Last night I attended the 55th anniversary reunion concert of El Rey and the Night Beats. El Rey and the Night Beats is a very well known original Waukesha (Wisconsin) Band. I proudly tell people that my dad was the original lead singer! From about 1957-1960 my dad sang and played his Gretch guitar. The ladies loved him. He was like Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley all in one. I had the privilege of hearing my dad sing at a few reunions the band had. My dad would record and take photos of the many reunions and send copies to all the band members. These are great memories for me. I attended their 50th reunion in 2007, about a year after my dad died. They had a tribute to my dad and other original members played. I took many photos and was moved to tears. This past July and August I attended another events they played for and took more photos. Knowing I was going to the 55th reunion last night I printed some pictures and burned over 100 of the photos I had taken on to CD's for the band. As I gave the photographs and CD's to the band, I said, "my dad passed the job of taking pictures on to me". I truly believe that too.
This photo is one of the original photos of the band. My dad is the one standing in front of the microphone. I can still hear him singing "It's only make believe" by Conway Twitty and "One night with you" by Elvis- songs he'd sing to my mom.
