The Matt Lucas Story

As a kid growing up in a town in the Southern U.S. where if you were Black you were hated, if you hung around with blacks you were hated, if you liked any other music beside Hillbilly you were strange, If you did not go to a certain kind of church you were hated and would surely go to hell.!!  Well, I chose to be a out cast as I love the blues, Boogie Woogie, Jazz, big bands.

After starting off making up blues songs playing drums with the little Jazz groups and going to the After Hours Black joints where we would play great music and get loaded and having lots of fun with the "colored 'Girls I was in trouble all the time. As a kid I was placed on probation for my adventures with the girls ( As there were many Blond Haired Babies that I was blamed for plus running away from the town and getting brought back  to my adopted folks  who took me from a Orphanage in Memphis and gave me their name ... Lucas.    They were wonderful people and did their best to help me grow up right.    I chose to Still drink and have fun so when I was 14 a judge sentenced  me to a indefinite term in the Missouri Reform school for Boys in Boonville Missouri.   While there I became #3-1448, a number I will never forget. I did 14 months there before going back to the little town that I hated to start my Parole.   As soon as I got off I ran away to Los Angeles as I thought I might get into the Movies.    What an exciting place L.A. was then.   Great music and some great radio stations also.   I worked as a model at Archers Photography Studio  and had a ball meeting lots of people from the music biz as well as movies.  Lots a crazy parties and Girls, Girls, Girls!!!   I  writing songs and playing bongos.   After not getting any movie work I went back to Missouri and starting playing drums with local Jazz trios and singing the blues.   I moved to St. Louis where I found lots of work as there was music on every corner.

After the clubs in St. Louis Missouri would close we would pack our stuff and cross the Mississippi to East Saint Louis Illinois  and jam all night with bands like Ike Turner, Earl Bostic and others plus all the Strip joints were going strong and were ran by gangsters. So much fun.....

While in St. Louis I got a call from a friend named Narvel Felts and he wanted me to join his band.  He was very hot then as Rockabilly and white Rock & Roll was just starting.   I said ok but on the night I was taking my drums apart to put in my 1935 Chevy two strange looking people who had been watching me play told me they would like to hire me and go to Chicago with them.    I told them I had taken a job with a R&R Band and it paid good money.  They asked me how much & I told them 125 Dollars a week!   The bigger of the two opened his roll of money and gave me 2 1oo dollar bills.   I still said "no thanks" but he pulled out another 50 dollar bill and then Tore the money in half telling me that would be my pay every week, id have lots of women plus he would make me "The Singing Gene Krupa'! WOW, I said ok and off we went to South Chicago.   The name of the bar was the Bar X on State St.    The kind of a place that sold drugs over the bar and had B Girls that would get the customers to buy them drinks that was really just tea.    One Time a customer called the cops as he got robbed. The Police came and arrested  the customer for creating a disturbance.   It was Crazy playing there. I felt sorry for the girls plus the musicians were speed freaks.   I bought a new Oldsmobile Rocket  88 from my boss.  No money down and 100 dollars a week FOREVER. I had to get out of there so I packed my Drums in my old Chevy and drove to southern Missouri to work with Narvel Felts.   Narvel was and is a great act and a great person.  He was one of the first Sun Record acts in Memphis.    We were playing mostly dives doing one nighters with Jerry Lee Lewis, Billy Lee Riley, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins  and most of the record acts out of Memphis.   I was singing in the band and ONLY sang the Blues usually making up songs as I went along.  Before long I was playing on sessions and  once while doing a session at Roland Janes  Sonic Studio   I asked Roland if I could try a song. He said sure so I made up "Im Movin On", a song that that I had got the idea from a Hillbilly singer named Hank Snow.   We took a couple of cuts on it and Roland decided to put it out on his Renay Label  ....that was my second recording with him as I had wrote and recorded a song called "Tradin' Kisses" at Fernwood Studios in Memphis  a few years before .    The reaction was great but it was for the B side, Another of my songs called "My Heavenly Angel"........We bought a rubber stamp and RED Stamp pad and stamped all the jackets with "Its A Hit!"  "Im Movin On" by Matt Lucas.....None of the white stations in Memphis would play it as they thought I sounded to Black!   I got pissed off and went out to the very first all back station in the U.S. WDIA where B.B. King, Martha Gene "the Queen", Rufus Thomas, etc were Jocks.   I gave a copy to Rufus and he asked me why my own people would not play it?  I said Rufus, "I won't lie to you. They say I sound too much like a Nigger."   Rufus Looked at me and said "Give me the record to play".  Well, he said Matt, "You got Soul and you have a hit" so he started playing the record.   It was on the white Stations charts before it was on their play list.    He told me to go Nashville to WLAC Radio  and tell them "Rufus sent you!"   WLAC was the most powerful Blues/ Soul 50,000 watt radio station in the U.S.  and you could pick it up anywhere, even in Montreal ....

All the DJS there were white but every one thought they were black as they played only black music.   One of the most famous the Legend John R told me to drive to Atlanta GA and go to a Radio Station there ran by Zenus Sears, (Also the Mgr. of Chuck Willis)    I was almost broke but made it there sleeping in my car. It was early in the morning and I begged the Janitor to let me in.  The dj Bob McKee was on the air.  He listened to my record and played it over & Over!!!  He then Called Charlie Fach at Mercury/ Smash records in Chicago and had him listen to it over the phone.  He said "I want that Lucas Boy" and the next thing I knew I was getting my teeth capped and flying all over the country. I had a REAL HIT RECORD selling over 50,000 copies in Chicago and the same for Detroit!

While doing TV shows and promo in Detroit I met Ollie McLaughlin,  He was a well known producer and had a bit hit at the time with Barbara Lewis "Hello Stranger".   We spent a lot of time together and he wanted me to sign with him.   I was doing hops and TV shows like Robin Seymours CKLW show, Channel 7 WXYZ "Dance Party" with acts like Barbara Lewis, Little Steve Wonder, Marvin Gaye and all the Acts that came through Detroit to promote what ever record they had out.  I passed on Ollie's deal at the time but really liked him.   After another release on Smash / Mercury Records "Obby Dooby" I signed with Dot Records.  They were a hot Label but did not have many acts that were in a groove live my style plus they did not have a good relation with R&B radio stations.   My first record with them was my version of Chuck Berry's Smash "Maybelline" backed with "Put Me Down".  I was on a promo tour and one day I took the Dot Record to Jocko, the  Black Music Director of the number 1 soul station in Little Rock Arkansas.  When I gave him the record he said,  " Matt, This is like giving me a card from the Klu Klux Clan!   Ha!  He did start on the record though as he liked me and it was on the chart the next week.   I had the same problem with air play on most of my records telling me my Music was to wild or I sounded too Black!  I was so fed up with hearing that.  !!!    My Drinking and Pills were really getting a good grip on me at that time as I was drinking a 40 Ouncer of Scotch every day 7 days a week!   I decided to move to Canada when I had been playing for a few years and I had a great agent that had me working as much as I wanted 7 nights a week.  His name was Harold Kudlets and he was the agent for other Friends of mine from the States, Harold (Conway Twitty) Jenkins,  Ronnie Hawkins, Narvel Felts and Rockin Ray Smith.    After I had such a big world wide hit with "I'm Movin On" the Narvel Felts Trio became the Matt Lucas Trio.   Since my agent was in Canada most of my gigs were also so Narvel Felts and my Bass player JW Grubbs wanted to leave and go back to the states.   When they left I moved down to Detroit and signed with Ollie McLaughlin.   

He was great and had some real talent.  Johnnie Mae Matthews, Barbara Lewis, Dell Shannon, The Capitols, The Detroit Emeralds, Deon Jackson to name a few.  We were great together and he asked me to "Walk around Detroit, get a feel of the city" and write a song about it to record,  I wrote the "Motor City (M.C.) Twine" about a dance that was a hit at the time.    We cut it at United Sound using charts by Dale Warren and had the Full Funk Bros. Band and the Charmaines doing back up Vocals.   It was a fun session !  I can remember that I was drinking Southern Comfort at the session, Ha!  In the control room with Ollie was a famous Jazz Harp Player, Dorothy Ashby, She told Ollie that she had NEVER heard a White Boy sing with that much soul!  I was so happy. I knew all the important Radio jocks in Detroit like LaBaron Taylor, The Butterball, Martha Gene the Queen , Frantic Ernie Duram, and Larry (DI) Dixon.  The very top of the radio ladder........it was a very exciting time as Motown was not on top yet but was coming on strong.  I was working with all the Acts and through Ollie I met the wonderful John Rhys.   He was the number one promo man in Detroit.... Times were still hard for me and for a time I moved in with John at the corner of Second and Blaine.   A Rough area even back then....( now the Building we lived in has been tore down as they could not get rid of the drug problem in the neighborhood).    I recorded "Baby, You Better Go-Go" and maybe another 10 songs with Ollie at United.  I had no idea the "Baby, You Better Go-Go" would put me in Northern Soul Heaven and become the most Valuable record on Ollie's Karen Records.    In 1967 the big Detroit Riot started not far from where I lived and I had my windows shot out!   Man, It was bad.    After that I moved back to Canada and worked the Harold Kudlets club circuit again 6 nights a week.   A man named Gordon J Elder wanted to back me and to put up 100,000 dollars.  At that time I had a manager Named Heavy Andrews  that was very violent and scary.   I was going out with a wealthy woman that had 3 massage parlours in Toronto and he wanted to Rob Her!    He told her if he did not get money he would put out a contract on me!  Little did he know that she was well known with the mob and he backed off quick!

I got out of my contract in Toronto with Heavy Andrews and better things started happening again for me.  I got a record Deal with a Canadian Label called Kanata Records that was ran by the Editor of A Jazz Mag. called Downbeat.  Another great guy, and big time writer, Gene Lees signed me and put out a LP Called "I've Paid My Dues".   It had some covers but a lot of my Original Blues and a remake of my world hit, Im Movin On.   That single backed with another song I wrote called The Old Man  made the charts in Canada as well as the album.....I did all the TV Network Shows and even had the cover of the Toronto Globe & Mail Mag.   That was quite an honor.  One day not long after that I got a call from Ollie who said he had a hit for me and wanted to fly up to Toronto to record it.   We booked time a Thunder Sound Studio and I recorded You Got a Love and the B side "Im So Thankful'".     Chum Radio in Toronto, the number one station got on it quick and I had a hit again.   It had also Donnie Hathaway playing on it along with Millie Riverton singing back up. It also had the survivor of the Otis Redding Plane crash, a trumpet player with one arm...It became a Disco hit.   At the time I was still doing Blues and R&R so I could not work the Disco circuit.   One day while sitting in my office the phone rang and it was a agent wanting me to go on a tour with the country star of Hee Hall Fame, BUCK OWENS.   I said id thing about it then the phone rang again  and it was a agent from Tampa Fl.  telling me he had a gig in Louisiana  if I wanted to come back to the states.  I took it and never looked back.    After working the Southern states I moved to the U.S. Virgin Islands and played there 2 years .... It was great for me to be out of the dives and the snow of Canada.   I came back to Fl. in 1977 after Elvis died and bought a home in Fl.   A company called Blue Jam Records did an album on me called THE WHITE BLUES WONDER.   I was working night clubs all over the states and in 78 started working cruise ships out of south Fl.    I was so lucky to be one of the first acts to work as much as I wanted as I knew all the different styles of music from all the years and the crowds loved me.   In 2000 I started doing Big Concerts (Rock & Roll, Rockabilly) in England and Europe and a Chicago  Label did a CD on me called Back in the Saddle again.   It had some covers and some of my Org. stuff also.  The musicians were great as I had the Mark Brumbach Blues all stars and even had the great Guitar Play James Burton (Elvis Band leader as well as Ricky Nelsons. I was honored   to be inducted into some Music Halls of Fame by then also.  The first I did not even know about as I had been in it since the 60s in Europe.  It was the Rockville Int. HOF in the Netherlands.  After 7 marriages'  including the 2 times to my lovely wife Barbara I'm at last very happy and content.   My wife Barbara from Pittsburgh has changed my life and after at least 25 years I'm totally CRAZY about her and count my blessings  every time I look at her!   I've had a I Guess pretty Wild life style and I'm so lucky to have Children  that truly love me after all the shit I've pulled  with my wife's over the years.  Im as I write this I had a new Record come out on a UK Label on my 76th birthday called "Shake It!" ...I like to thank a few people that with out their help over the years I would still be Picking Cotton and Selling my Body! Ha! Just kidding but thanks to Roland Janes, Narvel Felts, Ollie and Ruth McLaughlin, Ronnie Hawkins, The Great John Rhys, Adriaan Strum, Xaviera Hollander, Harry Larry and Vivian,  Fraser Finlayson, Mark Hanson, Colin Wood, Mick Holdsworth, Neil Rushton, Harold Kudlets, Howard Dewitt, Bob Halley, Nick Sands, Bobby Morris, John Garry, Colin Escott and Hey!  The list could just keep on going but I have to quit somewhere....

Thanks for liking my music and Love to u all!!!  Matt Lucas