Singer took Houston sound up the charts
Roy Head, the Houston singer who died Monday morning at age 79, lived life in such a way that separating myth and fact could be difficult.
His moment of pop superstardom — the 1965 hit “Treat Her Right” — is documented. A wild slice of Gulf Coast R&B delivered by a manic, handsome, grittyvoiced country boy, the song reached No. 2 that year, kept from the top spot by a Beatles single. The song became a golden oldie, circulating for more than a half-century, even becoming a crucial part of Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 film “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”
More difficult to verify is Head’s claim that he once was dragged away by bodyguards after biting Elvis Presley on the ankle — though it’s easy to imagine that happening.
“I take what he says and divide by two,” his son, singer Sundance Head, once said of his larger-than life father. “Then maybe something’s right with it.”
Head, a treasure of old ’60s rock and soul and ’70s country music, died Monday morning, according to his son. Head enjoyed later renown on the oldies circuit and as a local legend in Houston after a career that long felt like a train barely affixed to its rails.
B.J. Thomas earlier this summer said of Head, “When he was on, he was the greatest enter
tainer on the planet.”
ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, who covered “Treat Her Right” on a recent solo album, described Head as “a contortionist and an acrobat and a volatile-y voiced singer.”
A Three Rivers native, Head grew up the son of a sharecropper in Crystal City, where he used to sneak out at night and hear African American farmers and sharecroppers sing.
“The melodic flow they had, it sounded like a lone wolf at night,” he told the Chronicle. “They sang about pain and hurt, all that sort of stuff.”
National breakthrough
His teen years were spent in San Marcos, where he’d visit the Black clubs where acts like Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown would play. Head then knew the path he’d follow. He fell in with a group of musicians who would become the Traits, a tight musical body capable of keeping up with the frenetic frontman.
Head enlisted in the Army out of high school. After his discharge he fronted the band full time. Head and the Traits became a dynamic live act, barnstorming East Texas with a redline sound that melted together rock ’n’ roll and soul.
Head moved with the funky precision of James Brown. He’d drop into splits and execute cartwheels and somersaults off the stage. His feet moved a mile a minute with mercurial fluidity. As a vocalist, he hissed and growled like an alligator.
The phrase “blue-eyed soul” has become a meaningless catchall for white soul singers. Head had nothing in common with the slow, smoldering practitioners of the form like the Righteous Brothers. His vocals crackled with electricity, the Saturday night/Sunday morning duality rooted in restraint and release. “Treat Her Right” was a monster single built on feel.
Head and the Traits exploded out of Texas alongside another Texas band, B.J. Thomas and the Triumphs. Locals recall both acts playing various double bills and battle of the band events.
“His energy was unlike anything I’d ever seen,” Thomas said.
Head and the Traits followed “Treat Her Right” with another hit, “Apple of My Eye.” But three months represented the entirety of his time in the Top 40.
Infighting sunk the Traits, with contentiousness stemming from a contract disputes. A firstclass entertainer, Head had no head for business. A bandmate said he’d “sign pretty much any piece of paper put in front of him.”
Still, he reinvented himself time and again: a crooner/rocker in sequined jumpsuits; a suitand-Stetson clad country singer. His smokers voice moved like a cloud from one genre to the next effortlessly.
He landed a few country hits but never returned to the same star status he found in the ’60s.
“I spent a lot of time fighting myself,” he said.
Head recalled years of bad contracts and bad decisions, including an array of drunken mishaps that may have been embellished with age.
He pumped the brakes a little in his later years. He settled down in Porter with his family. But Head’s wired approach to living never allowed him to ease entirely into a rocking chair. He recalled getting banned from Little League games and beating up his son’s high school football coach.
But Head also became a fervent supporter of Sundance’s career. A big-voiced singer as comfortable in country as soul just like his old man, Sundance Head appeared on “American Idol” years ago before winning “The Voice” in 2016.
A proud father of a singing son, the elder Head also kept performing until the end, even though he suffered a stroke three years ago. In later years, his practice of licking a finger before dramatically testing the sizzle in his shoulders, elbows, hips and knees was gone. His legs had grown bowed and incapable of moving with the same rubbery flow. But Head still slayed on stage, a cyclone of movement punctuated by his soulful barks and howls.
As he did in the ’60s, Head continued slinging the microphone like a lasso, a skill he swore — with a wink — that he’d mastered. But then he’d tell stories of the mic flying back into his face and breaking his nose.
More than a hit
For the purposes of cultural shorthand, Roy Head’s legacy will be boiled down to a single hit song, but he lived larger than that. Head was a mythical creature until the end, with more energy than should be placed into one man.
“He won’t stop talking and he won’t damn sit down,” Sundance said of him years ago. “He’s got to be moving all the time.”
If anybody has earned some rest, it’s Head, a mighty figure from rock ’n’ roll’s storied past and a representation of the wild spirit of early popular music from the Gulf Coast.
There are no announced funeral plans yet. He leaves behind his wife, Carolyn, and son Sundance and daughter-in-law Misty and their three children.