Fwd: MATT LUCAS SOLD FOR:<\/a>: MATT LUCAS SOLD FOR:<\/p>\n\n
IF ONLY HE HAD SOME OF HIS OWN RECORDS\u2026.ESPECIALLY BABY YOU BETTER GO
MATT LUCAS -Put Me Down - Maybellene- USA ROCKABILLY 45 DOT 16564 EX COND
Matt Lucas is Still Movin\u2019 On<\/p>
\n*SoulManJan *talks with blue-eyed soul recording legend Matt Lucas!<\/p>\n\n
As Facebook followers may know, blue-eyed soul legend and Florida resident. Matt Lucas, recently underwent and successfully survived a 5 artery heart bypass. He has travelled far and seen and done much in his life but that was his most difficult and scary journey ever. But, like a fine brandy, he\u2019s gotten better with age and his life\u2019s experiences are enough to make your toes curl. So it wouldn\u2019t be a surprise for you to learn that they planned a book on him. It was so hot (I read the draft manuscript) it almost burned my hands, but not in the way that Matt managed to burn soul into audiences\u2019, black and white,\u00a0 around the world. So let me allow Matt to tell you in his own words how he got\u00a0\u00a0 to where he is, and what obstacles he encountered along the way. Then, you\u00a0 can be the judge of whether you\u2019d have walked in his shoes and taken that journey or not.
*SoulManJan: *Matt, let me start by congratulating you on the success of your recent surgery.\u201d
Matt Lucas: Thank you! Recovery has been amazing and it\u2019s been a real eye-opener, but an experience I wouldn\u2019t wish on anyone else. It really caught me off guard. I was getting a really bad burning pain and thought it was due to some medication I was on, so I went to my doctor and he gave me a clean bill of health, but said if it continues to call him back. So Barb and I went to Hawaii for 18 days where I couldn\u2019t reach my doctor in Florida, so when I got back I went to see him and he gave me an EKG and told me \u201cMatt, you\u2019re a dead man walking!\u201d I asked if I should rest and go home and he said \u201cNo, no, I\u2019ve already called an ambulance, sit there and don\u2019t even MOVE!\u201d When the ambulance came they put me on a gurney, I blew the nurse a goodbye kiss\u00a0 and they loaded me in the ambulance. I didn\u2019t really know what was going to happen. They took me to the local hospital and after further testing, transferred me to Shands University Of Florida Hospital in Gainesville and I was scared to death again as I had a heart attack while there and went into surgery. I had wonderful staff there that really looked after me. What I didn\u2019t know, till afterwards, when I looked it up on the Internet, is that, instead of the 3- or 4-artery bypass, mine was an almost unheard of 5-artery bypass. One of the staff asked if he could bring in his son and after I asked why he said \u201cHe wants to ask you some questions, get your autograph and talk to you about music!\u201d Of course I said \u201cYes\u201d after all I couldn\u2019t believe I was still alive. It\u2019s not the first heart attack I had suffered but the staff rebuilt me so I can still perform and write songs. I have been blessed and now have a new lease on life.<\/p>\n\n
*SoulManJan*: So how do you feel about this new lease of life and does it reflect on this life you\u2019ve led?
Matt Lucas: Well, you know for the first fifty years of my life I was a wild man and also a heavy drinker, drugs, and the lifestyle that goes along with being a rock-n-roll musician. But, then I met Barbara and she changed my life around. Instead of the earlier years [we\u2019ll get to those momentarily] I got my first lease on life, then. I started working cruise ships since nightclubs were dying anyway. This was the earliest days of the contemporary style of cruising which has evolved into a huge entertainment industry in its own right from the early seventies. I was perfect for cruise ship passengers because I knew all the old standards, the beautiful songs of the 30\u2019s, 40\u2019s and war years, that they grew up with. I learned them all playing jazz which is what I played before rock & roll came on the scene. Many of the cruise passenger\u2019s also covered age ranges including the early days of rock-n-roll, soul, groups and blues. While I was cruising I discovered that the passengers loved my blues songs that I would make up on the spot.., Original songs to extend my showcase, without singing other people\u2019s material. So I worked the cruise ships for a long, long time. And then the 90\u2019s came along and that was a tough time in the music business too I took a job with the only \u201cAmerican\u201d Cruise line, in fact the oldest and only one \u2013 The Delta Queen Steamboat Company. It was an actual steamboat that went up and down the Mississippi River from New Orleans all the way up to Minneapolis. It was a giant step backwards, to all the big bands that I heard as a kid like Tommy Dorsey, Louis Armstrong. So, I thought to myself boy this is like an underground market but with older guys going back to the days of Cotton Patch music, before rock-n-roll, and much like the Northern Soul movement in the way that had its own crowd and supporters. They even had minstrel shows with \u2018black-face\u2019 routines on the ships going up and down the Mississippi River.<\/p>\n\n
*SoulManJan: *Well that shows us you survived in a music and entertainment industry but how did you get into the business in the first place. What inspired the young boy Matt Lucas?
Matt Lucas: Well I guess it would be listening to the radio and my favorite radio station growing up was a black station in Memphis. It was the only all black radio station in the United States. It was WDIA. Since it came out of Memphis I could get the station all the way up in Missouri and I always loved boogie woogie. I also loved Jazz because it was without inhibition. I wanted to be a Drummer.<\/p>\n\n
*SoulManJan: *So how old were you when all this happened?
Matt Lucas: I was a young kid 11- or 10-years old, and don\u2019t forget I was also adopted. I was adopted from the Tennessee Children\u2019s Home Society which was a crooked organization that had all the judges on the take and they were selling babies was operated by Georgia Tann. It\u2019s an unbelievable true story and the babies that brought most value were blonde and blue eyed. Joan Crawford and June Allyson with husband Dick Powell all used the Memphis-based home for adopting children. She died in 1950 before she could be brought to trial, and I knew I was adopted but she was issuing phony birth certificates. My first name on the birth certificate was of a black male child that died 10 days before I was born I discovered, Junior Wilson. She got away with anything and they made 4 movies about her and numerous books, and she changed the adoption laws to suit her purpose. I thought my mother was a woman 17-years old from Corinth, Mississippi. I\u2019ll never really find out who my parents were and that always really bothered me so I guess its reflected in my attitude and then in my music. And when the Memphis scene really exploded with B.B. King, Rufus Thomas, and the likes of Howlin\u2019 Wolf \u2026 I mean Sam Philips had all these acts as I was growing up. I used to sneak in and watch people like Gene Krupa play drums and man I wanted to do that. I tried to get out of Poplar Bluff and me and a friend of mine stole a Cement Mixer truck and after its gas ran out we took another., a 1937 Buick.. The Judge said I was a juvenile delinquent. I was sent to reform school and that\u2019s where I had time to write songs. I wrote my fist song when my dog got hit by a car. I was a young boy about 6 years old. I sang to my dog and rubbed him down with coal oil and my dog got well.<\/p>\n\n
*SoulManJan:* So you were almost a star in Hollywood?
Matt Lucas: Yeah in 1953 I took off with the lure of bright lights and stardom to L.A. with a couple of pals. We had about $30-35 buck between us and was picked up again by cops watching Bette Davis in a diner \u2013 they told us to get out of town [he laughs]. I did get some acting jobs but mainly photo sessions and sometimes I\u2019d get $10-20 for a modelling session. I met some jazz\u00a0 legends like Hampton Hawes Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan to name a few. But Bill Haley and Big Jay McNeely reminded me of where my real interest lay. I went home to Poplar Bluff but really, after Hollywood and Beverly Hills, I didn\u2019t last long there! So that\u2019s when I took off to St. Louis, Missouri and played
*SoulManJan: *So how did this affect you attitude to music or inspire you to soul and rnb?
Matt Lucas: Now don\u2019t get me wrong I had a wonderful childhood and wonderful people adopted me and they took me to churches. Not particularly any one church but to all different Protestant churches and they weren\u2019t prejudice at all. Those were the days you didn\u2019t hear word like Polak or Guinea and the \u201dN\u201d word because it was the south and as I was raised blacks went to different schools and movies and they weren\u2019t referred to as black they were called negroes. Later on when I developed black friends and became a drummer I\u2019d sit in with black groups and then white folks would want to kill me. I never really got beaten up because I could always out run them rednecks, but later on I\u2019d have trouble with white and black audiences. White\u2019s couldn\u2019t understand why I was involved with race music but it just had such a natural feeling to me and later on when I recorded some songs they told me Matt we can\u2019t pay you sound too much like a \u201cN****R\u201d That\u2019s why I went to WDIA and they started playing my song, and since I was with a major record label and I went on promotion just like all the other named stars, Jerry Lee, James Brown and Elvis. So there you are lip-syncing your record in high school auditoriums and in big towns like Detroit you might do something for like 5 radio stations all free. It\u2019s so strange to me now because that\u2019s the way the northern scene seemed to grow in the U.K. to kids at record hops in effect. No artists I guess initially, but the records were presented to dance floor music fans. These weekenders they seem to have in England are just what I grew up on here only they were called record hops, maybe the exact conditions of why they attended these hops was different but the actual effect and feeling seemed to be the same. Everybody did these types of hops here even artists like Johnny Mathis and you got your record played on stations and did these hops here, so the DJ\u2019s actually broke your record on air and you pushed it. Well the irony is that I see in Northern soul, they skipped the radio station and the DJ\u2019s broke records at hops. I know that the goal was to get everyone to buy your record and that in England it was more underground but many soul records made it to the charts that way as well as others that promoted commercially on radio for the pop market. Odd phenomenon!\u201d<\/p>\n\n
*SoulManJan*: How did you meet Ollie McLaughlin?
Matt Lucas: while I was in Detroit doing promos on I\u2019M MOVIN ON, which was a black hit and a white hit this cat came up to me and said baby you got soul. It was Ollie McLaughlin. He said I\u2019d love to cut you man and get you into the studio. I was a very unusual commodity. He came up and shook my hand in fact and explained that he was the guy who discovered Del Shannon. I remember that back then he had a song on Barbara Lewis \u201cHello Stranger\u201d on Ollie\u2019s label and I think he said he leased it to Atlantic and Jerry Wexler. But Ollie said \u201cCome on man I gotta sign you and record you and get you outta these Chittlin\u2019 joints!\u201d That\u2019s what they were called in the south but he sounded like a New Yorker but he was born in Carthage Mississippi, yet there was no trace of a Southern accent. He was also a Disc Jockey and had his own radio show in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which is not that far from Detroit. So, at various sessions I kept running into Ollie and he knew everybody and was so well respected, knew all the black stations as well as the white radio stations. I got so fed up of being called a \u201cN*****R-Lover\u201d that I moved to Toronto Canada and all of a sudden as a landed immigrant I got a lot of air play on \u201cI\u2019m Movin\u2019 On\u201d there too. It was a No. 1 Record in Belgium and I was being played on radio Luxembourg, and told Ollie I\u2019d think about it and keep him in mind. Then I
*SoulManJan:* So what was it like to actually work with the Funk Brothers?
Matt Lucas: They were under contract to MoTown man they were the coolest cats. They were all basically jazz musicians and you know what they\u2019re like rehearsing a lick till it \u2018feels\u2019 just right. They were under contract to MoTown but played all over and on a couple of occasion\u2019s I put down a drum track to indicate what I was looking for and they got it straight away. Harry Balk and John Rhys were there at the start of the Detroit sound. We remain good friends till this day. As indeed has Fats Domino who I met in my New Orlean\u2019s days. But I couldn\u2019t shake off the prejudice so that\u2019s what sent me to Canada.<\/p>\n\n
*SoulManJan:* You made it big in Canada and weren\u2019t rich still?
Matt Lucas: I hired my buddy Narvel Felts after I\u2019M MOVIN ON became a big hit and although I had all that success and appearances I still wasn\u2019t making that much money. So after the Detroit sessions I moved back to Toronto and work almost exclusively out of there. Man there was a time I was so desperate in Detroit that various musicians and Ollie came by and brought me a can of beans and diapers for my kid and food for my wife. You never forget that in your whole life [Matt pauses quietly for a moment]. Now, while in Toronto I signed with a booking agent called Harold Kudlets who booked all over the United States and Canada\u2026.. (he\u2019s still alive) and he\u2019s 99 years old living in Hamilton Ontario, and I stayed with him a long time. I began to get steady night club work, 6 nights a week and had a regular band who\u2019s members stayed with me a long time.<\/p>\n\n
Well in the 70\u2019s I got the chance to meet with Ollie again and he liked me enough to put me on a soul album that went big all over Europe and the U.S.
*SoulManJan*: So you got into the Rockabilly Hall Of Fame, how was that?
Matt Lucas: Yes, I was inducted in 2000 and also into the Southern Legends Hall of Fame. I cut a new CD at the time called \u201cShockabilly\u201d I was around at the birth of the Rockabilly sound, got in on the soul scene, rode the Disco bandwagon. So I have been around the start of a lot of things. I have played so many Rockabilly shows and their fans are as loyal as Northern Soul fans. I\u2019ve had some unusual bookings including one singing on the Mexician National Railway for Tracks To Adventure.<\/p>\n\n
*SoulManJan: *So what\u2019s on your horizon now?<\/p>
\nMatt Lucas: Well as readers know I had a whole stash of original Funk Brothers tracks and I\u2019ve been writing. A few years back I brought out a couple of pieces like \u201cShake It\u201d and \u201cGimmie Some\u201d And I still have a whole load of new and unreleased songs. With your own venture at Allsun Records I hope we can bring not only some of those soul cuts out but I have blues and rockabilly as well as jazz to share with the fans. I know you were working with another label but I\u2019m glad to see that you have established your own now, geared more towards the fans of dance music. Hey man, I\u2019m also looking forward to meeting some of your label colleague\u2019s too, and I hope you let the guys in the magazine know what you have coming out on me. I really have a great new lease on life and thank God for the real fortune that\u2019s come my way! By the way, somewhere in my tapes there\u2019s an alternate take of \u201cBaby, You Better Go Go\u201d. If I ever find it you are the man that will put it out, I just hope it wasn\u2019t lost in one of my travels.<\/p>
\nSoulManJan: So what about any advice to youngsters coming into the music business?<\/p>
\nMatt Lucas: Get a day job. There\u2019s no more places to learn your craft on the Rd. And \u2018You have to Pay your Dues\u2019! Sam Phillips at Sun Records in Memphis asked Elvis a long time ago, Son, Who do you sound like? Elvis said Mr. Phillips, \u201cI Don\u2019t sound like Nobody!\u201d I don\u2019t sound like anyone else ether. Its sad to me now as there will Never be another Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, Elvis or any of the Greats I grew up with\u2026<\/p>\n\n
*UPCOMING RELEASES: *
Matt playing drums at the 2010 Blues Fest at Craighead Forest Bandshell in Jonesboro Arkansas. \u00a0<\/p>
More photos<\/a><\/p>","link":"https:\/\/mattlucasmusic.com\/post\/130089781878","guid":"https:\/\/mattlucasmusic.com\/post\/130089781878","pubDate":"Mon, 28 Sep 2015 18:18:43 -0400","category":["Matt Lucas","Craighead Forest Bandshell","Blues Fest","Jonesboro","AR","Blues","Rock"]},{"title":"Vermillion South Dakota","description":"Date: Sat, Aug 15, 2015 at 10:05 AM
Yesterday we\u00a0visited the W.H. Over Museum which was full of interesting artifacts from\u00a0the area along with a room devoted to the Lewis & Clark Expedition and\u00a0this morning I walked all over the university campus. We\u2019re close to\u00a0everything here in this beautiful park so we\u2019ve decided to stay a few extra\u00a0days.<\/p>","link":"https:\/\/mattlucasmusic.com\/post\/129717626338","guid":"https:\/\/mattlucasmusic.com\/post\/129717626338","pubDate":"Wed, 23 Sep 2015 12:33:22 -0400"},{"title":"Date: Wed, Aug 12, 2015 at 11:57 AM\nSubject: Corn Palace,...","description":"
Date: Wed, Aug 12, 2015 at 11:57 AM
Date: Fri, Aug 7, 2015 at 12:31 PMWe\u2019ve been having a great time. What a beautiful drive it was from Cody WY
\nWe\u2019re in the Wind Cave Nat'l Park Campground right now and it\u2019s the same
\nWe\u2019re at the library right now in Hot Springs\u2026.a beautiful library with a
After a wonderful time at Peter & Lynda\u2019s home in Bigfork, they drove down to see us at Swan Lake and say goodbye.\u00a0<\/p>
\u00a0We left the next morning and hit heavy rain, bitter cold, snow, sleet and hail from Butte MT to Yellowstone. \u00a0<\/p>
Right now we\u2019re staying at Baker\u2019s Hole Campground which is our favorite Nat'l Forest Campground in the town of West Yellowstone. \u00a0We spent a cold day in Yellowstone Nat'l Park yesterday\u2026\u2026I even ended up buying a winter coat. \u00a0 Last night\u2019s low was 28 degrees\u2026..Today it will start to warm up - Thank Goodness! \u00a0
Date: Wed, Jul 22, 2015 at 2:27 PM
We\u2019re in the Flathead Nat'l Forest at the Swan Lake Campground in Bigfork
\u00a0Tonight they\u2019re taking us to Whitefish to see the play
\u00a0We\u00a0drive into the neat little town of Bigfork to check our e-mail, do laundry
\u00a0This whole trip has been fun and relaxing, simply because
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