Music

Roy Head to treat Saxon Pub 25th anniversary right

Roy Head of San Marcos in 1962.

Roy Head of San Marcos in 1962.

It doesn’t get much more incongruous than this: a group of men in their late 60s playing up-tempo sock-hop blues in a vacant house next door to the funeral home owned by their bassist. But the Traits, former San Marcos High School mates who had regional hits soon after forming in 1957, practiced  almost daily for a month to get ready for a 50th anniversary reunion of original members, including renowned singer Roy Head, in 2007.

Head, the son of migrant farmers from South Texas, is still at it at age 74 and will be rocking hard Sunday at the Saxon Pub. Neither Head nor Dean Scott, who used to impersonate soul singers on TV in the ’70s, are advertised, but a source with the club says they’ll be backed by Duck Soup Sunday at 2 p.m. ($15 cover.)

Head moved with his family to San Marcos when he was a high schooler and sought out musicians who shared an affinity for the hard-driving rhythm and blues he grew up loving. His first band was a trio called the Treys. Even after adding three members, the six-piece was called the Treys, but one day a radio announcer mistakenly introduced them as “the Traits” and the name stuck.

The group’s first single “One More Time,” which resembled “Summertime Blues” by band fave Eddie Cochran, came out on San Antonio label TNT Records and got a lot of airplay from the Rio Grande Valley to Austin. Similar regional success with “Live It Up” and “Summertime Love” established the Traits as one of the top rock bands in Central Texas. The dancing dynamo Head set them apart from the breed of new bands and the Traits made good money playing frat parties.

Around 1960, the frontman asked that his name be put before the band’s and they became Roy Head and the Traits. “Roy was 110 percent into making a living from music,” Traits piano man Dan Buie said in 2007. “But the rest of us kinda had the attitude that we were having fun and all, but it would soon be time to go to college and get jobs.” The exception was Gerry Gibson, who everyone agreed was the best drummer in these parts. Years later, he would tour with Sly and the Family Stone for a year and add drum parts to Sly’s 1971 magnum opus There’s a Riot Goin’ On.

When Head moved the band’s headquarters to Houston around 1963, only drummer Gibson followed him from the original San Marcos Traits. In 1965, Head signed with Huey P. Meaux and recorded a song at Gold Star he wrote with bassist Gene Kurtz. But somehow, “Treat Her Right” ended up on Don Robey’s Back Beat label and was neck and neck on the charts with the Beatles. With its thumpin’ beat, blazing horns and Head’s soulful delivery, “Treat Her Right” was the hottest number on the radio, perched at no. 2 on the Billboard Top 40 and rarin’ to take over when “Help!” dropped down. But “Treat Her Right” was leapfrogged by another Beatles single. A little ditty called “Yesterday.”

Head and the Traits had two more minor hits in ’65, “Just a Little Bit” and “Apple of My Eye,” but the British Invasion wiped out the fiery R&B showband style that Head honed in Texas hotspots.

At age 74, Roy Head is still tearing up stages.

At age 74, Roy Head is still tearing up stages.