ROY HEAD (and the Traits)
Roy Head was a white Soul (and later Country) singer best known for 1965's "Treat Her Right."
He was born in Three Rivers, TX, on January 9, 1941, and relocated to San Marcos in 1955. Two years later, he and San Marcos native Tommy Bolton formed a band called the Traits. From late ‘50s through the mid ‘60s (and with a number of personnel changes), the group had several regional hits on the TNT and Renner labels. The Traits also played the concert, sock hop, and college dance-hall circuits throughout Texas and built a reputation as a first-rate live act.
Roy Head & The Traits (as they were now known) signed with the New York-based Scepter Records in 1964, but had no major hits on the label. The following year, they signed with the Houston-based producer Huey Meaux, A/K/A “The Ragin’ Cajun.” Their first single with Meaux, “Treat Her Right,” came out on the Houston-based Back Beat label. It climbed to #2 in both the R&B and pop markets in October 1965. Keeping it from hitting #1 on the pop chart was “Yesterday” by the Beatles. On the R&B chart, it was Joe Tex’s “I Want To (Do Everything For You).”
There exist three known video clips of Roy Head from this period. Each reveals him to have been a dynamic, versatile, and rather eccentric dancer. His jumps and slides conjure echoes of the Nicholas Brothers, a revered dance team of the 1930s – ’50s, and include footwork popular in Black neighborhoods at the time.
Though “Treat Her Right” was Head’s only R&B hit, he and the Traits placed two additional songs in the pop top forty, and three more on the lower rungs of the Billboard Hot 100, through 1966. He later left the Traits and formed the Roy Head Trio. By 1967, however, he had gone solo and, in 1970, released the LP, Same People. Subsequent releases on Dunhill and Elektra featured elements of rockabilly and psychedelia.
By the mid-1970s, Roy had turned to Country music. From 1974-85, he placed 24 singles on Billboard’s Country chart, three of which made the top twenty: “The Most Wanted Woman in Town” (1974), “Come to Me,” and “Now You See ‘Em, Now You Don’t” (both 1977).
Roy Head belongs to the Gulf Music, Texas Country & Western Music, and Austin Music Awards Halls of Fame. He and the Traits held reunions in 2001 and 2007, and the band was later inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. In 2008, Head performed in Cleveland for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (though he was never inducted). He also played festivals like the Ponderosa Stomp and released one last album, Still Treatin ‘Em Right, in 2011.
Later versions of “Treat Her Right” include Jimmy Page, Bruce Springsteen, Jerry Lee Lewis, Sawyer Brown, Bon Jovi, the Commitments, and, as “Treat Him Right,” both Mae West and Barbara Mandrell. Bob Dylan, Tom Jones and Sammy Davis, Jr. also performed the song live. And Roy Head’s original turned up in the 2019 Quentin Tarantino film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Roy’s son, Jason “Sundance” Head, was a contestant on the sixth season of American Idol. In 2007, he signed with Universal Motown Records. And in 2016, Sundance was the winner on the 11th season of The Voice.
Roy Head, 79, died of a heart attack on September 21, 2020.
Charted Pop/R&B singles:
“Treat Her Right” (1965) R&B #2, Pop #2
“Just a Little Bit” (1965) Pop #39
“Apple of My Eye” (1965) Pop #32
“Get Back” (1966) Pop #88
“My Babe” (1966) Pop #99
“Wigglin’ and Gigglin’” (1966) Pop #110
“To Make a Big Man Cry” (1966) Pop #95
“Puff of Smoke” (1971) Pop #96
