by Ernie Henderson, April 2007
As the KU–K-State game wound down on the big screen at The Askew Inn on March 10, the music began. The crowd was in a jovial mood following KU’s victory in the Big 12 semi-final tournament game March 10.
Roger played the guitar while Pam belted out Kris Kristoferson’s "Help Me Make It Through The Night" to open the show. The basketball fans were now captivated by the band. Roger and Pam Francis are The Unique Breed, and they recently started playing regular sets at The Askew Inn, 3600 Independence Ave.
After the show, I sat down with the two of them for a talk.
Roger happens to be blind, but he sets up and tears down the equipment at their performances. During their set, I watched his hands quickly adjust his drum machine and synthesizer to blend the perfect accompaniment for each song.
Pam has limited vision herself. She can read both print and Braille, one of only a few, she told me. She likes to take photographs, recently switching from her 35mm camera to a digital one.
Roger and Pam met each other years ago in first-grade at The Missouri School for the Blind in St. Louis, Mo. Though they were close friends, they went their separate ways after graduation.
As a teen, Pam often would come to Kansas City to visit her mother. They would go to the Ship Lounge downtown, where Bill Tingle was on the piano. He used to let her sing a song or two with him, and Pam remembers Bill as being a "tough cookie" on stage, a perfectionist who didn’t allow for gaffes. She also recalls how nice and supportive he was off the stage.
Pam got married and moved to Florida where she was a housewife and raised a son and daughter. As for her music career, she sang in church choirs and at weddings. Once, she said, she was asked to sing "O Holy Night" at a young man’s first confession at Midnight Mass (Christmas Eve).
She worked on Florida Sen. Connie Mack’s campaign and was active in getting transportation in Tampa, Fla. compliant with The Americans With Disabilities Act.
Meanwhile, Roger was pursuing music. He had gotten his first guitar, a Kay, when he was 10 years old. His brother eventually destroyed it, using its back for a drum, but Roger graduated to a 1963 Fender Stratocaster. He still has it and would like to restore it.
He said he was influenced greatly by Little Jimmy Dickens and the other artists on RCA Records. Eventually, he found out there were other labels besides RCA, and his musical world grew.
He played for eight years on The General Jackson Showboat at Opryland. He was the Cal Ripken of the theme park, performing an amazing 3,725 consecutive shows before missing one.
Roger sat in with The Father of Bluegrass, Bill Monroe, a few years before he died, too.
In 1990, he met Steve Hall in Branson, Mo. and began working with him doing the Shotgun Red shows. Four years ago, they resumed their work together, and Roger returned this week, in fact, from a gig in Minnesota.
The years passed, and Roger also got married. Thirty years later, they found each other again. (They both were single again, too.)
Pam wanted to sing with Roger. He couldn’t imagine it working, but out of respect for a friend he gave her an opportunity. Roger said, “She had done her homework.”
And so he had told her, “I want to work with you.”
On Valentine’s Day 2004, they were married, and today, make their home in Historic Northeast.
On that Saturday I first caught their show, they played every kind of music – country, the blues and rock-and-roll.
Some regulars, Joe, John, Bill and Steve, had come to watch basketball and feast on Gate's barbecue. When Roger fulfilled their request for some blues with James Taylor’s "Steamroller Blues," John leaned my way and said, “That’s what I’m talking about.”
Pam did a stellar version of Merle Travis’ "Sixteen Tons." It was a song she used to sing with her father, a bass player, as they would drive along. They would sing it together sometimes at jams. For a long time after her father’s passing, Pam said, she couldn’t make it through the song without breaking down. But when she sings it during their performances now, I can feel the love and devotion between father and daughter.
Roger treated us to a double dose of Ronnie Milsap’s "Daydreams About Night Things" by playing it as recorded and then switching to a blues tempo as he had heard Ronnie play it once.
I requested Jimmy Buffett’s "A Pirate Looks at Forty" (as this Parrothead looks toward 60). Roger adjusted the synthesizer he plays his Stratocaster through, and the guitar strings played like steel drums.
Roger has written 1,500 songs himself, and he puts a few in between the classics they sing. I enjoyed "Lady Whiskey," a wonderful tune he had written while drinking a boilermaker during a break at a gig.
Toward the end of the show, Pam said they played all styles of music except rap and heavy metal, then Roger began doing a rap version of Jimmy Dean’s "Big Bad John" for fun.
And to underscore his amazing range of music, he quickly launched into Alice Cooper’s "School's Out" for Nancy, our waitress.
Pam and Roger told me that while they while they were searching for a name for their duo nothing seemed to work. One day as Pam was reading lyrics in print and Braille, she remarked to Roger he must think of her as a unique breed, being able to do both.
Roger paused, reflected a few moments and looked at Pam; they knew they had a name.
If you have a private party or gathering and want to book The Unique Breed, contact them at ppowells09@aol.com.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)