As Billy Joe’s life’s story unfolds, you get the feeling he has no idea of his own profound impact on the history of rock n’ roll and country music. Decades into a career, his distinctive voice, humor and humility is still strong within him. His memorable top ten single, 'Down In The Boondocks', along with other chart toppers like 'I Knew You When' and 'Cherry Hill Park' firmly established him as a musical legend.
From his first paid show ($5.00) in Atlanta, which also featured Gladys Knight, to his recent tour with B.J. Thomas, the people Billy Joe has encountered along the way reads like a who’s who list of the greatest artists of the last 50 years.
Here, in his own words, is the story of Billy Joe Royal. “I was born in Valdosta, Georgia. My uncles had a band when I was a kid. My first ambition was to be a steel guitar player. When I was nine years old, I took steel guitar lessons to be in their band and then I would sing a little bit, so they started letting me sing on their radio show.
We moved to Marietta (Georgia) when I was about ten. When I was a teenager, I had a little group called the Corvettes in high school - we’d play parties and private clubs and stuff like that. In high school, the Rotary Club put on this show. A friend of mine was going with some girl and she was going to be in the play. So he said, ‘Come on, go with me, let’s go audition for this thing so I can be near my girlfriend.’ He was really shy and we got over there and he chickened out. I auditioned and I got the part. I did Elvis. I sang 'Don’t Be Cruel'.
There was a show called Georgia Jubilee out of East Point, Georgia. It was primarily a country show. They would bring down a Grand Ole Opry star, people like Little Jimmy Dickens and Jean Shepherd. On the other hand, they brought in Jerry Lee Lewis once and Brenda Lee, people like that. I got on that show and I was a regular, along with Jerry Reed and Joe South and Ray Stevens and just a bevy of talented people. I kinda learned a little bit there.
When that broke up, I put a little show on at the Strand Theatre here in Marietta and when that fizzled out, I went down to Savannah, Georgia. That was the best that ever happened to me. I went to work in a club down there called the Bamboo Ranch - it was huge club. They would bring in big names twice a month it was always a country or an R & B act. So as a kid, I worked with the biggest stars in the world. We sang back up to Roy Orbison, we’ve played with Sam Cook, with Chuck Berry, I’ve got a picture of me singing ‘Shout’ with the Isley Brothers as a kid. On the other side of the coin, they would bring in Marty Robbins and George Jones and the country thing. I got to really watch these guys and learn from them. We worked 5 hours a night, 6 nights a week. If you’ve got any kind of voice at all, you’re either going to lose it or it‘s gonna get built up and develop. I was there about 3, maybe 4 years.
Also, Joe South started working down at the club with us and Joe was writing songs. He’d written four or five songs. Back then, it was a singles market - you didn’t care about albums, everything was about 45’s and everything was about top 40 radio. Well, you cared, but you didn’t sell many albums. In the meantime, I was making records, but, I just couldn’t get lucky.
Then, I met a guy named Bill Lowry and he took me to Nashville. We would cut four or five songs a session and put it on a little independent label. I had a few reasonable hits, but nothing really significant.
We also had a TV show and we were on every Thursday, I say we, I was just a kid in the band and it wasn’t even my band. We got to be pretty popular there in Savannah and anybody who was anybody would come to our club if they were visiting from out of town. This movie company came in. They shot 'Cape Fear' there and some people came in looking for locations and, so, naturally I said, ‘let me do anything and just follow you around and stuff..’ They gave me a little part in the thing. If you ever see it, you’ll see a dot go across the screen, that’s me. I got a chance to shake hands with Gregory Peck, I was gonna say something to Robert Mitchum but, he looked like he could tear your head off so I didn’t say a word.
They had a show on back then called Route 66 with Martin Milner and Glen Corbett and I got a little part in that. For some crazy dumb kid reason I thought, ya know, I must not have it as a singer, I got records out nothing going on. So this guy came through, he played piano with a guy named Bobby Vee and he was going to get off the road. For some reason, I didn’t know him very long, but we just kinda hit it off. He said I’m getting ready to leave the road and I’m going back to where I live in Cincinnati, Ohio and there’s a club up there that you can come audition and if you make the cut you can make as much on the weekend as you can down here the whole week. In the back of my mind I thought, you know I think I’ll do this and I’m gonna go to drama school during the week and I’ll really study coz evidently the singing is going nowhere, cut all these things and no hits and stuff. So anyway, I went up there and passed the audition at this place called Guys and Dolls. This was 1964.
My whole life back then was surrounded by these ultra-talented people. I just thought everybody in the world is so great and I’m lucky if I can just keep up with these people, coz I thought everybody was that talented.
I got the job and this guy came out from the radio station, his name was Dusty Rhodes. He was a big deal in town. He saw me and said, ‘I’m doing this fund raiser at the Cincinnati Gardens for the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library.’ John Kennedy had just been shot. And he said, ‘I’d like for you to come out and do it.’ I said, ‘Sure.’ I had always played for grownups and people who didn’t care if I was there or not. I went out there and, all of a sudden, I was playing for these kids, well, people my own age. I had long hair and stuff. People started screaming and yelling and going crazy and I thought, ‘what the hell is going on?’”
Dusty Rhodes went back and started talking about me on the radio all the time. After that, I got a really good following there in town. We worked at the club on the weekends and during the week we’d do these little record hops.”
As luck may have it, Joe (South) called and said, ‘I’ve got this song. 'Down in the Boondocks’ and I said, ‘That’s a crazy title, what kind of title is that?’
He said, ‘You know how you can sing like Gene Pitney a little bit? This would be a good song for Gene Pitney. Here’s what we’ll do. We’ll sing and do a little like Gene Pitney, they’ll think it’s him and by the time they find out it’s really you, it’ll be too late and we’ll have a hit.’ And I thought, ‘That sounds reasonable.'
So, I went go back down to cut it in Atlanta. I cut that and a song called, 'I Knew You When'. I didn’t think much about it; I was having a great life in Cincinnati. I got a call that says, ‘Well you know your record company went out of business?’ They were out of Chicago. What had happened was when the Beatles first hit, they were on this record label first -a record label called Tolly records. They leased these masters and made a ton of money. Then, Capital got the Beatles, coz their parent company was in England, so they bailed out. Tolly got all this loot and bailed out, and, so there we were without a label. Luckily, we got our masters back. Bill Lowry said, ‘I’m gonna take these to California.’ He went and got me a deal with Columbia. When the record came out, it was an instant hit in Cincinnati. I really thought it was just gonna be a local hit, but I kept getting these calls saying, ‘It looks good, it looks good.’ Finally I got a call that said, ‘Dick Clark wants you for his tour.’ Up to this point, I hadn’t been really excited, but, then, I thought, ‘Well maybe this is a hit’. That song kinda changed my whole life.
The radio station gave me this big going-away party and Leslie Gore was there - she had out the song 'It’s My Party'. The next day I packed up my little u- haul trailer. I was listening to the radio as I was going across the bridge to Kentucky. Those guys had no earthly idea I was listening, they thought I had already left town and they started talking about me and they started saying, ‘We wish Billy Joe all the best, he’s a great guy.’ I started crying like a baby and thought, ‘What the hell am I leaving here for? These people are great.’ But that’s how I kinda got off the ground.
With the Dick Clark tour, I felt like a fan when I got to go on tour, everybody was on that thing, Tom Jones, Peter and Gordon, it was pretty great. I got pictures of me and just about everybody. I can’t hang on to anything, but luckily, I hung on to some of those pictures. At end of the tour, Dick Clark would give this cast party and you had to be somebody else from the show and Tom Jones and Peter Asher and Mel Carter, Hold Me, Thrill Me – we were the Shirelles. We had these little chiffon dresses on and the wigs. It was great.
Things are good now. I’m doing a lot of stuff with B.J. Thomas. We just finished up in Vegas. At my age, I’m still working. I think I’ve been very, very lucky.
It’s so different now, when I was coming up, you always had a place to sing. If you can find places to try out things and sing every night. The best thing in the world for your voice is to sing every night. If you can, find a place to sing, you can develop and go from there. I’ve always believed if you’ve got it, someone will come along say, ok, let’s do something with it.
BJ and I work all the time. I do my little thing and he does his little thing and we come back on stage and do duets together. We did a whole string of things up through New England last November. He’s just a great guy; he’s got the greatest sense of humor, he makes me laugh all the time. We talk about how old we are, but we don’t care, hell, we’re still here. We were all old together. People don’t care what they say to you, ya know. We go out after the shows, they form a line and we sign autographs. One night this lady tells BJ, ‘you know from a distance, you look like you’re about 30 years old, but you get up close and… boy!’ I thought, ‘what a thing to say to him, lady. What a crazy thing to say!’ They all get crazy.
I’ve got an eleven-year-old daughter. I’ll be going to PTA meetings on a walker with her. She said, ‘Did you know Elvis?’ I was like yeah, I knew him.”
Billy Joe Royal ends his story the way he began it, with laughter and a bemused shake of his head.
| written by Krystina Rene' Miller
