a black teenage singer/songwriter named Barbara Lynn, and "I'm Leaving It Up To You", a Top 10 pop and soul hit for Dale & Grace.

Meaux hit major record industry paydirt in 1964 when, looking for a way to capitalize on the first wave of Beatlemania, turned a group of shaggy San Antonio teenagers into the Sir Douglas Quintet, an overnight national pop sensation whose cover story to the music press was that they followed the Beatles over across the pond; this despite the fact that the band's signature hit, the hard-chugging, garage-rockin' "She's About A Mover", is about as Tejano as you get with actually crossing the border into Mexico.

In the early days of '65, Roy Head & The Traits entered the now-historic Gold Star Studios (5626 Brock, Houston)--passed through at one time or another by everyone from Texas bluesman Lightnin' Hopkins to ZZ Top prototype 13th Floor Elevators--to record "Treat Her Right", originally an ode to the proper technique of milking a cow.

Seriously.

"That's what a stone-cold hick I was," jokes Head, "I'm writing a song about a cow when [Traits bassist] Gene Kurtz says, 'Hey, Roy, why don't we make this into a song about how to love a woman?' It sounds like a damn fine idea to me."

The single--released on Houston record executive Don Robey's Back Beat label--caught fire on AM radio stations across Texas and soon the entire nation; within a few short weeks, Roy Head & The Traits were battling it out at the top of the Billboard pop chart with The Beatles--with "Treat Her Right" doing its best to nudge "Help!" out of the number one spot.

Although the Fab 4's hold on the American psyche was too much for even the best homegrown rock & roll in 1965--but "Treat Her Right" did have that cool eight week ride at #2. When "Help!" finally did fall out of the number one slot, it was replaced by another Beatles song: "Yesterday", now the most popular song in the history of the world. "Treat Her Right" didn't fare too badly, however: it sold well over a million copies and earned Roy Head a gold record award.

Of course, MTV was still light years away in 1965, but there was still plenty of rock & roll on television in those days, and Roy Head & The Traits did it all: Shindig, Hullabaloo, American Bandstand, The Ed Sullivan Show. Like Sam Phillips did with Elvis Presley a decade earlier, Huey P. Meaux had found a white boy with the voice of a genuine across-the-tracks blues brother--so much so, audiences at New York's Apollo Theatre gasped when Roy Head & The Traits came out on stage to perform "Treat Her Right", which rode atop of the R & B charts as well.

Roy Head won over those tough crowds with ease--not only with his musical chops, but with his onstage prowess and bad-to-the-bone dance moves. "James Brown let me off a tour down in Houston one time, 'cause he was jealous of my moves. He said we were still friends but [that] I had to go home."

Besides "Treat Her Right", Roy Head & The Traits had a short-but-satisfying run with Top 40 hits "Just A Little Bit" and "Apple Of My Eye", but soon the band that had been together since high school was quickly going their separate ways. "It was a money thing. And an ego thing. It usually is in bands."

Soon things came tumbling down all around Roy Head, when producer Huey P. Meaux went to federal prison when he and two other men were convicted of hustling a teenage girl across state lines to a record showcase in Nashville. Soon, Roy Head found himself not only without his trademark band of a dozen years, but without a producer or label.

Head signed with a Mercury Records subsidiary label called Dot; that's where he met Barry Pollock, who now owns Borski's Tavern (I-45/Hwy 75 at Shepherd Hill Rd., Willis)--the historic live music venue where Roy Head performs tonight. The singer did only one album for the label, A Head Of His Time.

After a hiatus, Roy Head returned in 1972 to record a new album, Dismal Prisoner, with Booker T & The MGs guitarist Steve Cropper, who co-wrote and recorded "(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay" with Otis Redding just days before his death in a plane crash in 1968.

While ignored by radio, Dismal Prisoner was an artistic triumphant for Head, who found a fine replacement for embattled producer Huey Meaux with Cropper, who snagged singer/songwriter Tony Joe White--less than a year away from a major radio hit called "Polk Salad Annie".

Head's "swamp rock" that was tweaked by Meaux found a protector in Steve Cropper, who helped Head bring his blue-eyed funk soul brother sound in the 1970s.

After the album went nowhere, Head regrouped--resurfacing in 1977 as a hot country ladies man out to give growlin' crooner Conway Twitty a run for the money. Head had a major country hit with a down-home, sexed-up cover of Rod Stewart's "Tonight's The Night" on ABC Records. Soon, a second wave of hits--"Most Wanted Woman In Town", "Come To Me", "One Night"--followed. Times were good--until Head saw the first signs of the corporate takeover of rock & roll.

"I walked away from a $4 million dollar record contract and $25,000 signing bonus, because I didn't the way people were being treated," says Head, who, now, quite frankly regrets giving up the money these days, but still holds to the notion that "rock & roll is supposed to be fun."
Head watched as ABC Records was dismantled, and signature acts from Jimmy Buffett to Bobby "Blue" Bland to the Oak Ridge Boys to Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers were tossed aside like dolphin caught in the tuna net. Roy Head was tossed into the boat owned by Elektra Records, a label with which he recorded two albums. A cool reception to 1980's The Many Sides of Roy Head left the singer without a record contract for the first time in 20 years.
Roy Head is back again--after two CDs on the indie Edsel label in 1999--with an album due out this summer--and appears tonight at Borski's, using Gary Boehm's Southern Drawl, as his backing band. "It'll be a hell of a show," says Head, who promises to show off those dance steps that made James Brown all green with envy.

It is a pleasure to see Roy Head out and about in Montgomery County and I hope to see more of him onstage this summer. He is the embodiment of Texas' cool garage rock past, and is as important to Lone Star rock & roll as Buddy Holly or Roy Orbison or the Bobby Fuller Four. "It's just that I've outlived them all," Head says with modesty--but don't let it fool you one second.