Linda Washington
Historic 1961 WRR Broadcasts Found, This page contains a nice article about Bob producing and recording the Nightcaps Album back in 1961 at the old WRR radio studios.
Left to right: Bob Kelly, Bill Medley, Kirby St. Romain, Jerry Brown.
Three of the Expression band members got together Saturday, Nov. 20, 2004 for their 40th Reunion. Bob "Git it" Kelly, Kirby "Summers Really Comin'" and Jerry Brown. Jay Ramsey couldn't make it. They went to see their old friend Bill "Righteous Brothers" Medley at the Orleans Hotel and Casino here in Las Vegas. The Expession alternated with Bill many times over the years in the Nevada Casinos.
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UPDATE: January 16, 2001
Hi Everyone, I have found a new place for my MP3's and I am writing to give you the address. Actually my site is not officially up but the address works so if you would like to check it out - http://bobkelly.iuma.com - You have probably heard some of the songs from the Cool, Swing, Boogie CD but there are some new ones, too. I've Got Love on Me - (a big band swinger) - I believe is new. Anyway this site is supposed to pay for downloads so feel free to download as many as you have time to do. There are also a couple of Videos of the songs on my Web Page so when you have time to download them - they will play on your media player but will not stream - I dont know howto do that yet.
The Web Page address is: http://u1.lvcm.com/kellybob
I've got a couple of weekends in Jan, Feb, Apr, May and March I have 5 Saturdays so with my retirement money, I have enough money to live until June. For us musicians, being able to see six months down the road is quite appealing.
I've got another song for the swing CD started and another video so hopefully I will just keep on producing and keep my Brain Alive even when I am not playing music. Its really strange, I thought I would miss performing, but I think I enjoy this work that I am doing now more than I do the performing because it is still creative and not near as demanding physically -- Moving Equipment and all of that. Bob "Git It" Kelly - kellybob@lvcm.com
BOB "everyone calls me Kelly" KELLY Says:
I am just amazed and astounded that you actually had a Sound Clip of my Demo of "Git it". I don't even have a copy of it nor do I have very much Memorabilia from the early to late 50's. I got all of it stolen when I had an apartment rip off while I was gone on a two week road trip. Anyway, Thanks very much for putting it on your Web Site and I am really impressed.
It really did bring back a lot of old memories just looking at these web pages. Let's See, Gene Vincent recorded "Git it" and "Somebody Help Me" that I wrote. Mac Curtis did a couple of my songs, "What You Want" was the only one released on King Records - Never got a penny for that one. Gene Summers recorded many times in my studio and I did some recording for him in the Old WRR studios when Jim Lowe was managing him. Bobby Rambo and I played with Scotty McKay for years - Dont know how we put up with his excesses - diet pills to lose weight and cokes for sugar and caffine. Juvy Gomez recorded in my studio also. Ronnie Dawson and I were playing the same clubs and beer joints.
I didn't see Kenny Rogers mentioned, but back then he was the Bass Player with the Bobby Doyle Three and not even the lead Singer. They needed to make a Demo to try to get a recording contract and I gave them some free time at my studio and they got a Columbia record deal from the demo. I didn't get anything but some "Thanks."
I worked the Big D Jamboree many times winning the Amatuer Contest and then they finally paid me for a few times and that is how I got in with Ed McLemore and Big D Publishing. I started out doing all my recording at Clifford Herrings Studio in Fort Worth and then finally switched to Sellers later on. But, I wanted more recording time than I could afford so I just started my own little Studio. At the time I had a two track Ampex and a one track but I got some pretty good mixing done and that is where I cut the "Git it" Demo.
I met Jay Ramsey, Frank Cole, Jerry Brown and already knew Kirby St. Romain so we started a group called "Expression". I was still a disk jockey at WRR but we got a recording Deal with Smash Records and wanted to do the music Full time so we all quit our jobs and went on the road. This was l964 and we stayed together until l980 and are all still good friends - well, Frank kind of disappeared and we don't know what happened to him.
Now I am doing a One Man Band thing here in Las Vegas. I make my band tracks on the computer and play sax, guitar and vocals live with a harmonizer for background vocals. It works out great because I don't have to put up with no crap from no-one and I only work when I want to - which makes it nice.
Thanks to David Denard that I was able to find the Rockabilly HOF Web Pages in the first place. It happened like this - Kirby St. Romain who is now a Stand Up Comedian met David, who told Kirby about the Web Site who told me about the Site and then, David told Mike Bullington of Big D Publishing how to get in touch with me. And So Forth.
A vintage Bobby Rambo at my Studio in about l959.
Bobby Rambo, Toi Rebel - one of Jack Ruby's Strippers, and me at the Cotton Bowling Palace where I did an All Night Remote (midnight to 6am) broadcast on WRR Radio from l960 until l962. I was doing a Talk Radio Broadcast way before it was the Hip thing to do. All entertainers and musicians got their bowling free if they would let me interview them on the radio.
Kirby St. Romain, Me, Jesse Lopez (Trini's Brother), and Dee (something). Dont remember who the drummer was but we were the band behind Willie Nelson when he had the song "Half a Man" - so what ever year that was ?
Original Expressions - l964 - Jerry Brown, Frank Cole, Jay Ramsey, and me.
Expressions Reunion l994 - Kirby St. Romain, me, Jay Ramsey, and Jerry Brown. Frank disappeared.
"KELLY"
MORE from "KELLY"...
The "What You Want" song (SOUND CLIP TO COME) that Mac Curtis did in about '58, was recorded in '56 at Clifford Herrings Recording Studio in Fort Worth - much more famous for the Bruce Channel song "Hey, Baby" - but that's OK. I wrote this song in '54 but it took me two years to get the money to do the Demo. I was in College at North Texas State then and didn't have a band, so I used "pick up" musicians, the background singers were my frat brothers and none of them went on to persue a entertainment career. They were: Neil Wood, Johnny Biggerstaff, and Bill Byrd.
My mom and dad were Adazzio Dancers (thats Acrobatic Dancing to Music) for fun, more than profit, and two of my uncles played guitar, and a friend played sax and my mom and her two sisters liked to harmonize ala the Andrew Sisters but on country songs. They played mostly the old country swing kind of songs, some Gospel or hymns and some boogie woogie shuffle tunes. Not to many "cry in your beer songs." My Dad would always say and it will keep your spitits up."
They really couldn't afford to go out on weekends so it was usually them all getting together at out house and dancin' and singin' in our living room and it was a small living room so pretty crowded. I started playing sax at 5, then guitar at 10, and was writing songs and singing them at about 13.
We were living in a small West Texas town called Olney and it was a real Southern Baptist town which meant no dancing at all in public or at schoolfunctions. It was a "dry" county so there were no bars. So, as Teenagers, we would take our cars out to the airport and park them in a circle and all turn the radio's on to WLAC in Nashville and listen to the old rhythm and blues songs and dance and neck, and you get the idea. This was before rock. So most of my early influences were from my family - mostly country swing and boogie woogie shuffle or the radio R&B music from people like Joe Turner, Ruth Brown, Clovers, etc.
Since we are all usually creatures of our enviornment, I have contended that for me, it should have been called Rhythm and Bluesabilly because when I started doing this, it was not really rock, yet. I was just as comfortable doing a Bob Wills song on the Porter Waggoner TV show in Wichita Falls Texas as I was winning the Horace Height Amateur Show with a Rhytmn and Blues song that I wrote - and this all happened in the same week in l954. Notice the above picture and caption. (by the way, for the younger folks that might see this, the jackpot that I won was a One Year Scholarship to North Texas State back then the tuition was $88.00 a year so it wasn't anything like a Lottery Jackpot). What you can't see in the picture is the Duck Tails that I had in the back, and Porter Waggoner didnt think much of them and said that I should not be wearing my hair that way because Lefty Frizzel was the guest on his show that day. David Frizzel, his younger brother and even younger than I was, remembered the event even twenty five years later when I was the back-up band in Reno, Nevada for he and Shelly West when they had the song, "Your're the Reason God Made Oklahoma". "What You Want" that Mac
The reason I am saying all of this is because you can hear the R&B influence in the early songs that lots of us were writing but country artists were doing the songs, so it was eventually just gradually forming a whole new kind of music. To the pop musicians - they called it Rock - but to the Country artists - they called it Rockabilly. There was much more work and a lot more money if you could do Country and Rock, at least in Texas and that was all I knew about at the time. I must be getting old because now everything that comes out of my mouth begins to sound like a "Parable."
The Story of "GIT IT"
Lots of the R&B groups were using Vocal Backgrounds along with and to accent the Music - the Platters with their "Shoo dop and Shoo be do" and Bobby Day and the Satelittes with "Mmm, mmm, mmm" on "Little Bitty Pretty One". So I had this song and it wasn't long enough for a record so I put the "Will u, Will u, Wop, Wip Wip Wip" in front of the song and in the middle and because most of the girls back then wanted to get married (it was, Where's your Diamond Ring) and everyone wanted a "Cadallic" car, etc. "Git it:" to me was enjoyable to perform - not because it was such a great song - but because it was such a fun arrangement and it worked "live" for audiences. At least at the time, it did. -"KELLY"
BOB KELLY'S OWN SITE
E-mail: kellybob@cox.net
Be sure and download Bob's newest song "It Must be the Mambo" from the following address: http://www.amp3.net/swing.html under Bob's Bunch.
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