The Acadian

Sometimes it is only after an event has passed that we realize its magnitude.  As we leave a place, we are suddenly struck with the fact that we were just in a very special place.

 And in the cold, damp Louisiana night, I left the Waffle House with that very feeling.  I interviewed Ned Theall, leader of the Boogie Kings.  He is in his seventies, his wedding band is a huge golden crawfish wrapped around his ring finger, he wore a weathered but classy leather coat, and he looked the spitting image of a man in the music business.  I was sitting down with a person who has seen it all and done most of it all.  I was looking at a person who had gone into the music business and stayed there.  Music being a chew-em-up and spit-em-out kind of life, true survivors are rare.  

 You may have never heard of Ned Theall, and you may not even know who the Boogie Kings are.  But our sheltered Heaven that we cherish in Acadiana sometimes keeps us too insulated and unaware of the rest of the world.  And, I’m here to tell you, the rest of the world knows exactly who the Boogie Kings are.  I’d be willing to bet money that the best music story-writer, maybe one from Rolling Stone, has heard of Ned Theall and the Boogie Kings.  Now, let me tell you why.  Boogie King devotees, you can probably stop reading now, you know what I’m gonna say!

 Let the phrase ‘blue-eyed soul’ roll around in your head for awhile.  Try to imagine a band, a BIG band, with guitars, trumpets, drums, saxes, keyboards, and several singers.  Before the Beatles brought a pop sound to our land, the radio waves carried the magic of rhythm and blues, soul, and gospel.  As great as Elvis became, he always pulled from this type of music that is uniquely American.  Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, the Righteous Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, etc. would all return to the old stuff.  And so do the Boogie Kings.

 Its music to dance to, music to cry to, music to make love to, music that touches every generation since its inception here in the south.  And we can only be grateful to the Boogie Kings for being here for 54 years, never letting the blue-eyed soul die; keeping those old rhythm and blues hits we love alive.

 From its conception in 1955 to 1965, the band went through its growing pains.  The band itself was a hit from the start, lining up gigs when most of the guys were still in high school.  Some members left while others joined up, so by 1965, when Ned Theall took over as leader, the band was a good size and was in high demand.  So, Ned added more band members, and as well as playing the trumpet in the band, he managed the band.  His management, along with the band’s amazing talent took them to all the places any band hopes to go.  The Boogie Kings left Heaven-on-Earth to play from Houston to Miami.  They took it even further on a West coast tour with the Righteous Brothers.  They saw Hollywood, Las Vegas, Reno, Lake Tahoe, and San Francisco.

Ned Theall belting out some

"Blue-Eyed Soul"

 
  Ned tells me, “My favorite place we played has to be Hollywood because it was our road test.” The Boogie Kings just plowed right over the audience there, thrilling them with a style that was full of soul, full of rhythm, full of life, and all with a Cajun touch.

 You can read the bio at www.boogiekings.com to see how far they have come.  One thing you need to know is this:  this band is probably the most popular band in the world to have never had a hit record.

 The big city might have been fun, but home always calls, so the Boogie Kings settled down for a little R&R in the seventies and eighties only to rev the engine back up in the nineties.  And since then, the band has been going strong.

And here’s what makes the Boogie Kings the king of all bands:  Ned Theall (trumpet), Stephen Morrow (bass),  Greg Martinez (lead singer), Tim Courville (drummer), Shane Whitmore ( guitar), Bubba Boudreaux (keyboards), Jeff Fournet (saxophone), Tommy Robin (saxophone), Jon R. Smith (saxophone), Tony Goulas (lead singer), and Mark Klein the youngest member of the group at 14 who sings and plays the guitar and in Ned’s words, “…just blows the crowds away.”  Ned Theall’s talent is keeping this huge band huge which gives audiences an experience like no other.

 And I’ll tell you a little about Ned.  This savvy business man keeps the riff raff at bay, pulls in the awesome talent (including his own), and works tirelessly to promote the Boogie Kings to the world.  His favorite song is “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong.  Sure, we all love that one.  And for a guy like him who has actually lived his whole life in the music business and “made it,” it just might be easy to see why his is a wonderful world.  But that’s not why.  His mother, Mrs. Enid Theall, raised Ned and his two brothers alone after Mr. Ned Theall was killed in WWII.  She was the rock in young Ned’s life.  She paid $69 for a trumpet for Ned when he was 13 years old.  He still plays it today.  At the end of her life, Alzheimer’s had put its ugly hand upon her; she could not speak, nor recognize her loved ones, she seemed somewhere else entirely.  Then, one day as Ned was by her side, she looked at him and said clearly, “What a wonderful world….”  Ned tells the story quietly.  And in the silence that follows his tale, I see a man who counts his blessings just as his Mama taught him to do.

 One of the blessings in his life is his lovely wife Renee.  He also has four children who, in Ned’s words, “…adore the band and love it when one of our songs comes on the radio.”

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