Introduction ...

The following interview was conducted on February 19, 2005 and transcribed by Drew Chandler, without whom none of this would be happening. Drew found "Problem Child" a few years back on a compilation record album "Highs in the Mid 60's Vol 11-Texas Part One"  and also discovered recently  that this song was still being played on various internet and underground radio stations around the world. Thanks, Drew, for all of your internet surfing, your detective work and also for doing the huge job of conducting and transcribing this recent interview.

Get a taste of what it was like back in the 60's in the Corpus Christi music scene by reading the interview. If you would like to comment or if you were there as a musician or as a fan, be sure to email us at fourmoregarage@yahoo.com .

We want to thank our fans, who bought our records and came out to see us when we played. We would also like to thank Keith and Tina Smith, Paul Ferguson, Jr., Greg Chandler and Kevin Grubbs for their technical help and support in getting the web site up and running. We'd also like to thank all the musicians that picked with us over the years - Mike, Chuck, Eben, Robert, Richard, Jeff, Frank, Stoney, etc. We'd love to hear from all of you, too!

Be sure to come back often and see what's new.  

Interview...

Interview Feb 19 2005

Jerry Chandler

Kenny Chandler

Interviewer: Drew Chandler, son of Jerry

D: Let’s start at the beginning. What made you want to pick up a guitar and start playing? What was the event or series of events that led to that? 

J: We come from a musical family. Our Dad sang, when he was in the Navy, and made a couple of records. We liked to sing and kind of came by it naturally when we were kids. Our grandfather played guitar and fiddle, our older brother Jim played guitar and fiddle, and we just thought music was what people did. So that’s what we did. I started playing guitar in the 8^th grade.

 D: Who taught you how to play?

 J: My older brother and my grandfather. They showed me a couple of chords. I’d go over to another kid’s house who knew 2 or 3 chords, and I knew 2 or 3. We would show each other. I remember I used to go over to Johnny Waller’s; he later became lead guitar for Barry and the Vi-Counts.  We would play guitar together when we were in like junior high. Then the big event was the Beatles on Ed Sullivan in ’64.

D: But you knew how to play music already by the time you saw them?

 J: Yeah, I had been playing for a couple of years. And when I saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, like all kids in America at that time, I said “This is it.” I said to Kenny, “We are never going to be jocks, so you need to get a bass guitar.” And that’s when we decided for Kenny to get a bass.

K: I remember before seeing them on Ed Sullivan, I had never even heard of a bass guitar and I hadn’t even attempted to learn the 6-string yet like everyone else. But the band thing, you know, the Kingston Trio, didn’t have a bass guitar either, but when we saw the Beatles, we saw Paul.  Jerry said “that thing right there that he is playing is what you are going to play.” So I struck in on that and by this time I was like in 8^th grade in ‘64. And that was my first beginnings of playing music. I had also been singing along with my brothers when I was a kid.

 J: Kenny took to the bass like a duck to water. I mean, I didn’t know much about bass. I showed him how to play guitar boogie.

 K: Well, actually there was a friend of Jerry’s, Danny Johnson, who was a good bass player. And he got into a group called the Garry Middleton Combo, they were pretty good. Anyway, I was getting very disenchanted with my music ability at that time, and Danny showed me a couple of pretty cool sounding licks and I practiced that for about 3 months, finally got them right where it sounded something like real music.

 J: So we did that for a couple of years. When I was a senior at King High School, and Kenny was a sophomore, we figured that it was time. But we needed a lead guitar and we needed a drummer. We met Chuck Carter, who was also a senior at King, and he played lead guitar,  played the Ventures, instrumental surf stuff. He had a good guitar, a big white Fender Jaguar or something like that, and a Fender Super Reverb amp, he had good equipment and a place for us to rehearse. I remember we rehearsed over there at the clubhouse at the apartments where he lived. We started rehearsing there the beginning of the school year ‘ 65. We were getting pretty good, we had worked out what we thought would be 4 hours worth of material. But we didn’t have a drummer yet. And Chuck got us a gig with the Jewish Community Center. It was going to be our first paying gig, around mid-December, I think,1965. And we’re getting close to that date. 

D: No drummer?

J: No drummer. So anyway, I think Chuck had heard of this kid.

K: He had been calling around trying to find a drummer, and he had talked to this kid’s mother, and he tells us, ‘Well, this one is only 14 years old and his mother says he’s great.” So Chuck says, “I guess we ought to start here.” But that was Mike Burrows and he was great. We went over and either auditioned him or auditioned for him, not sure which, but immediately, we could tell, this guy could drum. He could really play. 

J: So right then, we had our group.

D: Did you have the name yet? 

J: At the time we booked the gig, we didn’t have a name, but by the time we played it we were Four More.

 K: I liked that name, Four More, because there were a lot of bands around and with all the names of all the bands coming out at the time, we needed something cool. We just couldn’t come up with anything for awhile, and I’m not sure who came up with the name.

J: I came up with it, we were kicking some names around, and I kind of liked the idea of not having “The” in the name, even though everyone kept calling us The Four More anyway, that drove me crazy. That is partly why we changed the name eventually to The Chosen Ones. Anyway, there was a band out at the time called We Five who we liked, they had that song, You Were On My Mind, and we liked that song. I thought it was a cool name and it was kind of a variation on that.

D: So you’re practicing, it’s the day before the gig – do you think you are ready? 

J: We’re practicing at Burrows’ house. He doesn’t even have a drum stool yet, he is sitting on the couch playing in his living room. I don’t have an amp. I have a guitar, a Gibson SG, a pretty nice guitar. I’m playing out of Chuck’s twin reverb. Kenny has this cheap bass amp. So we’re lacking in equipment, we don’t have a PA system. No mikes. We’re not ready – but…we have some songs together. We can play. I remember this friend of mine comes over, Danny Bowen, and he heard us practice and he says, “You guys are getting pretty good. A couple more months and you guys will be ready to play a gig.” And I say “A couple months? We got a gig this weekend!” So I think Kenny talked our grandmother into going to the music store and buying us a little PA system the day of the gig, I mean we had to have something to sing out of.

K: It was some 35 watt Vulcan? Logan? Bogen? Plain vanilla – one bass knob, one treble.

J: The cheapest PA The Horn Shop had. One mike stand and one mike. Me and Kenny sang out of the same mike, and we cranked that thing up as loud as it would go, which still wasn’t very loud, and I played my guitar out of Chuck’s amp. Burrows got a drum stool. And we set up at the Jewish Community Center and we rocked their tails off. They had a great time, and it was a very successful gig – we got several bookings out of it.  

D: So what was it like that first time playing in front of an audience? 

K: It was pretty nerve rattling for me. I remember my first solo number, which was a Roy Orbison song, and I can remember visibly shaking. But I got through the song, hit the high note, which was kind of a milestone for me. Really though I would have been too embarrassed not to have hit it. Hard to say about the music playing, you know, when it snaps, and if you’re nervous or scared or whatever. You just think “This is great” when you nail it. When the people respond, that is the fuel that every musician I know craves. When you are into it, and the crowd is into it, it just fuels everything.  

J: From the first night, we got a lot of confidence from it. And several bookings out of it too. They liked it – we liked it – it was fun. 

D: So those first few shows I am guessing you guys were playing all covers. So when did you start to work on your own original songs? 

K: Well, I had a couple of songs around for a year or so. I had written the words down, but just had never really worked on them. And then we started gaining in popularity and gaining in our confidence.  The song writing was put on hold for a while. One big turning point I remember was this Valentine’s Day show in ‘66, and we fronted that show for Charlie Rich and Tony Joe White, and Billy Joe Royal – people of a high caliber, talented people. It was in front of a big crowd, about 5000 people.

J: We won the right to open for that show. It was a Battle of the Bands that Charlie Brite had set up. He had Four More, The Buckle, who were called The In-Crowd I think at that time, and some other band, I can’t remember who the 3^rd one was. We battled one afternoon and we won that. It was pretty stiff competition too – the In Crowd had Sammy Neely and he was a really good singer. And we won, and the prize for winning it was to get to open for this big show in front of a big crowd. We played at the Corpus Christi Coliseum, a big place, and it had this big PA where we could finally hear ourselves, a big enthusiastic crowd. 

D: Did they know who you were? 

J: They did when we got through playing. And after that show there were people coming up there and backstage, girls coming up there,  wanting autographs and all this stuff, it was great. I was 17, Kenny was 15. Burrows was 14. We thought, hey, we’re on our way.

K: And that really created some excitement for us, which is when we started working on the  original songs. We got some information from Charlie Brite, a local DJ for KEYS in Corpus and he told us there was this fellow, Jimmy Nichols or Bobby Nichols in McAllen, and he had a studio and he did pretty good recording and wasn’t that expensive, so we set up a date to record with him. That was probably March of ‘66, so we went there, cut 4 sides? 

J: We cut 2 sides, "Problem Child" and "Don’t Give Up Hope" on the 2 track recording studio in McAllen, Texas.

D: So this is where Problem Child came into existence, the song that everyone knows about. Let’s talk about that session – what do you remember about recording those tracks? 

J: It was recorded live into a 2 track. Had to do it all live, singing, playing, and we were paying for it ourselves so we just could not spend a lot of time on it. I remember Kenny plugged directly into the board and could not hear himself play at all. We just had to hope he was playing it right because no one could hear him. It was a very crude recording setup. The guy literally had egg cartons on the wall, like Hee Haw or something.

The motivation for recording was we had seen a band at Peppermint Lane, in downtown Corpus Christi, during the Christmas holidays. They would have bands playing, and we went down there to see what it was about. So we walked in there and this band was playing the Rolling Stones’, Get off my Cloud, and they had this really long haired drummer who could really rock. They also had this fantastic lead guitar player, and these guys were local. We found out later they were the Bad Seeds. We listened to them at Peppermint Lane.  Not long after that they had a song on the radio, the single was All Night Long and the flipside was Zilch.  The radio was playing it, and we just said hey if they can get their song on the radio, then why not us? Kenny has a couple of songs, we can polish them, I can lay the chords down. So we did, we got those 2 songs ready, Don’t give up Hope and Problem Child, went to McAllen, cut them, got the tapes back and went immediately to Charlie Brite. He played it at the studio and he said “Hey, this is a commercial sound, I’ll play this. Get your plastic made.” So that’s what we did. And we had good success with that little record. 

D: How many copies did you make initially? 

J: We pressed 300 and they went quick.

K: I remember because we were going to play the King High School senior prom, and we put out that single right at the end of May. And I was sitting there in class and they played it over the intercom. That was really cool, and they said over the intercom that this was Four More’s record and they would be playing at the senior prom. I’ll never forget that, that was good. 

J: I played at my own senior prom, 1966. We played several proms, and frat parties. We played at Corpus Christi yacht club down there on the T- heads. 

K: A good one I remember, the summer of 1966, we played at Frenchie's, and I can’t remember if it was the worlds first, or the nations first, or Texas’ first topless wedding… we were in on that, too.  

J: Frenchie has his wife up there go-going, she was a go-go girl. She was a good looking girl, Sherry, she wore this white go-go outfit, and I remember playing and she’d be up there go-going.

 Anyway, once our record got on the air, we got tons of bookings. More than we could handle. Charlie Brite was promoting us, which we appreciated, but he had us playing all these free gigs, all these benefits, and it was taking up all our time. We still had to go to school, we had to earn some money, so we could even buy a little bit of equipment. And it was tough – I finally had to tell Charlie that we couldn’t do anymore benefits until we got some paying gigs under our belt. I think that kind of hurt his feelings, but I think he understood, at least he said he did. I liked doing those benefits because it was great publicity, but we just had to get some paying gigs… and we did.

 We played all the local places where bands played, the Carousel Club, usually Sunday afternoons, I remember the Zakary Thaks being there the same day we were, at least once. I remember seeing them out there in the audience. So I know they know who we are. We also played at the Navy Relief Festival in 1966. We fronted for the Ventures and so did the Zachary Thaks, we played, and then they played.

K: The Mamas and the Papas were the other headlining act. We played there too, not on the same stage, but at the same event, and we were heard by a lot of people there. That was really the first time I had ever listened to the Zakary Thaks. You know, when you are in a band yourself, and you’re working at it, you don’t have time to go listen to other local bands that much, but I had known John Lopez who was their lead guitar player, and he was fantastic. He was then, and he is now. I went to junior high with him. Anyway I remember seeing them at the Navy Relief Festival, doing their thing, they were cool. 

J: They would cover the Yardbirds, and the Kinks, very well, you know. But with the local bands, popularity just depended on who had a record out at the time. The Bad Seeds were first, and they had their All Night Long/Zilch record. Then we came out with "Don’t Give Up Hope" which was the side they played, they never played "Problem Child"  much. They considered "Don’t Give Up Hope" the A side, and when our record was on the charts which was May, June and July of 1966 we were very popular. We were the only local band that had a song on the local charts at that time. And about the  time our song started to fade, about the end of summer ‘66, the Thaks came out with their record, "Bad Girl". Their record came on the radio for awhile, and  they were the hot band for awhile. Later on, this band, the Liberty Bell comes on, and they have a song or two on the radio, and they are the hot band for awhile. So it depended on who had the record out at the time. The big four local recording bands as I remember it was the Bad Seeds first, then us, then Zakary Thaks, then the Liberty Bell. And that’s the only 4 that I remember that had records.

K: The Buckle, Sam Neely’s group, had some good records too, in ‘66-67, around then. We were all trying to do the same thing, trying to break into the big time.  

D: All those other bands you mentioned – it is kind of interesting that there was this whole scene happening in Corpus. But why Corpus? 

J: I don’t know. I didn’t really think it was anything special at the time. I thought every town was like this. I figured Dallas and Houston must have 10 times as many bands as Corpus did. I didn’t know there was anything special about it. But the local radio stations would not play junk – you had to have a quality record, you know, or they wouldn’t play it. But we were just playing – I didn’t really think Corpus was anything special. And all these other bands around at the same time we were – like Kenny said, we never really were able to listen to them much, because they were playing the same time we were. But I do remember seeing some of the other band’s members at the Carousel Club, they would hear us, and we would hear them.  

 K: We practiced every other night for like 4 hours, and then play on the weekends. It took up a lot of time. I never really thought about it until much later, but learning to play music, you know, in the beginning we had to work hard at it.  

J: We also played the Dunes Club.  I’ve got a business card from Max Range Agency, Port Aransas, Texas, where he booked us for awhile, or was supposed to, I can't remember if he actually ever did book us anywhere.  

K: And that is bringing up, you know, our virtual demise. They started up this thing by the coliseum, like in between the coliseum and the outside, like this outdoor dance and they called it the Satisfaction dance and all the big locals were playing around there, Zakary Thaks, the Bad Seeds, everybody. And we showed up for our first gig at this Satisfaction dance and everyone did covers back then you know, and we had been practicing this one Stones song, and we had done it in this key and that key, and changed back and forth, and somehow when we got there, and we really wanted to make a good impression, and Burrows counted it off. Then we came in in about 3 different keys. 

J: It was awful. It was “The Last Time” by the Stones. What we finally settled on, the chord progression is supposed to be E D A. But I came on with D A E. And it was awful. Awful. And I had a mental block, I just couldn’t get out of it. Once I heard it and it sounded so terrible, I just – I mean it was the right three chords, just the wrong order.  

K: That was basically our exit from the rock and roll scene right there, and I can’t blame them, I am that way myself. It’s a tough crowd and when you come in and just eat it like that. They’re pretty unforgiving and we were not sure what to do, we had made this quick rise and our record was coming down because we didn’t have any more plastic (records) left to sell. We had signed a distribution contract, I think it was called, with Jack Salyers and Carl Becker, J-Beck records and they were supposed to distribute our record for us but the records never came. We’d call him and ask "what’s the hold up", they’d say, "no hold up, everything’s fine", but no records ever came at all. Then the record was no longer on the charts. People at the record stores were telling us before that though, we need more, people are asking about your record, but it never happened.  

J: As soon as our record dropped off the charts, The Zakary Thaks released "Bad Girl." And J-Beck was not concerned about our record anymore. 

K: So after that, we started playing nightclub music. Our  brother Jim had gotten out of the service and came back to Corpus in January of ‘67 and started playing gigs on his own, just by himself with a guitar, and in about April or May of ‘67, we still had our group going, but were not making much progress with the rock and roll thing by then. 

J: Chuck had left the group by then. He got drafted in early ‘67 and he joined the Air Force to avoid the draft, so we invited our brother Jim and said hey, you can fit right in here, it kind of changed our focus. We had already changed our name by then to The Chosen Ones. I got tired of correcting people calling us The Four More, I said ok we are no longer Four More we are The Chosen Ones, and also because we had a new member, our brother Jim. Four More was pretty much over and we weren’t playing for the teenyboppers anymore.  

D: What kind of songs were you doing? 

K: The Lovin' Spoonful was one I remember. 

J: We were still doing a lot of Beatles stuff. Some Roy Head stuff, Wilson Pickett, some of the soul stuff that was out at the time. It wasn’t so much that our music changed, it was the audience. We were playing for 20 and 30 somethings. We started playing at the Rogues Club, we played there a couple of times, and this guy that owned the club across the street, Don Steadman, he heard us and saw a bunch of cars outside the club, we were getting good crowds. He came and saw us and said I want you to play across the street over here at the Stork Club. So we worked out a deal with him and became the house band and played there 5 nights a week for several months in ’67. And we were still young, still kids. Kenny is still in high school, I am starting my first year at Del Mar and I am married by this time. And it was probably the tightest we ever got. We were playing 5 nights a week and the 6^th night we would rehearse. When you play that much, you get a good sound. We could do a lot of good harmony, a lot of Everly Brothers with Jim and Kenny and I singing together. It really opened up a lot of opportunities for us. At the Stork Club, we were packing them in. It had to be against the law there were so many people in there. Standing room only. The people would crowd into this place, and they would send drinks up to us, we had drinks lined up all across the amplifiers, and we were minors! I’m 18, Kenny is 16. None of us were legal drinking age and we are in there partying like crazy having a great old time. I was married you know, but Kenny, Burrows, and Jim were not. And there was plenty of women out there, and these were older women, too. 

K: Real women. We probably played there about 8 or 9 months doing that 5 night a week gig.

J: It was a good time, we had a good time doing that. We brought in a lot of people. And made Steadman a lot of money, and finally we asked him for a little raise which we thought was reasonable. We told him we are bringing in a whole lot more people than you had before we were here, but he didn’t see it that way, so we split. One other thing that happened of significance, while we were playing the Stork Club we had signed this deal with Brad Coleman who used to come into the Stork Club and listen to us. And finally he told us what he was in there for. Brad wanted to be our Brian Epstein. He wanted to take us, dress us up, and promote us. We were leaving the Stork Club anyway, so we said sure Brad. So we signed with Brad, he became our manager, and we left the Stork Club and started playing the same circuit Tony Joe White was playing. We started playing over in Kingsville, the Inferno, Hoggieland, several fraternity parties at Texas A&I, Del Mar, the Naval Air Station, in Corpus we played the Tides Club, we played the enlisted men’s club in Kingsville, we played the Beeville Naval Air Station officers club. We got on that circuit and these were pretty good gigs, only Fridays and Saturdays at that time. And Brad was supposed to be managing us, but he didn’t do a very good job. He wanted to, he meant well, had good intentions, but he just didn’t know how to do it.

We did go to Houston in the summer of ‘67 and make some recordings, which I am not happy with the sound of, and we don’t have the original studio master tapes, either. Maybe Brad has those tapes. So Brad, if you’re out there, where are they, man?

K: “It’s all part of the corporation, baby.” That’s what he used to say all the time. He had formed this corporation that actually appears on the label of the single, Gulfside. He formed Gulfside Corporation. And many years later after I had left Corpus and was living in Houston I remember seeing this billboard that Brad Coleman was running for congressman or senator or something.  His folks were politically connected.

 J: We parted company with Brad after about a year. We just managed ourselves after that. Jim and I did most of the booking. We all did some, but most of it was me and Jim. Oh, and I should mention Dennis Fairchild. When Four More started, Dennis was my best friend since the 7^th grade, and we are still great friends. So I naturally wanted to include him. He became the manager of Four More. He and I were both 17, and Dennis actually did a really good job. He kept us booked plenty, more than we could stand.  He did a good job for us… I just want to mention that. He was with us in McAllen at that recording session, he went to the Billy Joe Royal thing, he went to all the gigs.

K: The Chosen Ones, like you mentioned, with Brad Coleman probably went on for about a year and a half. And by then,  Jim had a child, was married. And the music business, you know, does not have good benefits.   We knew that he was looking for more meaningful employment. And in early ‘69, he left for Houston. And that caused a change in the group again. We tried carrying on as a trio, it was a lot heavier jamming and stuff. I remember I built this gigantic speaker box for Jerry to play through, a 6X12, he would put that Fender Vibrolux amp on top of it. And he would get some feedback and stuff, and I started playing a harmonica, and a tambourine with my foot.

J: We were almost a power trio. Psychedelic music was in at the time, you know, with controlled feedback. I am a serviceable guitar player, not a lead player, never will be, and don’t want to be. But I was the only guitar, so I had to do it all, and we wanted to stay booked, so we did it as a trio. We were working hard, playing a lot of Steppenwolf covers, that kind of psychedelic stuff, and people seemed to like it. But we didn’t. We had gotten spoiled  having a lead guitar player. After Jim left, we played as a trio for like 6 months, and then we started auditioning lead guitar players.

K: By this time, we knew the people at the local music stores. Bobby Galvan, and the Horn Shop, Smitty the repairman, and they knew that we were musicians of caliber, and they would give us a break and loan us this and that. And we started getting in with the musician’s referral service, where people would put their cards up at the store. We went through 2 or 3 guitar players that would pick with us for a couple of months, some fantastic guitar players – Eben Wood, he ended up a while later with Sam Neely who was with the In Crowd and The Buckle, Sam had gone out on his own, and he was recording for Atlantic. Robert Spoon was another one, he was great. Jeff Burk, he played with us the longest probably of any of them, probably 6 months, maybe even a year. [later went on to Bubble Puppy or Ginger Valley or some band]

J: And then Burrows left. Don’t know why – he just took off. He didn’t even say bye – he just left. And left us hanging actually, because we had gigs booked. So we got this kid, a friend of our sister, Diane’s. . . Richard Dixon, he was a pretty good drummer. I think he and Jeff Burk knew each other. In fact, I think they played in another band for fun, and played with us for money. We stayed booked, you know, as much as we wanted. This was our job, it was what we did. I was married, full time student in college, and this is what I did for income. Kenny was a fulltime musician. And we were playing as The Chosen Ones with Jeff and Richard up until the draft lottery. December of 1969 – that was the end of The Chosen Ones. In 1970, I was a senior in college and traveled all over Texas trying to join National Guard units and reserve units, because the draft was hot on my tail - I had “won” a real low lottery number, 67. which came up immediately.  So I don’t think we played at all in 1970. It was over.

D: Were you playing, Kenny?

K: Everything was pretty well shutdown by that point. Jerry went into the military in summer of 1970. I filled in, sat in with a couple of groups. But nothing jibed. I got married in 1971, and my next music thing was country music. I was working in 1973 for an air conditioning company, working for minimum wage, which was a low minimum back then. My neighbor was into country western music, and you know, I was a rock and roller … swore that I would never ever play country music. But in the early 70s, country music was changing a lot. Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker, the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynrd, they were all considered country, but they got down on it. And my neighbor, LeRoy Gilliland, said that that this country group needed someone.  That band was Sandy’s Sixpack. I auditioned, was hired, and played with them for like 5 years. We did really well financially. It was a good run.

I left the Sixpack in like 1979 for personal reasons, you know, and moved up here to Houston. Jerry was already here. The job I got at that time pretty well kept me from doing anything for a couple of years, but then after a while Jerry and I put together the Chandler Brothers Band, about ‘82 or 83. Burrows was our drummer again, he was back and we decided to give him another chance. Our  lead guitar was Frank Hill, and he was a good picker.

J: CBB was a pretty good group musically – all of us had advanced quite a bit technically over the years. Burrows was really good, all of us were, really. We were all better musicians, and we started playing southern rock and country music, covered Hank Williams, Jr., the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynrd, Alabama… we liked it, the audience liked it – it was what was popular at the time. We had a good time with the Chandler Brothers Band, for a few years. And then, Burrows does it to us again. He boogied again, without notice, the same thing, left us with a couple of bookings. Had to find a drummer, so we called up Stony Kitchen. I don’t know who knew him or found him, I think maybe Frank knew him, so anyway, we called Stony, and he was good – he filled right in and we never missed a lick. We played up until about the end of ‘84. I got laid off  from my day job and I had to spend all my time looking for a job. And that was the last gig that Kenny and I ever played professionally. We also did one more recording, as the Chandler Brothers Band. An original song, “Good Day Feeling”, and  we also did a novelty song, about the Dallas Cowboys, “Dallas Cowboy Dreamer” or something like that…recorded in ’84.

D: Ok, let’s fast forward to now. Were you surprised that Problem Child is being played on these garage rock/indie radio stations right now?

J: Very surprised.

K: Totally blown away.

J: We had pretty much forgotten about "Problem Child", because it was never played back when it was released, it was the b-side of "Don’t Give Up Hope" which was the a-side. We had forgotten about it until you (Drew) started doing some searching on the internet, and found quite a lot of stuff there on these garage band sites. There are big-time collectors of this music. Our 45 is now one of the most highly sought after records, all of this was very surprising to me, a very pleasant surprise. We are happy to see that our music is still alive.

D: Any new recordings that you have unearthed that you may be releasing?

J: Just you wait – we do have some that we recorded as the original Four More, with Chuck, with a song called “It’s So Hard”… that's an original that Kenny and I wrote. We covered “Bad Boy”, a song the Beatles covered and is on one of their albums. We plan on coming out with a CD for those 4 songs, Four More in 1966, original recordings that nobody has heard, and it will be coming out soon. We have some Chosen Ones stuff too that we recorded… that people haven’t heard. And we have a couple of songs as Chandler Brothers Band. too, so we’ve got some material.  Kenny and I were pretty prolific songwriters for awhile, and we have a couple of songs that no one has heard except us. And we can dust those off and bring them back to life.

D: Looking back, do you wish you had done anything different?

K: Yeah. I would have never believed that by signing that distribution contract we would have been hurting ourselves. We were 16, 17 years old and were thinking, wow, J-Beck records… all the other local guys were with them you know. And it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Looking back, we should have never given up the distribution rights to anything – that hurt us bad. And we never knew what happened to the original master tapes from the McAllen session, either.

We knew that "Don’t Give Up Hope" was being played outside of Corpus, it was mostly around the tri-state area here, but we had heard rumors that "Problem Child" was well liked over in England.  Who knows?  In the music business you hear plenty of stuff, you  hear it every night. But apparently that England rumor was true.

J: If we had it to do over again,  I would try to party a little less and work a little harder. Because I think we had a shot there… for a while. But we were kids, we didn’t really have any adults managing or supervising us. We were party animals, man. We were crazy, having a good time, you know, but if we had worked a little harder – who knows?

D: What are you most proud of?

J: I am most proud that we won a Battle of the Bands, the only one we were ever in, against some good competition. And that in all the years that we played, every time we ever auditioned, we always got the job. Never once did we not get hired.  When it came time to pick, we would get it on.

K: I don’t know, I was thinking about it… I am probably most proud of the fact that this first original record of ours is still alive, still kicking. I had just heard about it around Christmas time [2004], and I thought it was kind of a joke till I saw and heard this stuff on the internet.  Jerry and I were having a laugh… hey, it only took 38 and ½ years but we are nationwide... worldwide, we have done what we set out to do.

D: Any memorable or funny gigs that you recall?

J: I remember this one time we were playing in Kingsville, Hoggieland or the Inferno, but we had left our cord box that we kept everything for the guitars, the PA, all of it, in Corpus. We are in Kingsville and it is an hour before the gig starts, and we’re setting up, and discover that we left it. What are we going to do?  We can’t play guitar or sing into a mike without chords. Sammy Holland, who was a racecar driver, and was our roadie… he drove stock cars out at CC speedway, and later became our brother-in-law. Sammy says, “I can go get them.” And I’m like, yeah, you can go get them, but they are 45 miles away and it’s an hour till show time. He had a yellow Buick, with a big old V8. And Sammy could drive man, even at 16. So I go with him, and we were hauling, way over 100 mph, all the way from Kingsville back to Corpus, we grab the cords, and haul all the way back to Kingsville. Kenny, Jim, and Burrows are onstage – all we need is the cords. I come flying in with those cords – and we start on time. This is at least an 80 mile round trip… it was pretty awesome.

K: You know another thing about our group, we always started on time. We never sloughed that off – like Jerry said, when it came time to pick, we may not have been serious about anything else all day long, and when it was over, we would go on about our partying, but we put on the show, you know.

J: Another funny story is about Garry Freudenberg, he was kind of our equipment manager for awhile, and he was very good with electronics and stuff. With musical equipment, there is always something going wrong, there are so many things that can break. Garry could fix this stuff, it was like having your own technician. He would also set our stuff up, and he was really good. Very few guys can set up a drum set who are not drummers, but he could do that. He is not a musician, but he just had a knack for that stuff. Anyway, we are playing  at the coliseum, the Billy Joe Royal and Charlie Rich gig, that we fronted and won the right to play for, probably the biggest audience Four More ever played for. All these chicks were coming up there for autographs and stuff after we played…Kenny and I are signing autographs and I look over and see old Garry over there signing autographs, too.  He looked like a musician… he looked more like a musician probably than we did with his long hair.  Pretty funny. So Garry, you’ve got some autographs out there somewhere.

D: Any bad gigs?

J: Yeah, this one gig at the Navy base in Beeville at the O club, this pilot wanted to whip Kenny because his wife or girlfriend was making eyes at him. And he got super-jealous, you know, and this guy is probably in his 30s and Kenny is like 17. This guy is getting ready to whip Kenny… I can see it coming, and I went over there to him and said, “Look, do you know how old this guy (Kenny) is? He is 17. If you hit him, you are going to be in big trouble.” And I told Kenny, “Look if he hits you, don’t move, don’t get up, just lay on the floor, and we will get an ambulance and a lawyer, and we’ll sue the Navy.”

K: He was an officer, a high ranking officer, a commander or something.

K: Another story, we played at the [edited] for like 4 hours, and they wanted us to play another hour for another x amount of dollars. So we did.  We played the other hour, and then they say no, we never said that… we don’t have any extra money and we didn’t agree to that.  This made us hot.  It was for sure the last time we would ever play this place.  They had this baby grand piano, behind these curtains that you could close off. So while we were packing up and griping and moaning about the pay situation, Burrows opens those piano keys and defecates on them, and then closes the piano key cover back when he is done.  Justice is done.

And another time, this was at the same place, Mike would always gripe at us about being up front where all the chicks could see us.  He goes, “You guys are up front impressing all the girls, I am back here with all the amps and drums.  I could be back here naked and nobody would even know.” And so we say, “Do it Burrows, you’re right.” So we start the set, and like I say, they had these nice curtains on the stage, he was offstage behind those curtains, and he strips totally nude, and of course we were cracking up… he did the whole set naked, and we could see him back there, and no one in the audience could – I could not do the whole set, I was just laughing too hard.

J: Another funny one, we were playing Kingsville, and this woman comes in, a real nice looking well dressed woman comes into this club we were playing in, and on our break she comes up to me and says, ‘I really like the way you guys sound, but I’d like you to turn it down, just a little, so we can hear you better, hear the voices better.” So I say, “Ok, we’ll try” So we turn it down maybe half a notch, not much, but it was enough, it satisfied her, and she gives us like 20 bucks apiece, or something, it was a good tip.

K: No, it was more than that, it was like 100 bucks each… a lot of money in 1967.

J: Anyway, she gave it to me, Kenny and Jim – but not to Burrows. She tells him, “You were still too loud.” And he was hot, man.  We were laughing like crazy at him. 

K: Well, she finally did give it to him, because he brought his brushes out. It was funny, he was exaggerating how quiet he was being,  Mike was a funny dude.  Could have been a comedian.

J: Another time there was supposed to be go-go dancers at our gig, that was the thing back then, go-go girls… so there was Miss Go-Go of Texas and the runner-up at this club we were at, the Inferno in Kingsville. One is on one side of the stage and one is on the other… and this runner-up is about 200 lbs. and she is jumping up and down, go-going, and our amps are bouncing up and down, we are trying to play, and are laughing like crazy.

D: Kenny, tell the story of Randy’s Rodeo, San Antonio, 1978.

K: Oh, yeah, I was playing with Sandy’s Sixpack, and the people that owned Randy’s Rodeo owned a bunch of clubs in Texas, and we played all of them. We played San Antonio about once a month and Randy’s had booked us.  They said we have the Sex Pistols booked the night before you guys.  We thought it was a joke, but it wasn’t. So driving up there from Corpus, we were talking about it all the way up there wondering just how this Sex Pistols gig had gone. When we got there, the place was a shambles. Nobody was playing that night – the club people said everything is cancelled, but I just could not believe that they would book the sex pistols in the ‘70s into this solid redneck place, it was crazy, and it went over like a lead balloon, of course. I bet it was a scene… I wish I could have been there.

J: One of the celebs that sat in with us once at the Stork Club was Roy Head. He came in one time in ‘67 when we were playing there, with his manager. He had on this white suit. And his manager says to us that he’d like Roy to sit in, and we’re like sure, great, because we did “Treat Her Right” which was his big song. Anyway, he comes up there and does it, and we are on this little bitty stage… we can barely fit all our stuff up there, and then we had to fit Roy up there, too. So he is up there with our mike stand, and we go into “Treat Her Right.”  And Roy is just great, man, he comes on and he’s throwing the mike stand down, and picking it back up… really knocked us out. This guy is a real showman, and you know he never rehearsed with us… he was on this little stage and didn’t have any room to move… I don’t know how he did it. But he pulled it off, and it was great. Roy – you are the man.

K: I saw him just last year, and he is still a great performer.

D: Ok – there are the last questions, more statistical. Were you guys ever written up in the local newspaper?   

J: Yes.  We were the featured band in GO Magazine in the Caller-Times June 12, 1966.  "Don't Give Up Hope" was #15 on KEYS radio at the time.   It eventually went to #12 or #14 on KEYS and #2 or #3 on KRYS...would have risen higher except we ran out of record copies to sell.  J-Beck was supposed to get us more copies but never did.

D: Were you ever on TV?

J: Yes. Twice.  We were on Teen Time one Saturday in the summer of '66.  Teen Time was on Channel 3, local ABC affiliate.  It was Corpus Christi version of American Bandstand.  We performed live cover of Rolling Stones' Get Off My Cloud...got a lot of bookings after that TV appearance.  We also performed live on TV during  the Crippled Children’s Telethon...I believe it was Labor Day in '66...we were on about 2:30 AM.

D: Where did the group perform? 

J: Navy Relief Festival in 1966...we and the  Thaks fronted for the Ventures.  We won Battle of Bands against The In Crowd (later, the Buckle featuring Sam Neely on vocals), and some other band...can't remember who they were... and won the right to open the Valentines Concert at the coliseum starring Billy Joe Royal and Charlie Rich...this was largest crowd we ever played for.  We also played for King High Senior Prom, Carroll High Senior Girls dance, many private parties, the Carousel Club, the Dunes Club, Cody’s Volcano,  The Sanddollar in Rockport, The Duck Inn, Frenchie's, Peppermint Lane (downtown CC street concert)...all the places the teen bands played at that time.  In 1967-68 The Chosen Ones played the Rogues Club, served as house band at the Stork Club playing 5 nights/week for about 6-8 months, the Enlisted Men's Clubs at the Naval Air Stations in CC and Kingsville, the Officers Club at N.A.S. Beeville, the Inferno Club and Hoggieland…both in Kingsville, private parties, the Chandelier Club in Alice. 

D: What are you doing now?

 J:  I’m still married to my high school sweetheart, the former Glenda Freudenberg. We have two grown sons who are pretty decent musicians/songwriters. I work as a Regional Sales Manager for an electrical manufacturer. I still play a little, sitting in if I know the band, and at church once in a while, and also at family get-togethers. Jim, Kenny, and I can still sing and play...we live in the Houston area. 

K: I’m married. I have 3 kids. My son, Keith, plays guitar. I work full time for a turbine manufacturer. Don’t play much anymore. But I could. I live in Pasadena, TX. Jim is married, has 3 kids – his daughters sing, his son, Jimmy has a rock band, “The Beauty School Dropouts,” out of Nashville. Jim and his wife own their own business, Chandler Realtors, in Pasadena, TX. 

D: What about Chuck and Mike? 

J: Can’t locate Chuck. I think he is in Texas, but I don’t know where. We haven’t heard from him in years. Mike is out in West Texas trying to get his life straightened out.

~end~