Roy Head – Last Time Around

Born January 9, 1941 in Three River, Texas. Died September 21, 2020 in Porter, Texas. He was the ‘white’ James Brown. He was an amazing dancer, performer and one of the Texas blue eyed soul singers of the 1960s. He was also the man that bit Elvis Presley on his ankle. “I met Roy for the first time in early 1984 in Houston, Texas. He was one of the nicest and funniest people I had met in the music business. A record label I was working for, Challenge Records was interested in signing him. I instantly remembered Deniz Tek and Radio Birdman doing a version of his seminal hit, TREAT HER RIGHT, when I saw them and then worked for them in the mid to late 1970’s in Australia. I began writing the book HOUSE OF HITS about the legendary SugarHill Recording Studios in 2002. My co-writer, Roger Wood and I had gotten a deal for the book with the University of Texas Press. We asked Deniz to write the forward to the book. Close to release time we came up with the idea of having a CD to go along with the book. What eventually became a double CD was called HITS FROM THE HILL. The idea was to have different bands that were currently recording at the studio do versions of the many hits. I decided that since Roy and the original bass player/author, Gene Kurtz lived in Houston, we should do a new version. I then asked my dear friend Deniz Tek from the legendary band Radio Birdman to come and join us. The new version complete with Deniz on guitar, Sonny Boy Terry on blues harp, and Grady Gaines on sax turned out to be perhaps the best version since the original. This version was licensed by Sony for the Tarantiyes movie, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”. It is included on this album. Six months before Roy died in yesvember of 2022, he and I talked about doing one last recording. He called it “Last Time Around”. I had talked with Deniz about being involved but Roy passed while waiting on the necessary funding to arrive. A few years earlier he had given me some tracks recorded at his drummer’s house. I was able to save five of those songs. Luckily, they included his son, Sundance Head on some guitar and backing vocals. The work to finish this album was a labor of love for all of us. I took those five and asked Deniz Tek, Tim Hudgins, Bert Wills and Paul English to help bring them to life. To those five we added “Treat Her Right”, two songs co-written by Deniz and two songs Roy recorded for his attorney/songwriter, Sam Lee. Overdubs were done at Deniz’s house in Hawaii, Paul’s house, and at Tim’s home studio in Houston. I did all the mixing at my home studio in Houston and checked them carefully at Wire Road Studios. James Kelley, owner of Wire Road Studios, mastered the album in Studio A. This is the room we would have recorded Roy’s last album with Paul English on keyboards. As it is he played on 8 of the 10 songs on this record. What started in 2006 with Deniz and Roy on “Treat He Right” concludes with the two of them, “Last Time Around”. “Andy Bradley”