Henry Lee Summer is one hell of a rock and roll singer. That fact hasn't been in serious doubt for the last 30 years or so. The rest of the country figured that out in the mid-1980s. But Indiana always knew that he could belt out a tune. And Summer's string of hits for CBS Records during that decade made him second only to John Mellencamp in terms of big-selling Hoosier rockers.
A few years have passed since then, and Summer is now 44 years old and a father of four children. He doesn't record for CBS anymore. But he's still one of the top sellers in Indiana: He can sell 10,000 copies of anything with his name on it, which is something few local bands can boast.
Oh yeah: He's still one hell of a rock and roll singer.
As proof, examine Henry Lee Summer Live, his new two-CD set (available at local retail stores and through his Web site, henryleesummer.com). It contains 22 songs that have become staples of Indiana radio over the past 15 years, including "Wish I Had a Girl" and "Time for Big Fun." Summer's band, which includes former members of the Faith Band and Roadmaster, has never sounded better. And Summer's voice, if anything, has grown stronger and more powerful since his CBS days.
Sitting on a couch in his recording studio, which is adjacent to his Northside home, Summer looks different than his days in the limelight. His trademark flowing hair is more closely cropped now and he's acquired a distinguished-looking beard.
Don't feel sorry or anything for him. First of all, he's still one of the best-selling artists in the state. Secondly, he says he was lucky enough to have good management back in the '80s. He was never ripped off. He made good investments which allow him not to have to hold down a shift at McDonald's. He lives a good life with his wife and children, and he's happy, which is more than you can say about most people.
Another thing: When Henry talks, you listen. So instead of trying to arrange his thoughts in narrative form, here are some random quotes from his interview with NUVO.
On the live album: "I've been playing live since 1967 and everybody's always said, 'Why don't you make a live record?' I've tried a couple of times but it never sounded, in my mind, like how we sound live. This time, we recorded in a small club and didn't tell anybody that we were going to be playing there. We recorded three nights and from those shows we ended up with two CDs. We captured the spirit that we have when we're on stage. I left all of the mistakes in and there are wrong words and flat notes, but that's how we always play. It was tempting to come back and fix some of the obvious mistakes but once we did that, we'd have a glorified studio record. The whole idea of it being live is, let's do it live. Sometimes, a lot of the stuff I do is so visual, some of it gets lost on the recording. But for this, I just stood there and sang. I didn't do any of the bouncing. I just got into it."
On "Teenage Dreams 1976," one of the new songs on the album: "Lately, being 44 years old and having a wife and four children, it gets hard to write a good rock and roll song. So I went the other way and decided to write a song remembering how I felt when I was 17. Back then, I put an ad in the Terre Haute paper saying, 'Indiana's best drummer needs a gig.' That's how cocky I was. Of course, I wasn't the best drummer. I could play the intro to 'We're an American Band' and so I figured that if I could play that, I was the best. So I wrote that song remembering the attitude I had back then."
On aging: "When I get on stage, I don't feel like I'm 44. I do all the rock and roll poses and jump around. The next morning, I go back to being 44 years old."
On perseverance: "You really do have to love music after your 15 minutes are over to keep trying. It's so easy to fall back because you pretty much know that your chances are slim and none that you'll get another 15 minutes. To keep trying to do something is hard. The odds are against you getting your 15 minutes in the first place, let alone a second time.
"You never know when your 15 minutes are going on, and you never know when they're up. When you finally figure out that they're up, it's hard to accept that fact. You have to keep trying, keep writing music and keep plugging away. You hope that lightning can strike twice. There's just not many people who've come back.
"In my opinion, you're either an artist or you're a fan. There are very few artists like Prince or Bob Dylan, who create something new. All the rest of them are just big fans of music who kind of regurgitate everything they've heard. I've never created something new. But neither have most people."
On his trademark enthusiasm on stage: "If I didn't have that, I probably would have drug problems. Like everybody, I've had tragedies in my life. Life is hard sometimes. But that's my release. That's my drug. All of a sudden, I'm a fish thrown back in the water. I don't have to worry about my children or my wife or my friends who are sick. At that moment when I get on stage, I get lost in the music. It sounds corny. But I pour it all in my music. Whether I'm sick, or I'm having a bad day, it doesn't matter. I just hop on that stage and I'm ready to go. I think to be a true rock and roller, either you are or you aren't. To be 44 and do it, you really have to have rock and roll in your heart. You can fake it when you're younger and you're doing it for the girlies. I'm not doing it for the girlies. I'm doing it because I have rock and roll in my heart."
On today's kids: "I think they're at a great disadvantage compared to the way we had it. When I was a teen-ager, back in the '60s and '70s, every football game, every basketball game, every sock hop had a live band. In [his hometown of] Brazil, there were maybe 5,000 people and probably 12 working bands. And everybody had a chance to play. Every Holiday Inn had a band. We didn't get paid much money, but there was always a chance to play for screaming kids. All the way through the '80s, there were lots of places to play. You had the bands in the upper echelon, who played the Vogue, then there were a million other places. You could make a living at it, no matter how bad you were. I've always made a living with my music, and I've been in some pretty cruddy bands. [laughs] I've made a living in music since I was 17 years old. There was room for terrible bands to get started and to get better. Bands today are no big deal. When I was a kid, I'd wait forever to see the Beatles come on the Ed Sullivan show, or you'd stay up to see the Midnight Special come on. It was just so exciting. Kids today don't get to play in front of lots of people. Back then, a loud guitar was enough to get you through the night."
On his future: "There was a time when I could sell half a million records. And I did with my first album. Now I'm lucky if I can sell 10,000. But when I'm 60, if I can sell 100 records, I'll still put out a record and I'll be playing at the VFW or whatever. I've always said that I would play music for free. And I did that for many years. If it goes full cycle and it's back to where I'm playing for free again, I'll still do it. There's nothing else I would do for leisure."
On his fans: "Usually, when your 15 minutes are over, your fans move on. A lot of my fans did, but a lot of them stayed. Selling 10,000 records is nothing compared to when I was national, but that's enough for me to make a living. We almost have the same kind of loyalty as the country-western bands do. They're great people. I'm to the point now where I know most of my crowd, because I've seen them at shows for so many years. And if it happens once, it happens a thousand times: People come up to me and say, 'Don't stop playing.' And I know why. When I'm playing, they become 25 years old too. And if I stopped, then they'd lose their escape. I figure that the minute I quit playing, that's when they slip into their stay-at-home-forever mode. So I'm not going to stop."