From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Sun Mar 10, 2002  2:17 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Huey Meaux
 
HUEY P. MEAUX (By Shaun Mather)

Born 10 March 1929, Kaplan, Louisiana

Huey Meaux, the legendary producer-manager-promoter-music publisher and
disc-jockey was born to poor sharecroppers and grew up outside of Kaplan,
Louisiana, a small community surrounded by rice fields near Lafayette.
After his family moved to Winnie, Texas when he was twelve, his father,
Stanislaus Meaux (known to all as Pappy Te-Tan), who played accordion,
formed a group with Huey on drums. His first job was cutting hair at the
local barber shop during the day and after hours, he was a disc jockey,
hosting teen hops and promoting dances in Beaumont, Texas. He worked
with George Jones and Moon Mullican, and was travelling with disc jockey
J.P. Richardson (the Big Bopper) in the back seat of a car from Port Arthur
to the studio in Houston when the Bopper wrote Chantilly Lace. Meaux came
under the tutelage of promoter and record producer Bill Hall before trying
his hand at producing. In 1959 Meaux produced his first hit, Breaking Up Is
Hard to Do by Jivin' Gene before moving to Houston. Other big sellers he was
involved with included Barbara Lynn's You'll Lose a Good Thing, Joe Barry's
I'm a Fool to Care, Rod Bernard's This Should Go on Forever and Big Sambo
and the Housewreckers' The Rains Came. He found a Tex-Mex rock band from
San Antonio, dubbing them the Sir Douglas Quintet, and was instrumental in
getting their She's About A Mover into the Top Ten in 1965. Among others he
worked with: Jerry Lee Lewis ("Southern Roots" album), B.J. Thomas, Roy Head,
Jimmy Donley, Ronnie Milsap, Mickey Gilley, Lowell Fulson, Doug Kershaw,
Clifton Chenier, Big Mama Thornton, Johnny Copeland, Lightnin' Hopkins, and
Tommy McLain. Perhaps his greatest conquests came with kindred spirit,
Freddy Fender when they scored the unlikeliest country and pop hit of 1975
with Before the Next Teardrop Falls and its follow-up Wasted Days and Wasted
Nights. Their partnership came to an unsavoury end in 1980 and a year later
Meaux survived a bout with throat cancer. He enjoyed one more hit in 1985
with Rockin' Sidney's (Don't Mess With) My Toot-Toot.