Chapter1

CHAPTER 1
Roots - Doug Ardoin

        It all began in Eunice, La. Doug Ardoin had bugged his parents so much for a guitar that they finally bought one. It didn’t take Doug very long to figure out how to play it. One afternoon, as Doug was twanging it out in the kitchen, his good friend Harris Miller walked in, and was immediately fascinated with Doug’s new Fender guitar. Being a very curious fifteen year old, it didn’t take long for Harris to talk Doug into teaching him how to play a few licks. Harris spoke to his parents about purchasing a guitar for him, and he and Doug started jamming together. They practiced together every day and soon they realized that something magical happened when they played together. It did not dawn on them at the time that this was the beginning of one of the most controversial musical groups of all time. The genius of these two young boys was evident the very first time that they sat down and played together.
        Enter Bert Miller. Doug and Harris were so enthused about the sounds they were coming up with that they decided to look for a drummer. Doug remembered about Bert Miller, a local Eunice, Louisiana kid that played the drums and also sang. So they invited Bert to practice with them.
        Now with Bert Miller singing and playing, they had the makings of a real band. All they needed was a name. At that time, “Rhythm & Blues” was called “Boogie & Blues,” a descriptive title that was held over from the 1940s. While trying to name the band at a practice session one day, Bert’s sister said, “Why not call the band “The Boogie Kings?” The guys liked it so much that it became the official name of the band. Wow, what a name!
The trio started making appearances at school functions, and was an instant hit with all of their school friends. But something was missing. They decided that they needed a bass player, as bass parts were a very big part of the music at that particular time. This was in the late 1950s. The old acoustic upright bass was quickly being replaced by the new electric bass. The popular music was from artists like Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Little Richard and other black artists. The musical taste of the country was being dominated by black Rock n’ Roll. There were some successful white artists at that time such as Elvis, Pat Boone, Paul Anka and Neil Sedaka, but the Boogie Kings were more interested in true Blues-rooted music as played by the black artists of the time.
        The group eventually realized that they were playing the popular Rhythm n’ Blues radio hits better than the original artists, so it sort of became an unwritten law that the selling point of the band would be white guys playing black music. This decision would eventually prove to be one of the most important keys to the success of the band. The bass player that got the job with the band was Mark Jenkins. Mark added a nice bottom to the band. So now the band had two vocalists, two guitars, drums and bass. Doug was doing some singing under the name of Doug Charles. About that time the band was starting to play at a few local night clubs. Very quickly the band started drawing larger and more enthusiastic crowds than usual. As the money got better, Doug decided to add a couple of horns to the band.   Bryan Leger and Mike Pollard were brought in and added a whole new dimension to the band. It seemed that every time the Boogie Kings added someone to the group that the magic got better and more real. It was like the band could make no mistakes.
        Eventually, the band was so hot that the Pelican Club in Marksville, Louisiana hired them on weekends for some very good money. The Boogie Kings lived up to their reputation by jamming the Pelican Club with thousands of customers every weekend and the reputation of the Boogie Kings grew larger with each performance.
        Duane Yates was just a young kid at the time, but he was already aware of the Boogie Kings “magic.” Duane was performing at the time with his own group, “The Capris,” a great band in its own right.   Duane fantasized about being a Boogie King, little knowing that his wish would eventually come true. Duane tried valiantly to get the Boogie Kings to let him sit in and sing a few songs, but at that time the band, thinking he was just a pest, shined him on. Something else was beginning to happen almost as a matter of fact. It was the presence of drugs and alcohol, something that would torment the band for decades to come. Most of the night club owners loved the band so much that they would let the band drink free. At the same time the country was discovering that diet pills contained narcotics. Doctors disclosed so little about addiction in those days, that prescriptions for diet pills were readily available and easy to obtain. Some of the guys in the band got severely hooked on booze and pills. The energy level of the band began to increase as more and more guys started eating pills to get up, and drinking booze to come down. The surprising fact was that no persons in the audience were aware of the source of all of this energy. Rock n’ Roll of course is, in and of itself, a high energy music form. The early 1950s were a time when rock music was changing the world around the young people.
         The first white blues band that I became aware of, because of their introduction of music in their repertoire, was the late Phillip Comeaux and the Modernaires from Lafayette, Louisiana. Roy Perkins (Ernie Suarez) was the first white vocalist in this area to sing Rhythm n’ Blues live on stage. Roy sang with the band, which was really a swing orchestra. They played orchestrations (we called them “stocks”) half the night, and then the band would switch piano men, and play R & B for the other half. Roy released a single record entitled “You’re On My Mind” and it was a strong regional hit.
        Bobby Charles, my schoolmate, had just come onto the scene. Bobby wrote a song entitled, “See You Later, Alligator,” that fell into the right hands and became a strong regional hit, and later got recorded by Bill Haley & The Comets and went all the way up the charts. Fats Domino also recorded some Bobby Charles original songs and they all became million sellers. These two happenings focused national attention on South Louisiana. After Bobby and Roy led the way, many more local musicians started recording R & B music. It was called Rock n’ Roll at the time.
       The first big blues band I ever heard was "Joe Turner". The place was Landry's Palladium in Lafayette, Louisiana. It was a big night club that was divided in two by a big wire screen that went right to the middle of the stage. One side for adults and one side for kids. I must admit that after hearing Joe Turner, B.B. King and Earl King with their big bands, I began to like the rhythm 'n blues music a little more.
        The Boogie Kings of the late 1950s were beginning to make a bit of a reputation for themselves by this time. People were falling in love with the Boogie Kings music, and the band was gradually moving into the larger dance halls in the area. The band was in a class by itself. Rock n’ Roll music in the late 1950s, combined with breakthroughs in integration and civil rights, were changing the whole country. The U.S.A. was kind of divided as to whether this new music had any validity or integrity. Religious kooks were calling this new music, “The Devil’s Music.” I find this fact very revealing about the hypocrisy of some religions. Most of the early rock was based on gospel and love songs. It had really good beats and rhythms that made people shake their hips, angering the religious sects. They succeeded in having many radio stations break rock n’ roll records while they were on the air. This smacks of book burning censorship to me.
But try as they may, the religious opposition was soon to be overwhelmed by the tremendous spread of this new music on a world wide basis.
        I was a teenager in the 1950s, and I’m so happy that I was able to witness the metamorphosis of American music. The early 1950s saw the country as “Mom and apple pie, everyone with a job, a house, a car.” Life was simple. Television was just becoming a part of everyday life. Of course, it was only in black and white. Hot automobiles were the biggest thing in every kid’s life. Very few kids were driving their own car at the time. Families could survive on $50 a week. Everyone was in bed by 10 p.m. and slept with their doors unlocked. There was no serious crime to speak of. Girls wore long skirts and guys used Vaseline hair tonic. Life was wonderful. Every kid wanted a '57 Chevy
            The first indication that I got about masses of people going for a different style of music was in the late 1940s. There was a radio station in Del Rio, Texas that had a DJ. that was getting very popular. He began programming a tune called “Skokian.” It was an instrumental done with alto sax and a Latin rhythm section. The first time I heard it, I thought it stunk! But all of the kids who parked at the local curb service “Drive In” would strain their ears at night trying to pick tip this remote radio station in order to hear “Skokian.” The DJ on this Station sounded like an old black lady, but it was really “Wolfman” Jack from Shreveport, Louisiana. We also fell in love with “Randy’s Record Shop,” a popular program from Gallatin, Tennessee. The first rock tunes to get on the jukeboxes were “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” by Lloyd Price, “The Fat Man,” by Fats Domino, “One Mint Julep”, “Work With Me Annie” and “Shake Rattle & Roll” by Joe Turner. The kids would play these records over and over again for months on end until a new record would come out. Chuck Berry, Fats Domino and Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis were to emerge as the carpenters of Rock n’ Roll music. Unscrupulous publishers and producers took advantage of the fact that poor and uneducated musicians would unknowingly sign away all of their royalty monies. It is only now that some of the pioneers of rock music are suing for their money. Good luck men, you deserve everything you get.
        Speaking of Fats Domino, Doug Ardoin recalls an interesting night at the Pelican Club in Marksville, La. The Boogie Kings were scheduled to appear with Fats Domino’s Big Band. The Kings were to open and close the show and Fats was to play in between. So Doug and the band got on stage and opened the show. The Boogie Kings were fired up that night and the first show was incredibly energetic, really firing up the crowd. In fact, it was so good that Fats insisted that Doug sit on the bench with him through his show. So Doug went on stage with Fats and sat on the piano bench with the “Fat Man.” Doug was one proud Cajun kid that night.   He stayed on stage for three or four tunes and then he started feeling conspicuous and he decided to slip off the stage and back into the dressing room. Fats Domino was the king of the Rock n’ Roll scene at that time, so needless to say, Doug was fired up, and this in turn, fired up the whole Boogie Kings band. When Fats completed his show and returned to the dressing room, there was a nice interaction between both bands. The Domino band was very complimentary to the Boogie King’s band. When the great Boogie Kings Band got back on stage they were fired up to a fever pitch. Add the fact the whole Domino Band decided to stay and catch the last show. When the Kings got started, they played an hour and a half of the most electric, energy filled Rock n’ Roll that the Pelican Club had ever heard. When that set was over, the whole crowd was on their feet applauding like crazy. The Domino band was on stage shaking hands with the guys, and Fats walked on stage and gave Doug a big hug, shook his hand, and said, “The Boogie Kings are the greatest!”   Doug would remember that night for the rest of his life.
        Even though the Boogie Kings have probably put on some of the greatest stage performances in rock history, it is a sad fact that most of these performances were never recorded.
        I was not in the original band. I was in college at this time trying to learn how to play jazz. We had an eight piece band in college that played swing music and very little rock ‘n roll. My players were Dillard Murrell, Don Richard, Dick Parrish, Ronnie Mayard, Tony and Buddy Cutrera, Errol Amy, Roland Guidry and Terry Bussy. After that I joined the Air Force. But fate was to play an important part in my life and draw me towards this great band.
At this time in my life, I was convinced that I would someday be playing on Bourbon St. in New Orleans in a dixieland jazz band. I wasn't crazy about rock 'n roll music, but that would soon change.