• RAY KING CARROLL ’66  -  HALFTIME REUNION

                     OCTOBER 4-6,2019

• BEACHGATE CONDO SUITES AND HOTEL

    2000 On the Beach Dr.  699 Anchor Drive),  Port Aransas, TX. 78373

    361-749-5900  (Use code ‘RKC1966’ for 10% discount)

    Or   www.beachgate.com
 

• $25 per person covers Party Room, Pool and Beach access for the weekend,
• Friday evening party from 4:30 till?

         (heavy hors d’oervres), and Saturday night BBQ at 6:00.

    All gatherings are BYOB.
 

• Mail check (payable to Class of 1966 50th Reunion) to

             Joe Alley, RKC66 Halftime,

             7650 Dallas St., Corpus Christi, TX. 78413

• Need more info? 

         Facebook page -        RKC Class of 1966 - 50th Reunion



 

Classmates - received nostaglic article about music in CC in the 1960's.  Check out. 
(Posting here for a few weeks - then moves to our 'Classmates - blog'  Section.) 
If you have a talent for writing, submit your short article via email to  -   raykingcarroll66@gmail.com         
Watch to see the next one!
             Close your eyes, go back to CC in the 60's --  enjoy!


MUSIC MUSINGS ...........  By Tracey Smith.     9-26-19
 
            I spent the last half of September watching the 16-hour documentary about Country Music on public television (PBS).  I’m certain I heard all of those songs as a teenager in Corpus Christi listening to the radio, at local folk music concerts, at church or from friends and parents. 
            I must confess that I did not listen to country music stations (I remember one was in Robstown).  So, they had to be played on our top 40 stations K-E-Y-S and K-R-Y-S (Remember the promo “Your car runs better with KEYS in it!”?). 
            My parents gave me a ukulele for Christmas at age 6.  At age 13 I was given an electric guitar with no amplifier.  It had an acoustic resonance of about five feet but I learned chords and chord progressions and started singing the songs of the folk music icons The Kingston Trio, Peter Paul & Mary, The Smothers Brothers, Simon & Garfield and others.  At 16 I bought a Martin steel string guitar, the brand used by most of top singers, which put out a lot more volume.
            There was a Corpus Christi Folk Music Society run out of The Horn Shop at Six Points.  During summers, the city provided a bandshell on one of the T-Heads for weekly folk music programs.  Participation was voluntary and unscheduled.  People brought their lawn chairs, the sound system was excellent. 
            There was a banjo player from the Naval Air Station who sang “Blue Moon of Kentucky”, a well-known bluegrass group from Robstown (I don’t remember their name but they sang “Corinna, Corinna”), a CPA who played electric guitar like Chet Atkins, an architect who played a banjo and was an LSU grad, and people like me.  Sometimes, after the show was over, the sound was turned off, the lights were dimmed, there was a jam session.  I learned new songs and heard a lot of stories about the world beyond the Gulf Coast.  There were also Hootenannys at Del Mar College where I performed on stage and indoors.  The headline group was always The Pozo Seco Singers.  Donnie Williams was the bass singer.  He went to Nashville as Don Williams and had a very successful career as a country music singer who refused to use bad language or glorify illicit behavior.  At his funeral in 2017, the icons of the music industry turned out to praise him.
            Greens Records on Alameda was a favorite shopping destination.  There were listening booths where one could listen to a record before buying it.  Mrs. Green said they were seeing children of some of their customers who had shopped there twenty years before.
            I first heard The Beatles playing on the sound system at the Buccaneer Bowl.  Someone I was with said “That’s the new group from England”.  One week before President Kennedy was killed, a group of us went to the coliseum on Shoreline to see Peter, Paul and Mary.  We arrived at least one hour early to get good seats.  After the show, they came back on stage to sign autographs.  Each one signed an autograph and drew a facial profile.  I still have the album cover they signed.   
            I have always said Corpus Christi is a great place to be from.  It just didn’t have much attraction for me after graduation.  And I’m certain that millions of others our age have similar memories about the baby boomers’ music.  But being from Texas carries a stigma in some places.
            I went to Ohio State University for a graduate journalism program which resulted in a Masters Degree.  As one of two Texans in the Journalism Department, people sometimes would ask a question which was phrased so I was expected to answer with the word “Y’all”.  When I would answer with that, they would nudge each other and snicker “He said Y’all”.  I never caught on to it until it was too late. 
            There was a Mexican restaurant on the college drag in Columbus, Ohio, which was owned by a couple from Brownsville, Texas.  The first time I went there, a middle-aged woman came to take our order.  I said, “I understand you are from Brownsville.  Well, I’m from Corpus.”  She said, deadpan, “Oh, you’ll want more hot sauce”.