Roy Head

Roy Kent Head (January 9, 1941 – September 21, 2020) was an American singer, best known for his hit song "Treat Her Right".

Head and fellow high school student Tommy Bolton founded musical group The Traits in 1957, with the band, billed as Roy Head and the Traits, scoring the international hit "Treat Her Right" in 1965. Head later enjoyed a successful solo career with several hits on the country and western charts between 1975 and 1985. During his career of some 50 years, Head performed in several different musical genres and recorded for an array of record labels, some too small to provide national marketing and distribution. Roy Head and the Traits held reunions in 2001 and 2007 and were inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame in 2007.

Roy Kent Head was born in Three Rivers, Texas in 1941 and moved to San Marcos in 1955. In 1957 at the age of 16, Head – along with San Marcos native Tommy Bolton – formed a musical group known as The Traits (aka 'Roy Head and The Traits') who would perform and record for the next nine years. The original group consisted of fellow high school students Head (vocals), Bolton (rhythm guitar) (1941–2003), Gerry Gibson (drums), Dan Buie (piano), Clyde Causey (lead guitar), and Bill Pennington (bass). When Causey joined the military, he was replaced by George Frazier (1941–1996) just before the band started their recording career at the Tanner N Texas (TNT) Recording Company, owned by Bob Tanner and located in San Antonio. The Traits had several regional hits at TNT, with songs such as "One More Time", "Live It Up", both released in 1959, and "Summertime Love" (1960), establishing themselves in the late 1950s and the early 1960s as one of the premier teenage Texas-based rock and roll bands while playing the concert, sock hop, college and university and dance hall circuits throughout Texas. During this period, the parents of The Traits turned down Dick Clark's invitation for the boys to appear on American Bandstand, which ABC had started broadcasting nationwide from Philadelphia in 1957. At the time, all members of The Traits were minors, and some were still in high school.

In 1961 and 1962, The Traits added saxophonists David McCumber and Danny Gomez to the line-up and produced additional Texas/regional hits from Renner Records, a label owned by Jessie Schneider of San Antonio. Renner label No. 221 and Ascot No. 2108, a subsidiary of United Artists Records, distributed The Traits' version of Ray Sharpe's 1959 "Linda Lu", with "Little Mama" by Dan Buie and Head on the B-side. Renner Records also released The Traits "Got My Mojo Working" and "Woe Woe" on label No. 229. By the time the 1962 recordings were taped and mastered at Jeff Smith's Texas Sound Studio in San Antonio for the Renner label, Johnny Clark and Frank Miller had replaced Frazier and Bolton at lead and rhythm guitars, respectively.

After attending Southwest Texas State Teachers College (now known as Texas State University or TXST) for two years, Buie, who played guitar and harmonica as well as keyboards, taught for several years before settling into public health administration, after receiving his baccalaureate degree and doing post graduate studies at The University of Texas. Tommy Bolton organized and played with other Central Texas musical groups while both he and Clyde Causey launched careers with the Department of the Treasury. Danny Gomez graduated from TXST and later earned his doctorate at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. David McCumber pursued his love of music at Sound Master's studio in Houston and then opened a real estate company in Austin. He ran the company until his retirement where he enjoyed travel with his wife Sandra until her death from melanoma cancer in 2005. George Frazier pursued real estate investment interests, and Bill Pennington followed in his mother's footsteps and become a successful owner of Pennington Funeral Home in San Marcos. Only Head and Gibson would continue with careers in performing music. The songwriting talents, and subsequent recording successes, of The (original) Traits during their first five years on a regional level were under the watchful eyes of Ms. Edra Pennington (1913–2005) and Dr. T.R. Buie (1909–2000), which would lay the groundwork for what would happen in the group's last four years.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.