“Eveline Kaye” taken from the LP ‘Liberty Bell, J-Beck Story 3’ | (Eva Records EVA 12036) 1984
NFA: Now that was the last record on Cee-Bee, how ’bout the other records by the Libery Bell?
Carl: Well, right after me and Jack broke up I didn’t feel like doin’ much so I sat around for awhile, then this band, the Zulus, called me up and wanted me to manage them but they didn’t have a good singer, so I told ’em to get one.
Now the battle of the bands was still goin’ on down at Six Points (Carousel Club), and the guy runnin’ it George Herro, told me about this band that had a good singer from Port Aransas named Ronnie Taylor.
I went down there to see him and talked him into joinin’ the Zulus. I got them to change their name to the Liberty Bell and we started lookin’ for material to record.
The Nazz Are Blue
They didn’t have an original song at the time so we decided to cut “The Nazz Are Blue” as I’d always liked it. Now right at this same time Lofton Cline is bringin’ the Thaks to Houston and spendin’ all kinds of money to record and we didn’t have hardly a dime so we went back to Jimmy Nicholls’ studio in McAllen.
Al Hunt was lead player for the Bell and he got the feedback goin’ while the rhythm guitar player (Richard Painter) wore out his fingers . . . (laughter). So our record came out at the same time as the Thaks’ “Mirror of Yesterday” and ours sold a lot better.
NFA: The Liberty Bell sounded a lot like the early Zakary Thaks.
Carl: In a way they were a lot like the Thaks. The Bell had always looked up to them and wanted to be like the Thaks as much as possible.
NFA: When did the record on the Thak label come out?
The Liberty Bell | Eveline Kaye | (J-Beck) 1967
Chris: We did that after J-Beck went out of business and before we did the Cee-Bee 45 with Carl. It was done all on our own.
NFA: Was that in ’68?
Chris: Yes, ’cause I started singing with the Liberty Bell in early ’69.
NFA: What records of theirs did you sing on?
Chris: The two Back Beat 45s.
NFA: Did the Back Beat singles do anything?
Chris: No.
Carl: I got to know Don Robey (Back Beat owner) through some concerts he put on in Corpus and when I was looking for a label for the Liberty Bell he wanted them. So I flew to Houston and when to see him and I noticed that there wasn’t any white folks around his place.
NFA: I don’t think he had very many white groups.
Carl: No, he didn’t, I think Roy Head was his only white singer at the time. So we decided to cut some sides with him ’cause the Liberty Bell was hot at the time, anyway this staff producer for Robey thought Chris was the best white singer he’d ever heard and he wanted to produce the group.
We did a session and he was so drunk that it came off terrible, we just looked at each other like what the hell are we doing here. He didn’t like our stuff, said it was all junk, and came up with a song he wrote called “Naw, Naw, Naw” . . . now if the Liberty Bell could’v ever made it, this song here killed ’em.
Chris: Yeah, it was s0000 bad.
NFA: I remember it, the song doesn’t sound at all like the Cee-Bee singles.
Carl: We shouldn’t have ever done it, we got into an area that he didn’t know a thing about, we forgot more about the rock field than this guy ever knew.
Sam Neeley
Carl: Mike, what were you doing during this time?
Mike : Well, I started doin’ some producing and then Carl opened a studio and I worked with him.
NFA: Was the studio in Corpus?
Carl: Yeah, it was called Studio B. I started another label after CeeBee called Spearway and we had Sam Neeley on it, later we had Chris’ group, Kubla Kahn. Mike wrote alot of songs and we recorded these with Neeley.
NFA: How did Mike’s Roulette single happen?
Carl: We were sendin’ out demos of Mike’s songs that he did to get people interested in them and a guy called me back from Roulette and said, ‘This taped great’. I told him, yeah it was a good song but he said, ‘No, this is a good singer! So I said oh yeah he’s great too . . . (laughter) . . . and he ended up puttin’ it out on Roulette.
NFA: You did a record on Albatross.
Carl: In Studio B but on their label, also I did Eric Quincy Tate, Sam Neeley while he was in Buckle, all of ’em from Corpus.
NFA: Now when the Thaks came back to record ‘Everybody Wants To Be Somebody’ with Carl, was it the same group as the Thak label single?
Chris: Just the same except for Pete.
NFA: That record sounds a lot more like the old Zakary Thaks, did the group stay together very long after the record came out?
Chris: No, we weren’t together very long a that time but we did get back together once more for about a month in May of ’69.
NFA: The Cee-Bee record came out shortly before that?
Chris: Yes, in early ’69, and after that I started singin’ for the Liberty Bell.
NFA: How long did the Bell last after you joined?
Chris: Not very long, in fact, I think we broke up while doing the Back Beat 45s.
The Liberty Bell | Eveline Kaye | (J-Beck) 1967
NFA: The Corpus scene during the mid ’60s seemed very intense, a lot of action going on. We used to go down there to surf and saw some of the bands.
Carl: It was one of the hottest scene’s in Texas I think, ’cause of the Bad Seeds and the Thaks, the concerts, anytime you have a lot of competition your product gets better.
NFA: True, also the beach scene drew a lot of kids from all over Texas and then the clubs were there in great locations, like the Dunes on Padre Island.
Carl: Right, I think that’s why the Zakary Thaks name spread so fast, Corpus is a resort town and kids would come down for the summer and when they went home they’d tell all their friends about this great band they saw on the beach.
NFA: Did the Bad Seeds play around much, like Austin.
Mike: Some, we played in San Antone, gigs for Rick Ware so he’d play our records.
NFA: The Bad Seeds broke up well before the ‘summer of love’ arrived, right?
Rod Prince
Mike: Yeah, in fact the last song we learned before the break-up was the Beatles’ Paperback Writer’, it was No. 1 when we broke up, we had only played it a couple of times.
Carl: They used to do the Stones stuff a lot, really good too. Rod Prince could play the leads exactly like the records.
NFA: ‘King Bee’ was an early Stones cover song y’all did really well.
Mike: Yeah, and we did a great version of ‘Have Mercy’, I remember we played a New Years dance at the Country Club and got over $800, man that was big money back then, over a hundred apiece . . . anyway we played ’till two a.m. but these old cats didn’t want us to quit, they asked what’ d it take to keep us playin’ for 2 more hours and man, we were tired!
They ended up payin’ us another $500 for 2 more hours and, man we were tired! Rod said, ‘I don’t wanna play no more, I don’t even care about the money’, I said how about $500 Rod and he said ‘OK, let’s play . . . ‘ (laughter)
NFA: Chris, when the Thaks started playin’ around, didn’t y’all play Austin a lot, sometimes with the Elevators.
Chris: Right, we played there a lot’
Carl: They played Austin more than place I’d say.
NFA: More than Corpus?
Chris: Oh yeah, we played there almost every week for the frats.
NFA: How about the New Orleans Club?
Chris: We played there too but mostly it was frat houses.
NFA: They paid the best money back then I guess.
Chris: Yeah, we used to average $450 – $500, which wasn’t bad for a few hours work, we played Friday nights and sometimes Thursdays.
The Liberty Bell | Eveline Kaye | (J-Beck) 1967
NFA: How ’bout the gigs with the Elevators?
Chris: We only played with them two or three times I think, once in Kingsville at the Knights Of Columbus Hall, once in Austin at Round-Up and one other time, I can’t remember where.
NFA: Mike, how about the Bad Seeds, did y’all ever play with the Elevators?
Mike: No, don’t think we ever did. We sat in with them once at the Dunes, me and Rod.
NFA: Y’all knew the Elevators pretty well I guess.
Mike: Not real well, not like we knew, say, the Laughing Kind. I knew Roky a little bit, but they were all pretty spaced out back then.
Chris: Right at the first, before they got drugged out, they were a great band, just incredible.
Mike: I think they could’ve been a big national group . . . shoot, the first time I ever smoked any weed was with them guys down at the beach.
Carl: Yeah, they upset all of South Texas, these freaks comin’ down there and livin’ on the beach, smokin’ stuff.
13th Floor Elevators
Mike: We were scared then ’cause Rod told us the narcotics agents hid radio controlled flies . . . (laughter) . . . spyin’ on us!
NFA: Let’s see, the Bad Seeds we playin’ in ’65 so y’all were already goin’ when the Elevators started.
Mike: I think so, I remember we were playin’ around when they got goin’, we thought they were pretty good.
NFA: Now, the Thaks went from the Beatle period to the psychedelic era.
Chris: Right.
NFA: How ’bout the Bad Seeds?
Mike: No, we never even heard of a strobe light, did know what it was.
NFA: How did y’all come to use ‘Tried To Hide’ the Elevators and call it ‘All Night Long’?
Mike: Rod liked it, he’d been playing a version of that guitar lick that wasn’t quite like they did it, so he changed the lyrics up some and we recorded it as ‘All Night Long’.
NFA: Did anyone ever play a fiddle in the Thaks, ’cause I saw a band once at the Dunes Club with a fiddle player.
Carl: That was the Lingsmen, fry named Bennie Thurman played fiddle.
NFA: Yeah . . . he ended up in the Elevators later on, Carl, did you ever have any dealings with International Artists back then ?
Carl: Some, when Bubble Puppy had ‘Hot Smoke and Sassafras’ out I was in England and I took a copy by Apple Records. I played it for a guy there, he used to have a group, Peter and Gordon.
The Liberty Bell | Eveline Kaye | (J-Beck) 1967
NFA: Peter Asher?
Carl: Yeah, so I played the Bubble Puppy single for him and he said, ‘that’s a hit !’ I told him it already was in Texas so anyway he wanted to lease it, but I didn’t know what IA wanted for it so I went back to the hotel and called Rod. Told him what was goin’ on and that Apple wanted their record . . . and IA wouldn’t take a lease on it!
NFA: They were nuts.
Carl: Can you imagine what would’ve happened to Bubble Pup if they had got on Apple Records at that time?
NFA: They would’ve been a big act.
Mike: See, International Artists figured they could distribute it themselves.
NFA: Same old story, little record company tryin’ to collect from the big distributors. I’m sure you know that story Carl.
Mike: The distributors ain’t gonna pay ’em . . . why should they, they know IA will only have one hit, probably never have another one, they’ll pay Columbia or Apple but they ain’t gonna pay International Artists from Houston, Texas.
Carl: Never did pay ’em.
Bubble Puppy
Mike: I heard the record when I was in Canada with the Pozo-Secos, couldn’t believe it, the Puppy finally got a hit, and when I talked to Rod later he said he hadn’t gotten a dime.
NFA: Bubble Puppy reformed awhile back and played around some.
Carl: I’d like to get the Zakary Thaks back together if I could ever get ’em all in one place.
NFA: Where are all the members now?
Carl: The only one I really know where he’s at, is Chris . . . (laughter) . . . John Lopez was around here for awhile.
Chris: John moves around a lot, Stanley’s in Corpus, Rex is in Hawaii.
NFA: Are they all still in Music?
Chris: Yes, except for Pete, he’s workin’ construction in California.
Carl: I saw John playin’ with Bubble Puppy when I first came to Houston and, man, he just gets better, he was always a great lead player but now he’s tremendous. I just couldn’t believe it when I saw him. I’d sure like to get all of the band back together sometime.
Kenny & the Kasuals
NFA: It’s a good idea, and it’s worked pretty well for Kenny & Kasuals, especially in Europe . . . you know, one thing that has always knocked me out about the Thaks was how young you guys were, and put out such great records.
Carl: It was amazing that a band that young could come out with what they did at that time.
NFA: Really, and it makes you wonder about the 15 year olds today, ‘course it’s a lot different doing something like that now, those were different days, different times.
Carl: Definitely different, like gettin’ your record played . . . all you had to do was drive by a radio station, give ’em a record and before you’d gone 10 miles you heard it on the air, nowadays you have to have four lawyers and $20 000 . . . (laughter).
NFA: Tight playlists these days, but maybe it’ll change back.
Carl: If it ever does, I’ll get back in the record business.
The Liberty Bell line-up:
Ronnie Tanner (vocals)
Al Hunt (lead guitar)
Richard Painter (guitar)
Wayne Harrison (bass)
Carl Aeby (drums)
a later version of the Liberty Bell: Ronnie Tanner replaced by Chris Gerniottis.
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