MY CUZ - JUST BECAUSE

I thought I wrote about my musical cousin in this blog years ago but I can't find anything.  So, here's the whole story as I remember it and as I've been able to discover.  Well, not the whole story; just the story of his musical career.

My dad's older brother Stanley and his wife, Helen, lived on Mt. Adams when I first knew them.  They had five children, Tommy, Terry, Patricia, Timmy and Vicki. 

This is about Tom and his musical career just because it popped into my mind today.  Tom was two years older than me.  In his lifetime, he was a sometime singer, sometime preacher, and always a sales type.  He passed away fifteen years ago.  My family visited his on a few occasions when I was very young.  Their house was one of those narrow brick places that we entered from the side door in the back.  I never got to know any of the kids very well when I was young.

I first remember meeting Tom at a club called the Guys and Dolls.  It was located in Cold Spring, Kentucky on Rt 27 south of where NKU was built.  He was the headline singer.  He sang with whatever band was there at the time.  I think the owner of the club was his manager.  This was in the late sixties - early seventies and I was married and out of the Army. 

I may have gone to see him a couple of times.  He was hot shit and he knew it.  Somewhere along the line he gave me a suit.  It was a gaudy three-piece suit that fit well.  I guess he was about my size.  I talked to him backstage a few times.  

I've gotten ahead of myself; so on to his musical career.  If you check into the blog:  doo-wop-groups.blogspot.com  and insert in the search the name Tommy Liss, you will find out a lot.  You will discover that he was signed to a new record label locally owned and in 1963 was convinced to record under the name Tommy Liss because noone knew how to pronounce his real last name.  I heard that this made his dad very angry.  They put his records on the juke box at Crowley's Highland House cafe and his dad had to tell everyone that Tommy Liss was his son.  On that blog's site, you can listen to his records; discover that he recorded as both Tommy Liss and the Cabarets with The Matadors as backup and as Tommy Liss and the Matadors. 

For the next few years he traveled back and forth to Nashville, sang in clubs there, and recorded numerous demos for various studios.  He changed his name again to honor a friend who had died.  He was now Tommy Sears.  Under this name he worked at Guys and Dolls and recorded "Walk on the Outside" his most successful record.  At the Guys and Dolls, he sang with a group called the Raspberry Ice (later just the Ice).  With them, he recorded a Tom Jones cover of "It's not unusual".   My favorite is one called "Salvation Train" a funky gospel piece.  Tom eventually married a singer named Janet Combs and recorded songs with her group.  

I last heard him sing at his father's funeral.  His complete bio is extensive and very interesting but I'll not go into it here.