Benefit for a music legend

It seems like every weekend here in Southeast Texas you will find people staging some kind of benefit for some struggling soul. It may be barbecue for sale, or a fish fry or a dance held at a local VFW, K of C or honky tonk. I guess we are no different from anywhere else, but people down here certainly have good hearts when someone is in dire straits.

So many benefits are there that one just pretty much has to pick the one which most tugs at your heart strings. If I were going to a happening this weekend to help out a fellow Southeast Texan, it would be the benefit being held in downtown Beaumont at Crockett Street for a man whose music has brought me unmeasurable pleasure — Jerry LaCroix.

I’m sure people in some parts of the World and the U.S. of A. and even Southeast Texas have never heard of this man. Some down this way might even say: “Just another coonass.” Well, while LaCroix may have the Cajun blood of a true “coonass” he is far from “just another anything.” At one time this singer, song writer and extremely talented musician, dynamite sax player, fronted two legendary bands of the late 60s and 70s, Rare Earth and Blood, Sweat and Tears. Those older Boomers from the  crossroads of Texas and Louisiana remember LaCroix by another name: “Jerry ‘Count’ Jackson,” who was one of the tornado-like forces behind the group that married swamp pop and blue-eyed soul. That band was the Boogie Kings.

I grew up listening to the music of the Boogie Kings as well. That is because my older brothers as later did I, had to drive across the Sabine River into Louisiana to pursue a little entertainment accompanied by an adult beverage. Some or perhaps all of my older brothers at one time or the other might have heard the Boogie Kings. When the laws changed to where 18-year-olds could buy liquor in Texas — that changed again some 10 years later — I was still at the Texas Pelican in Vinton, La., watching the magic  revolving bandstand take one group off for a set while another band came on. One of the bands I heard there a couple of times was fronted by Jerry LaCroix, no longer Jerry Count Jackson or a Boogie King. He was then lead singer of White Trash.

The band was originally Edgar Winter’s White Trash. Beaumont native Edgar Winter, whose brother Johnny was “making the big-time” as Edgar sang on their debut album, teamed up with LaCroix for some truly amazing fusion of rock, R & B, and just plain down home Texas-Louisiana soul. Their live album “Roadwork,” included Johnny’s guitarist Ric Derringer doing Chuck Berry proud on the Chuckster’s “Back in the U.S.A.”

I saw Jerry at several Boogie King revival gigs in later years. His long hair and beard turned white exemplified the newest model of a rocker and blues guy who never sat too long to change into anything permanently but himself. Once I even interviewed Jerry for a local newspaper prior to a show featuring the old Boogie Kings, including Jerry Count Jackson’s soulful singing partner G.G. Shinn.

Journalists aren’t supposed to get all comfortable and chummy with their subjects. But a bunch of us were sitting around having a few cold ones about a decade or so ago at the 9-hole Port Groves Golf Course clubhouse in Jerry’s hometown of Groves, Texas, while Jerry held court. He has lived a lot in however many years he’s been around now, with most of those years being a musician who has played in the smallest of tonks to huge concert halls both in the U.S. and abroad.

Jerry LaCroix was never a big star. But he has managed to live his life making music and making people, like myself, happy while doing it. People who are stars in our eyes, like Jerry, normally don’t have a good insurance plan unless its working out of one of the union halls. Regardless, Jerry now has some health problems — congestive heart failure — which is not the same as a heart attack but still can be a very serious and debilitating disorder.

Thus, the reason why a bunch of folks are getting together to play music and serve some gumbo and barbecue. Local blue-eyed soul and swamp pop legends T.K. Hulen, Charles Mann, Jivin’ Gene along with G.G. Shinn will be playing at the former Scout Bar and Antone’s on Crockett Street. The money raised will go toward helping the the expenses and medical bills Jerry has incurred. I’m sure there is a way to donate if you can’t make it to Beaumont, Texas on Sunday afternoon. Don Ball is listed as a contact for more information about the benefit (409) 548-4444. Jerry’s official Web site also lists his e-mail as well as snail mail addresses.