Billy Terrell

Date: June 28, 2021
Interviewee: Billy Terrell
Interviewer: Gillian Demetriou
Transcriber: Rev.com
Editor: Gillian Demetriou
Location: Zoom Meeting

Gillian Demetriou:

All good?

Billy Terrell:

Okay.

Gillian Demetriou:

Cool. Hello, my name is Gillian Demetriou, and I’m a research assistant with Paradoxical Paradise, an African-American Oral History and Mapping Project of Asbury Park. Today is June 28th, 2021, and I’m here with Billy Terrell. He has agreed to be interviewed for the oral history portion of this project. Today’s interview is really going to focus on Billy’s experience with Asbury Park, New Jersey. We encourage people interested in his story to seek out his oral history archived with Rutgers University, and his VetChat interview with the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans Memorial Foundation, which is available on their social media and YouTube. And lastly, his autobiography entitled, The Other Side of Rock and War, one man’s battle to save his life, his career, his country, and the orphans. This… Excuse me. This interview is being recorded with the permission of both parties. Thank you very much for joining me today, Billy.

Billy Terrell:

Thank you.

Gillian Demetriou:

So easy questions first. When and where were you born?

Billy Terrell:

Born in Newark, New Jersey, November 14th, 1944.

Gillian Demetriou:

And who else was in your family?

Billy Terrell:

Well, I was the oldest of five. I had a brother, 15 months younger. A sister born in 1947, another brother born in ’53, and then my kid sister Pat was born in 1960.

Gillian Demetriou:

And you lived with both your parents?

Billy Terrell:

Yes.

Gillian Demetriou:

And where are your ancestors from?

Billy Terrell:

My grandfather on my father’s side was from Salerno, Italy. My grandmother, she was born in Newark, New Jersey, but her father was from Northern Italy and her mother was from the French Riviera. And my mother’s father, his family was from Germany, he was born in New York in the 1890s, early 1890s, I guess. And my grandmother on my mother’s side, she was Scottish and Irish, also born in New Jersey.

Gillian Demetriou:

Very cool. So can you just describe your childhood a little bit for me? What was it like growing up in Newark?

Billy Terrell:

Well, we lived in Newark. We lived in Newark until 1950 and then my father built a home in Bellville, New Jersey. When his construction business took off, he got a really large contract to build units in this community. And we were doing really well until about 1952, the end of ’51; ’52 things went bad and he sold the house. I always thought he lost it, but he did sell it, the business went out and we moved to the Jersey Shore. Childhood was challenging, my mother unfortunately had a lot of emotional problems and alcohol problems, and it created a lot of turmoil. And my father, after doing quite a bit of research for my book, I finally put the pieces together that my father was pretty much demoralized, but the saving grace was they stayed together right to the end, and at least we had people there.

But growing up, then we moved in ’52, we moved down to the shore. I stayed with my grandmother in Newark, New Jersey to finish out the school year. And I joined the family in the summer of ’52 living temporarily at the Princess Hotel in Asbury Park, which is no longer there. And then from there we bounced around between Bradley Beach, Belmar, and all through the 1950s from ’52 right to the early ’60s, we moved probably twice a year, we were evicted a number of times, it was very difficult.

Gillian Demetriou:

So when did you end up, if you did, when did you end up like settling down in Asbury Park?

Billy Terrell:

Well, we were in and around Asbury Park, [inaudible 00:05:35] Belmar, we lived in Belmar all different streets in Belmar, from ’52 to 1960. But I mean, Asbury Park was a big part of what was going on, and so I was there quite a bit. Especially, I worked in Asbury Park, and when I was 16 I had to leave school and help support the family. So I left school after the 9th grade, and I wound up initially working at Howard Johnson’s restaurant, on the boardwalk, when that opened in ’62. And then in 1963, I worked at the Empress Motel, which was a really high end hotel that’d opened, and I was offered a job there because there was a hard worker. And I worked there for several months in Asbury Park.

Gillian Demetriou:

In ’63?

Billy Terrell:

Yeah, 1963. And I got intrigued by the music business, which I always was because my father was a big band singer before the war, World War II. He came out and he couldn’t put the band he wanted back together, and he decided to get married. But music was always calling me, I played very good piano when I was only seven years old. And so Asbury Park was a big part of it because working at the Howard Johnson’s right next to the convention hall, where all the big shows were, I got to meet a lot of interesting performers that came to play in town. And I was really intrigued by it, and I started to play guitar and all that. And then when I went to the Empress, I worked 14 hours a day and I only had one day off a month. I was working very hard because we were, were five kids, a mother, and father in a one bedroom apartment, Bradley Beach, and it was very, very difficult.

But the band used to like to get me up on Saturday nights, to tell a few jokes and sit in and sing some songs. And as luck would have it there was a big rock and roll show in town. I think it was around late May, early June of ’63. With Clay Cole, who was the television show host in New York, who had a American Dance Stand, type dance show. He was hosting and Gene Pitney, who was a big star at the time, was performing. Clyde McPhatter, who was big, and Paul and Paula. And they were staying at the Empress and as luck would have it I got up and they were in the hotel lounge after their show, and they caught me singing with the band. And they invited me to their table, and they also invited me to New York. They said, “You have talent, come to New York.” And they introduced me to a fellow named Vic Catala, who became my first manager. I signed that contract on July 16th, 1963, and I’ve been in the business ever since. Thanks to Asbury Park.

Gillian Demetriou:

Yeah, definitely. That’s so cool.

Billy Terrell:

Yeah.

Gillian Demetriou:

So just backtracking a little bit.

Billy Terrell:

Sure.

Gillian Demetriou:

So what do you remember about Asbury Park from that early time in your life?

Billy Terrell:

Well, the Asbury Park in the early ’60s was just booming, every corner had a nightclub. Just about every corner, and there were hotels. There were great hotels that aren’t there anymore. I mean, the Albion Hotel was marvelous and they had the Rainbow Room, and big shows used to come in. We had the African Room, we had Mrs. Jay’s, which is now The Stone Pony, which is very famous. But I played it when it was Mrs. Jay’s. Then we had the Lincoln Hotel, we had the Candycane Lounge. We had the African Room, and the Pillow Talk, and the Sunshine Inn, and it was just endless. And the restaurants were marvelous.

And this is all before 1970, when the race riots started, July 4th of 1970. Prior to that it was a marvelous city of great restaurants and great boardwalk, and great nightclubs, and I made the best of it. I started playing the guitar and hosting shows at the clubs to make extra money because I was working as a bus boy, room service waiter, and dishwasher, not making a lot at Howard Johnson’s. I made much more at the Empress, but I was also working the strip, playing the guitar, and it was a very exciting time.

Gillian Demetriou:

And do you remember any particular stores you would go to? Maybe like on Cookman? [crosstalk 00:11:08].

Billy Terrell:

Oh, absolutely. Well Newberry’s and Woolworth’s were the big ones, and then we had J. David’s men’s store and I would go there to buy shirts. I couldn’t afford most of their stuff, but I would buy shirts. Yeah, J. David’,s then of course Newberry’s, Cookman. And then there was a Lerner’s shop there, that was mostly women’s clothes; I knew people that shopped there. And then there was a drug store with a soda fountain and everything, I forget the name of the drug… might’ve been Rexell, but there was a drug store there, right… I forget the cross street now but there was. But after school that was a big hangout because it had a counter for the ice cream sodas, a typical ’50s, early ’60s setting.

And the interesting thing about Cookman Avenue in 1962, it was like American Graffiti because these teenagers and carloads of kids used to circle Cookman Avenue up to Asbury Avenue, come around, they used to circle around all night, make the circle. And it was interesting when American Graffiti the movie came out because that was so much like Cookman Avenue in 1962.

Gillian Demetriou:

And did you ever spend any time, like on the other side of the tracks, like by Springwood Avenue?

Billy Terrell:

Oh, yes absolutely.

Gillian Demetriou:

Can you tell me about that?

Billy Terrell:

Well, yes because when I got back from Vietnam, I was drafted in 1965… when they were basically, according to what I heard afterwards, they were mainly drafting poor people, poor whites, blacks, and Hispanics. And I was very disappointed to read a few years ago in Vietnam Veterans Magazine that the first one hundred thousand draftees… we were considered “McNamara’s hundred thousand morons,” the Secretary of Defense- because President Johnson made it clear to the Secretary of Defense early on to stay away from the middle-class kids because those are the parents that vote. So, even in Belmar growing up poor, I was at the level, unfortunately, of a lot of the black kids, and related very, very well to them as they related to me. So in Asbury Park, when I came back from the war, it was very difficult in 1967 to find my way in the music again because the music changed so drastically. And as luck would have it I teamed up with Ray Dahrouge, who I knew in school, who was a very good songwriter as well, and we decided to focus on R&B music.

And so most of the people we worked with were from the west side of the tracks. And we signed… we had a lot of the artists, black artists from the west side, and we frequented the clubs like Big Bill’s and the Redwood Inn. And we had a very good working relationship with a lot of the black artists because we wrote very, very good R&B songs. And we were very successful R&B writers. So I had a lot of contact with the west side, and yeah up until 1970 when the riots came, and that was tragic to say the least.

Gillian Demetriou:

Yeah, definitely. And while you were growing up, like while you were in school, what was your schooling like?

Billy Terrell:

Very difficult.

Gillian Demetriou:

How’s that?

Billy Terrell:

Because bullying was unlike today, wasn’t in check, and being as poor as we were… grammar school was a little bit different, but my only year in high school, my first year in the ninth grade, in Manasquan High School- we had a choice, in Belmar, we didn’t have a high school, so you had a choice. You could either go to Asbury Park, or you could go to Manasquan. And the reason I chose Manasquan is because a couple of the people that I was very friendly with had chosen Manasquan and I went there. But it was more upscale, and the kids from better families, not only were they snobs but they were bullies. And they really looked down on the poor kids, especially people like me and some of the black boys were really looked down on miserably.

And so that was a very, very tough year. It was a real tough year because I didn’t have… my clothes weren’t very good, I didn’t have a lot to eat. And fortunately my black friends from Belmar that went to Manasquan, lucky me because they used to stand up for me. It was a whole different attitude back then, we related to one another very well, fortunately for me.

Gillian Demetriou:

That’s great that you had like a group to…

Billy Terrell:

Oh, yeah.

Gillian Demetriou:

Even if that, it sounds like an awful just environment to…

Billy Terrell:

It was a terrible environment, and the school didn’t do anything about it. And we had parents, but it wasn’t like they weren’t there. And my teeth went bad, they didn’t get us toothbrushes. And my teeth went bad. I was the one in the family that lost the teeth. And unfortunately in the summer, the week before summer break from the seventh grade, one of my front teeth broke off and I had to have the four front teeth extracted, and we couldn’t do anything about it. So it was so difficult for me because I went to the eighth grade, graduated grammar school, and then did one whole year of high school with no four front teeth.

Gillian Demetriou:

Oh, no.

Billy Terrell:

And if anybody wants to know about bullying or prejudice or… Talk to me, I wrote the book folks. It was horrible, and what was really horrible at Manasquan was the school colors were blue and gray, and I only had two pairs of worn out pants, and that was green, and black. So I started to go to school, on every Friday was dress up day. And the thing was people wore school colors, and because I didn’t have any colors, I used to get slapped in the head all the time. “You’re not with the school, what’s the matter with you?” They would throw me in the… we had one class that we had to cross a little bridge over a creek, and several days I just got thrown in the creek, you know?

So I stopped going to school on Fridays. And the guidance counselor called me in after about a month, maybe a little more than a month, and said, “How old are you?” And I said, “I’m 15.” And he said, “You’re not supposed to be working. You can’t get working papers till you’re 16.” And I said, “Well, I’m not working.” “Well then what are you doing on Fridays? You’re not coming to school on Fridays.” I said, “Well, to be honest, Friday is dress up day. Your colors are blue and gray, I only have two pair of pants, black and green.” Of course later, I used to do the joke in my comedy show that on dress up day I either had to go to Ireland or North Vietnam, but I didn’t know the joke then.

So I told them, I said, “Look, I’m getting roughed up. Nobody’s doing anything about it. And it’s pointless to go to school on Friday, I’m being thrown in the water.” And he said, “Well, what’s going on in the home?” I said, “Nobody’s doing anything about it.” He says, “Well, we’re going to have to talk to the teachers there, but you’re going to have to show up.” And I said, “Well, if you can keep me safe, I’ll show up.” And so it was really, really nasty.

Gillian Demetriou:

And you just went for ninth grade, and then?

Billy Terrell:

Well, I started… We moved again in 1960, we moved right after the, right after I finished that. Yeah, I finished the ninth grade and then we moved to Shark River Hills and I entered the second grade of high school in Neptune because that was the high school close by. I entered up in the school in Neptune, and I was 15 going to be 16 in November. And it was worse than Manasquan, the kids there were brutal. I mean, really brutal and I forget the class, but we all did field and games, I forget the name, it’s many years now, it’s 59.

Gillian Demetriou:

I get what you’re saying. I get it.

Billy Terrell:

You know what I mean?

Gillian Demetriou:

Yeah [crosstalk 00:22:45].

Billy Terrell:

We had to put the gym clothes on, and I only had the ones from Manasquan, and Manasquan and Neptune were heavy rivals, every basketball game ended in a big brawl. So I don’t know, I run out with the only clothes I had, and oh my goodness, I was dragged by the hair in the shower, thrown in there with the books and everything, they turned the water on, and I went down to the principal’s office, soaking wet. And he said, “What in the world happened to you?” I just, “I’m sure you can figure it out. I didn’t jump in there by myself.” So unfortunately, and the family was doing so poorly when it got to be November, I turned 16 and I went down to the office and said, “I got to leave. I got to go to work. And plus, I’m never going to survive here with this kind of bullying. And you folks are obviously not interested in getting involved, so I’m out of here.” And that was it.

Gillian Demetriou:

So then you started working at Howard Johnson’s.

Billy Terrell:

Well, the first year I did anything I could to earn money. Because mind you I was 16, but I had no front teeth, so every place I applied wouldn’t hire me. I went to every business in Bradley, went to Asbury Park, to every movie theater to be an usher, and everyone had an excuse why they couldn’t hire me. The Mayfair Theater said they couldn’t hire me because they didn’t have a jacket that would fit me. So I learned a lot about discrimination at a young age. And so I wound up just doing any jobs I could get, raking leaves, shoveling snow. I would knock on doors and say, “If you have any dirty work, if you have any attic work, or cellars to clean out…” And I was just doing anything to make small amounts of money, to put a little extra food on the table.

And then my aunt Laura in 1961, I was thinking about going back to school, trying, and I’m saying, “Where am I going without an education?” And my aunt Laura brought me up to Newark, New Jersey to stay with my grandmother, and paid to fix my teeth. And the day before my 17th birthday, all the work was done. And I moved back down to Bradley beach, and that’s when I applied for the job at Howard Johnson’s in Asbury Park, February of ’62. They just opened and they hired me on the spot. And you know I look back and I was so happy to have that job, I mean I worked very, very hard, but I was just so happy to be. It felt so good just to be accepted. It was a great learning experience to say the least.

Gillian Demetriou:

Good. And so what did you do at Howard Johnson’s? I think we talked about it, you mentioned it a little bit before, but just-

Billy Terrell:

I washed dishes initially, and then certain days they would, I’d be working the floor as a bus boy, cleaning the tables for the waitresses. And that’s how I got to meet so many interesting people, which inspired me to go toward entertainment.

Gillian Demetriou:

When did you start playing guitar? You started playing guitar first or piano?

Billy Terrell:

Well, I played piano when I was seven. We lived next door to a piano teacher, and we didn’t have anything, our lights were off a lot. But the piano teacher next door saw something in me, and came to my parents and said, “Forget the money. I think that I want to teach this boy.” And I picked it up right away. Unfortunately, when we moved away they never took me back. So in 1962, going into ’63, I bought a $40 guitar and a $1.99 chord book and I started to teach myself to play guitar. And then when I came back from the war, I taught myself to play piano again because I had to write songs, more sophisticated songs and R&B songs, so I got familiar with the piano again.

Gillian Demetriou:

Very cool. I just need to see where I am in my questioning.

Billy Terrell:

Sure.

Gillian Demetriou:

So after Howard Johnson’s, you were at Howard Johnson’s for like a year?

Billy Terrell:

Yeah, it was from February of ’62 to… Yeah, more than a year. Yeah, I think it was around early May of ’63. And that’s when the bell captain from the Empress Motel… The bell captain at the Empress Motel down the street was dating one of the waitresses, and he used to come in on his break and sit at the counter and have coffee and talk to Jane. Then one day he called me, I was really working hard, and one day he called me over to the counter and he said to me, “You know, I’ve been watching you. And you really are a hard worker.” He said, “How would you like it if I talk to the Empress and help get you a job there where you can make some really good money?” I said, “I would appreciate that.”

So as luck would have, and I was hired at the Empress. And I volunteered for every shift, I bused tables in the morning, I stayed around and did room service at lunch, then I would go home around 1:30 or two o’clock for about three hours. And I would play my guitar, you know practice my guitar. Then off, we’d go back to the Empress around 4:30 or five o’clock. I would bus tables for dinner, and then I would hang around and do room service until about 11 o’clock, 12 o’clock at night.

And believe it or not, I made more money on a Sunday afternoon then I made all week. Which is an interesting story because on Sundays in the summer of ’63 big gamblers would come from all over the country, gangsters and high rollers. And the third floor of the Empress down toward the south of the building, looking over the ocean, they used to open up the doors between the two rooms, and each room had a big round table in it. And that’s where the tens of thousands of dollars were gambled on card games. And as my luck would have it, the bell captain said to me, “The only person they want to go up there to bring drinks and food, they only want you, they don’t want anybody else going up there. They said they trust you, that you won’t sell them out that these are illegal gambling games.” So as luck would have it, I would make more money on a Sunday running sandwiches and drinks up there than I made all week, which was a saving grace. Some characters I’ll tell you that.

Gillian Demetriou:

Got to meet some interesting people.

Billy Terrell:

Oh, yeah.

Gillian Demetriou:

And so it was at the Empress that you would perform a little bit with the band and stuff?

Billy Terrell:

Yes.

Gillian Demetriou:

Can you tell me about that?

Billy Terrell:

Well, I was always a jokester and I got to know everybody there. And initially, the band called me up to do a couple of jokes because we had a lot of weddings there, and there were bridal suites. And I used to do these really funny jokes about bringing food to these bridal suites and the craziness of answering the door with the chain on it. The door would be open a little bit and some of these people would be behind the door, and they would either have nothing on, or they’d have very little on, and I used to do the joke because right there was a mirror, right on the inside.

Gillian Demetriou:

And you can see?

Billy Terrell:

And I could see, and I’m saying… they had to see themselves on the mirror. I used to do these jokes about delivering oysters, nothing nasty of course because, wouldn’t get away with it then anyway. But it was just very funny jokes. And one night they said, “Give us a song.” And I says, “All right, make it Pennies from Heaven.” And I sang Pennies from Heaven, and after I sang that one song several, several Saturdays after that, they would say, “Come on, tell Billy to come down here and sing a couple of songs.” And I was singing a few songs, Walking My Baby Back Home, Pennies from Heaven, and a Lot of Living to Do from Bye-Bye Birdie, and that’s the song that got me signed. That’s the song that I sang that intrigued… because it was a big show at the time. And I was a big Bobby Rydell fan, and when I did a Lot of Living to Do, that’s the one that caught the attention of Clay Cole, and the rest is history on that.

Gillian Demetriou:

And what record company did you sign with? Is that what happened?

Billy Terrell:

Well, initially it did not. I went into Variety Recording and they wanted to hear how I sounded on record, they had an existing music track of a song called Travelin’ Man, which was a big record for Ricky Nelson. I was a Rick Nelson fan, as I was Frank Avalon, Bobby Rydell. And my manager at the time took me into Variety, and I sang Travelin’ Man to that track and they made an acetate record for me with my vocal and just the instrumental track that I used to go around to record hops and sing with. And they took me to the New York Institute of Photography where I posed for free for the students and I got marvelous head shots. So he walked around, we had a song called The Puppet that was supposed to be a new dance, and they thought that I was going to be the guy that would introduce that new dance song, but we didn’t get signed because the label said, “You know, he really needs to write his own songs [inaudible 00:35:04]…”

PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:35:04]

Billy Terrell:

The label said, he really needs to write his own songs, he’s a unique guy. Vic got busy with other artists, so we just went our separate ways and then I started writing. After a couple of years, I finally got signed to Kama Sutra Productions as a writer artist. My first song was recorded by the Duprees in 1965. I was pretty much on my way. They took me into Allegro Studios and I recorded a song that I co-wrote called Do It My Way. And I was pretty much ready to go.

They were starting a label at that point, Kama Sutra Records and the first three artists were The Lovin’ Spoonful with a song called Do You Believe In Magic, which became a huge hit. They had a group called The Hassles, Billy Joel was the keyboard player; and they had Billy Terrell. They said to MGM, these guys are the next force in the music business. We think Billy Terrell’s the next Phil Spector, which I do a joke, even in my show, where I say, I’m glad they were wrong on that one. He turned out to be a bad fella. So everything was going good and then the draft hit and I went into the army and went to Vietnam.

Gillian Demetriou:

Before we get into Vietnam, I missed a couple questions. Well, a little before, we’ll backtrack. So growing up in Asbury were things still segregated almost?

Billy Terrell:

Well in, let’s say before ’70, near and the sixties, in the early sixties, it didn’t have that feel. I mean, the west side was the west side. And there was enough going on on the west side. They had the Orchid Lounge, they had Big Bill’s, they had the Redwood Inn, and there were a couple of other clubs in there. I guess it was segregated, but it didn’t have the feel of it. The black folks that were working in the hotels toward the boardwalk and everything, but looking back objectively, by nature, we were two cultures and we had our culture and when it got together, it really wasn’t that big of a problem. But we really didn’t have much to do with one another. And we really didn’t think about it. And there were some great, great characters, especially the pool players and the black fella that had the shoeshine place, that he was basically bookie, taking bets, at a shine shoes, [inaudible 00:38:29] as a legitimate business, but he was really a bookie, and I set up marvelous conversations with him.

Gillian Demetriou:

And you said, when you were working at Howard Johnson’s, since it was right next to the convention hall, you got to meet a lot of people. Did you see any shows?

Billy Terrell:

I didn’t have time to see the shows. No, I didn’t. But the Chubby Checker, Dee Dee Sharp, the Dovells, and the Orlons were on one show, which was great. They all came in to Howard Johnson’s. And then, Victor Borge, who has a comedian piano player, very famous at the time, he was there, he came in. Jerry Vale, who was a big Italian singer, who was very big at that time, and he came in and it was quite interesting. There were a lot of big shows, there were a lot of big wrestling and boxing matches there too. So, it was humming. It was humming and up to about ’65, when I went in the army, and then it started to change. But even when I came out, the hotels were still there. It didn’t really fall until ’70.

Gillian Demetriou:

Besides Vietnam, do you remember any particular historical events or historical movements growing up that affected you personally? Did I word that properly? Does that make sense?

Billy Terrell:

Yeah, you did. Well before ‘Nam, I’d say, the drug thing really bothered me. Of course, it didn’t really lay in, it didn’t really take hold until I came back from the war. But, as far as Asbury goes, as far as historical events, well, of course, the assassination of President Kennedy. That really changed everything. I remember that vividly, as most people do around then. That seemed to throw an obvious cloud over the whole shore, especially Asbury Park. The night that that happened, a lot of us went walking. We walked down to Asbury and it was all dark. Places were all shut, dark. It was really a very, very surreal time to be walking around Asbury Park and the uncertainty of what had happened.

It was a combination of the assassination, it was obvious that there was major change coming about, and then of course to add to that, by the end of ’63, popular music had gotten very stale. It was obvious that the Philadelphia sound, the dances and all that type of music, it had run its course and it was time for a change. And because of the social change that was taking place due to the Kennedy assassination, the assassination was so difficult to take in because most people realized that there was something really, this was not one, not on top of the building that did this. It just didn’t make any sense. I think that, in my opinion, I think that that assassination is what really affected young people and started the real losing confidence in the government.

I saw it growing at that point. And then you take into consideration that, it was a three-step process. I’ll try not to ramble. I’ll try to be very specific. No, no. It was a three step process. It was the Kennedy assassination, the arrival of the Beatles, and then the escalation in Southeast Asia. Prior to that, which I don’t know why, I don’t remember the Cuban missile crisis that vividly, but I really talked- we were knocking on hell’s door. We almost went to nuclear war, but for some reason, I guess, because in ’61, ’62, my head was not in the right place. But anyway, when you look at the Kennedy assassination, it kind of threw a big cloud and all of a sudden you lost confidence. You lost confidence. Well, how could that happen, so blatantly?

When you’re sitting there a few days later and you see Oswald shot by a guy, how in the world did the guy get down there to silence this guy? So, that was the beginning of the slide in the confidence. Now you take into consideration that the music by the end of ’63, it really had run its course. And all of a sudden, the Beatles come out of nowhere. This whole changeover. And then the long hair came in and then the British invasion came in with all those marvelous songs, and then the Stones acting crazy, and the Animals and all this, so there was a major, major, social change that the music pushed. And even me, I got involved with another guy, we called ourselves the Jersey Beatles. It was the dumbest thing in the world, but we were like big favorites. It was the craziest thing in the world.

So to move on from that, all of a sudden, the Beatles, between eventually advocating drug use, then John Lennon makes a stupid statement, like, we’re more popular than Jesus, and gets everybody up in an uproar, and they were burning the records. So, you felt the tension in society. You felt the tension really pulling from different angles. That was 1964, and now a year later, the British invasion, musically, is in full bloom and now you’ve got the escalation in Southeast Asia. Now you’re faced with the draft. You’re faced with another big thing you scratched your head on, because it didn’t seem to make much sense. It was step one, then the Beatles, and then the war escalating. Then as it got into late ’66, going into ’67, coming up on the summer of ’67, I got home the first week in June ’67, and it wasn’t like landing on another planet.

Because all of a sudden you’re wrapped up in what they call the summer of love. The open sexual attitude was taking hold and then the LSD was taken hold, and the drugs were taken hold. And then the final nail in the coffin was the Tet Offensive in 1968, because that did to Vietnam and to the trust of the youth, what the Kennedy assassination did. They were the book ends. The Kennedy assassination and the Tet Offensive were the book ends. The Beatles and the drugs were in the middle. It just culminated and it just went down from there. Asbury Park was a part of it. You had Long Branch and the long hair stuff and the psychedelic drug use, really, in addition to the marijuana and hashish, the psychedelic drugs really threw reality out the window.

Gillian Demetriou:

You started with Kama Sutra records in like ’64? ’65?

Billy Terrell:

’65. Yeah, ’65. I forgot something too. Why I forgot it, I don’t know. When the civil rights movement came, I mean, in ’64, ’65, the Watts riots and a lot of the riots, north New Jersey and Detroit and everything, that was another thing. All of a sudden that was taken hold, right in the middle of it. That widened the divide. That really widened the divide and put a lot of people at a point where we didn’t quite understand it. So anyway, Kama Sutra was, I signed with them, I think, the beginning of May of ’65, and I was only there a month and a half because the draft came. I got a lot done in a month and a half and I was pretty well on my way, but that all came to a screeching halt.

Gillian Demetriou:

Were you living in Asbury at the time, or were you living in New York?

Billy Terrell:

It was on the Asbury circle. I was actually living in an $11 a week motel. Not the Shore Motel, it was the Royal Motel. I used to say, don’t let the name fool you. I was putting up television antennas as a job and then I was writing at night. I finally got called to come to New York because a local group from the Asbury area called the Shannons, my former partner with the Jersey Beatles, which was short-lived, it’s so stupid. He was producing this girl group, the Shannons, and we had written a really good song called When. When the Monmouth Mall opened in the spring of 1965, up in Eatontown, the weekend they opened they had entertainment in the parking lot. They had vendors there and food, and they had Jay and the Americans, which were big at the time, and the Shangri-Las, who were very big at the time.

They were both Kama, Sutra artists. They had local groups on the show and one of the local groups was the Shannons. When they sang When, the promotion guys from Kama Sutra heard the song, heard the group, and they asked the group to come to New York to sing that song for Hy Mizrahi and Artie Ripp. They asked the girls, where’d you get that song? They said, our manager producer and our friend Billy Terrell, who lives in a motel in Asbury Park. They wrote this song. So they said, get us the number of the hotel where Billy is, we’d like to bring him to New York. They brought me to New York and they offered me a $50 a week job as a writer and that was the beginning of that.

Gillian Demetriou:

You had only been there like a month and then you got drafted?

Billy Terrell:

About a month and a half before the draft and then unfortunately my grandfather passed away in early July. I was supposed to report to the draft on July 8th, but my grandfather passed away and I was very close to my grandfather. I was so distraught that I went down to the draft board and told them, I says, my grandfather died. I’m just a mess. So they allowed me to report for the draft on August 5th, which I did after the funeral and after I had a couple of weeks to get myself together. Bless you.

Gillian Demetriou:

Thank you. Sorry. My allergies are acting up [crosstalk 00:53:46]

Billy Terrell:

Yeah, they’re tough this year. It’s tough this year.

Gillian Demetriou:

I’m so sorry.

Billy Terrell:

Not at all, not at all. It’s all right.

Gillian Demetriou:

So much pollen. So they pushed it back to August?

Billy Terrell:

August. August 5th.

Gillian Demetriou:

August 5th. Did you ever consider trying to evade the draft, as a lot of people did?

Billy Terrell:

No. Never. As a matter of fact, the record company tried everything to keep me from going. I went back to New York before I reported, they called me to New York to say goodbye, and they had one of the rooms that we used to write songs in, they had walled the lights out and they had a black light. These black lights back then were these blue lights that lit up everything white. Like you wouldn’t see me, but you’d see this shirt. They brought me in this room and they had a beatnik priest from Greenwich Village with a big gong and he was banging on the gong, talking in tongues, which I’ve had no idea what he was doing with that. There was a very flamboyant hairdresser back then called Monti Rock III. He was hairdresser to the stars and he was on Johnny Carson’s show once in a while, he was very flamboyant guy. He dabbled in music too. So they had Monti Rock III come up.

Monti Rock III had hair that went all the way to the floor and he had a ribbon in the back of it. They said, Billy, sit on the floor and cross your legs and arms, like I was in a teepee, and they had Monti Rock III stand over me and pull the ribbon out and his hair engulfed me. I was in Monti Rocks hair tent. And they said, you cannot go to the army and Vietnam. Your career is starting to take off. You’re going to ruin it. So I stood up and they said, this is what you’re going to do, and they handed me a brown bag with a dead fish in it and they handed me a pair of ladies panties and they said, now you’ve got to put these panties on and stick this dead fish in there when you go report. When you report for the army with ladies panties and a dead fish, there’s no way that they’re going to take you in the army.

So what I did is I turned the light on and I said, guys, I appreciate what you’re trying to do for me, but I have to tell you that my grandfather came here in 1902 with nothing, learned English, my grandmother taught him English. He worked very, very hard. He built a construction business, did the right thing for his family and it afforded me to be born in America. There’s no way I can turn my back on the country. Out of respect for my grandfather and my ancestors who came here and I’m benefiting by that. I owe the country my service, I’m going to do it and if I’m one of the lucky ones I’ll be back and if I’m not, I can deal with that. And I walked out. I would never [inaudible 00:57:29] but I could tell you that it was very, very discouraging back then because, and I felt so bad on that bus to New York, because it was obvious that we were the low ends.

Back in 1965, if you could afford to put your son in school, even if they were studying art or graphics, just because they were sitting in school, they didn’t get drafted. If you’re son married a girl across the street, even if he didn’t like her, and I know that that happened- the fathers took a couple of the sons, said marry the girl across the street. Doesn’t matter if you’re like her or love her, if you’re married you don’t even have to have children in ’65, if you’re married, you don’t get drafted. I actually heard one guy say, look, you can always get divorced once this thing’s over. But get married, because they’re not going to take you. Having that in the back of my mind, when I finally went to report to the draft board on Bangs Avenue in Asbury Park and they loaded the bus up with poor whites, a lot of black boys from the other side of the tracks, some Hispanics. It was a very hot day and I’m sitting on that bus it that smelled terrible.

And I’m saying, you know what? This is not World War II. I knew then, I said, no. I watched all the John Wayne films. I was aware of the troops coming home and all the flag waving and the ticker tapes and kissing the nurses. No. I knew then, I said, this is not that. Nope. But I never gave a second thought, I never even gave a first thought to beating it.

Gillian Demetriou:

How old were you when you were drafted?

Billy Terrell:

20.

Gillian Demetriou:

20? Did you have any prior knowledge of American involvement in Vietnam before?

Billy Terrell:

No, I didn’t. I really didn’t. My father hipped me to it about four or five months prior to that. My father mentioned to me, he said, you’re draft age and things aren’t looking too good. He said, “afraid you’re going to get drafted.” And I said, “well, so be it.” And it happened. I really didn’t know much about it. I wasn’t paying attention or anything like that. I was living in a motel, writing songs, I was putting up television antennas. Then when I signed with Kama Sutra, I was going up there and I was staying two, three days at a time. I would sleep on the couch and I’d wash up in the bathroom down the hall. I couldn’t afford to sleep anywhere. So I really wasn’t paying much attention to news or anything that was going on.

Gillian Demetriou:

And you served for a year?

Billy Terrell:

Little less than two years. I actually served 22 months. Because when I got back from Vietnam, I had 30 days leave owed to me, and I only had about 45 days left in the army. Plus I was in the hospital three times in Vietnam. So when I got to Fort Lewis, Washington, they just let me out of the army. There was no point of keeping me around.

Gillian Demetriou:

Were you able to adjust to military life?

Billy Terrell:

Very quickly. Very quickly. I did adjust to it because, I look back now, I can understand it better now, in retrospect, even though that’s 56 years ago now. But I think I adjusted to it because all of a sudden, and I noticed this with a lot of the other guys that were on the same low economic level that I was, all of a sudden we were part of something. We were worth something. We were proud of it.

Not to mention now we were getting three meals a day. We were getting plenty of exercise with all that training. But we were part of something and all of a sudden we didn’t feel like rejects. We felt more like we were patriotic. We were important. All of a sudden we felt a worth. That really helped us psychologically. So adjusting to the military life really wasn’t… Plus we had a lot of fun too. We were a lot of crazy guys and we did crazy things on our off hours, playing the guitar and I was always the jokester.

Gillian Demetriou:

Did you continue to write songs while you were in Vietnam?

Billy Terrell:

Yeah, a little bit. I wasn’t that good a writer at that time. I hadn’t come along. But I wrote a few songs and I’m very close to Jordan Klempner, who was a Lieutenant, who I played guitar with in Vietnam. We used to play and write in bunkers and Lieutenant Shear, who died unfortunately recently, I taught him to play the piano and we would play when we could. In the evening, we would play in the bunkers or the mess tent, played guitars. I did write some songs there. Not very good, but I wrote them.

Gillian Demetriou:

Were you able to see any USO shows?

Billy Terrell:

No. We were way up north. I didn’t get to see them. When I was in the hospital and not training, Martha Raye, who was a very famous comedian actress in the forties and fifties, Martha Raye was actually a commissioned army nurse. She was a Colonel. We referred to her as Colonel Maggie. She entertained us at the hospital. But I didn’t see any of the Bob Hope stuff.

A couple of really strange things was, a lot of acts used to go jump from base to base in these helicopters. On this one day, we were supplying an artillery battery in a pretty hot spot. We dropped in, helicopter dropped in with ammo and water and supplies. I said to Parham, the guy that went with me, I said, “I hear music. Where the devil is music?”

So we heard music from the trees and we went behind the trees and there were a lot of guys taking a break and there was a flatbed truck and on that truck where the guys that saying Little GTO, Little GTO. The actual band was out there playing their songs. They played four or five songs, and then they grabbed their stuff and they ran back, threw it in the helicopter, and they took off. That area could have been hit by artillery or a mortar round very easily. And I said, that is unbelievable. And they went from place to place. So there were crazy things like that.

Gillian Demetriou:

So where in Vietnam were you stationed?

Billy Terrell:

Initially, we went over on a ship called the USS Fork. We went over as a battalion. We embarked at Cam Ranh Bay, which was relatively safe in 1966. Company A stayed in Cam Ranh Bay. They broke up Company B, my company, and we went to Phan Rang, and we were in Phan Rang about four or five weeks. Then they decided to move us to Tuy Hoa, which was further up the coast, to establish a permanent base. We moved up there on a Navy ship, because highway one was too dangerous to travel in a convoy up there. We’d have caught quite a bit of flack at different areas and it wasn’t worth it.

So we established the base in Tuy Hoa in August of ’66 and for the rest of our tour we did operations from there. But I went to Quy Nohn, Nah Trang, Pleiku, Duc Pho, which was terrible. Duc Pho was really bad. But base camp in Tuy Hoa, which was pretty close to the coast. When they built the air base in Tuy Hoa, on certain weekends, we’d be able to go to the airbase cause they were close to the South China Sea. We would actually have barbecues out there which was really a treat.

Gillian Demetriou:

Oh, that’s nice.

Billy Terrell:

Yeah.

Gillian Demetriou:

And when were you finally discharged?

Billy Terrell:

I was discharged in the end of May of 1967. I left Vietnam on May 29th, but with the time change, I would imagine it was May 31st in Fort Lewis, Washington, we landed in Fort Lewis. We flew back and we landed in Fort Lewis and I was let out of the army that day.

Gillian Demetriou:

And you were 22, you would have been?

Billy Terrell:

I was 22. I turned 21 in ’65 and when I was in Vietnam, I turned 22 in November of ’66. So in 67, yeah, I was 22 when I got out.

Gillian Demetriou:

You got back in Washington state, so where did you go from there?

Billy Terrell:

Once I was discharged, I caught a red eye flight from Seattle to JFK in New York.

Gillian Demetriou:

And did you stay in New York or did you go back to Asbury?

Billy Terrell:

No, I took a taxi from the airport to Port Authority bus terminal. I took a bus over to Newark, New Jersey and then a taxi cab to my grandmother’s house. My parents didn’t have a found and they didn’t have a car.

Gillian Demetriou:

Yeah.

PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [01:10:04]

Billy Terrell:

They didn’t have a car. They didn’t even know I was back. I went to my grandmother’s first. My grandmother and my Aunt Laura and my Aunt Anita was there. They called a neighbor that lived … where my parents lived there was a neighbor they called. I guess they had that number in case they had to get in touch. So they called down there and let the neighbor know, and the neighbor went and said, “Billy’s home.” Then later that day my Aunt Laura and Aunt Anita drove me down to Wanamassa right outside of Asbury Park where my parents were living and I was home.

Gillian Demetriou:

So when you got back, you were living with your parents at the time?

Billy Terrell:

Yeah. Yeah, I stayed there. It was a small place. It was kind of another renegade place. Not really suitable for a family but we made do.

Gillian Demetriou:

Yeah. How did serving in Vietnam affect you, you personally and your worldview?

Billy Terrell:

Well, initially like most guys, you don’t realize how it affects you because you’re younger. You want to get back in the game. But over the years I had a lot of difficulties. It wasn’t until 2011 when I started getting sick. I was exposed to Agent Orange and a lot of those effects came in. I started with a heart procedure in 2005 when I was 60, just before I was 61. So I didn’t realize that post-traumatic … they never talked about post-traumatic stress disorder. When I came back, I was constantly going in the hospital and any loud noises would catch me off guard. I would just, sometimes I would actually black out for a couple of minutes and I would hit the ground. I would jump behind a tree. My nerves were shot so it really affected me. Then of course my parents, their health was seriously affected by my service, because I was in the hospital a few times and I almost died once and was actually given last rights, and no one knew where I was.

I was separated from my unit and it was about a week before the unit found out that I did wind up in a hospital in Nha Trang. For all intents and purposes I was missing so it was a real, it was terrible for my parents. When I came back and saw them … my father had a heart attack at 53 and he was disabled the rest of his life. When I came back, I blamed myself for several years for his heart attack. It took a long time to deal with that. Then what was the saving grace … even though all through the years with the loud noises and terrible, terrible nightmares, and I could never stand to hear babies cry. I used to go in the closet, close the door and put a pillow over my head because of the atrocities with the children of Vietnam getting caught up in it. That was a very, very difficult thing for me. So all of that together really made it difficult psychologically.

Gillian Demetriou:

Yeah. I can’t even imagine.

Billy Terrell:

It’s very, very difficult.

Gillian Demetriou:

How do you think the entire experience affected your world view, how you perceived things?

Billy Terrell:

Well, initially it was very divided points of view because the problem with Vietnam and Vietnam veterans were, we came home individually. We didn’t come home as units like in World War Two. Those companies when the war ended, they got on these ships and they came home by ship, but they came home all together and they had a little bit of time to decompress. They were together. They were elated that they survived. They were elated that they were coming back home and they were greeted with such adulation and respect. Well, Vietnam vets, we didn’t have it. We came home individually. We didn’t come home to a very … especially when it got to ’67 when I came home, and then even worse in ’68, ’69, to where they were being spit at. I mean, I was insulted, but I wasn’t spit at. So as far as a worldview goes, it was a distorted view because part of you, you know you did the right thing. You know you supported the country, but on the other hand you felt so disrespected that it took a little bit of the heart out of it. Why [inaudible 01:16:27]?

Then of course, once the Tet Offensive happened and the country turned against the war and then the college protests and all the terrible drugs, so I let my hair grow. I mean, I looked worse than Manson but I never mentioned anything about the war. I wouldn’t even acknowledge it. It was very difficult for me writing in New York in the late ’60s at the height of the anti-war movement. Because I’m in New York, I’m writing songs and I’m in the middle of these people that are lost. They’re lost. I made this point in the book, is that the thing that bothered me, I understood that there were core groups … and I understood it even better later, when I could think about it really objectively. But even then I understood that there were core groups that were doing these demonstrations and protests, that believed in what they were doing. I know that was their conviction. They were expressing an honest feeling that they did not like what was going on. They were honest about, they wanted to stop it. They didn’t believe in it. They didn’t believe in the numbers of casualties and everything. But what offended me was the vast majority that showed up at these demonstrations were just there smoking pot, acting like total maniacs, and they threw cold water on the whole thing. They really did.

I understand, in the middle of that in New York City, moving around and see these maniacs just … and I said to myself, “I don’t think these people even know what the devil it is they’re protesting.” I mean, if they really had a conviction then why would … I mean, these people were there to stop a war that was basically militarily unachievable. So it was a double-edged sword for me because I’m looking at the core group and I’m saying, “What they’re saying is, they don’t want any more senseless death and destruction,” but I’m looking at all these other people with the negativity toward Vietnam veterans. It is like, well, where are you? What’s going on with this? You’re obviously not there feeling the way the core group feels, that we really ought to stop this. We shouldn’t have any more body bags and yet, you’re over here throwing stones at veterans.

Gillian Demetriou:

Yeah, it was not your fault you’re there.

Billy Terrell:

It was hard for me. It was very, very difficult for me. I was embittered a long time until I joined a PTSD counseling group in 2011, then I started to sort things out. But I was very bitter for many, many years.

Gillian Demetriou:

Yeah. I just can’t even imagine. I’m really just sorry.

Billy Terrell:

Well, there was a lot to it. There was a lot, a lot involved, and you try to be as objective as you can, but there was just so much senseless drug use and so much senselessness. It kind of was a slap in the face because you felt you served, you did the right thing, put your life on the line, paid a heavy price of house and the family, and then you see this total disregard for civility. It really was disheartening.

Gillian Demetriou:

You had mentioned it a little before when you were talking about who was actually being drafted, but do you think you could talk about how you have seen Asbury Park be affected by the Vietnam war?

Billy Terrell:

Oh, very much so, because Asbury Park had a huge minority community, as we all know. There were a lot of people there like myself that were basically at the poverty level. So it was a lot of tears. I mean, the families, they had nowhere to go. I mean, they weren’t making much money. Nobody could put anybody in school, so we were like the targets. It wasn’t only Asbury Park, many communities across the country and of course the big cities with a big social divide. It was tragic that the government at that time was playing that kind of a game and it was really the beginning of the big divide. Then of course, civil rights and of course, as you got into 1968 and on top of President Kennedy, then you get Robert Kennedy assassinated. Then you get Martin Luther King assassinated, and that put the nail in it.

Gillian Demetriou:

How do you think Asbury Park was affected by the civil rights movement as a whole?

Billy Terrell:

Oh, as a whole it was seriously affected because … and this is the real tragic reality. When this movie came out, this film came out last year or the year before called Redemption and [Thrive 01:23:43].

Gillian Demetriou:

Yeah. I’ve seen it.

Billy Terrell:

What really offended me about that film was … I was there in 1970 when the riots came. I remember we were rocking at that time. We had several artists, black artists, a couple of groups. We were writing for The Moments and we were doing nice business bringing people from West Asbury to New York and recording them. We were writing R&B songs. We’re making a living as writers. So on July 3rd, 1970 I got in … now, I didn’t drive until I was 27. Ray Dahrouge, he was driving, he had a car and he used to drive me home. We would write. I rented a little office on Bangs Avenue and I never paid the rent, that’s another story, till they threw me out. Then we had an office down there that we wrote songs and then Ray would drive me to Wanamassa, to my mother’s house at night. So it was July 3rd, 1970 and it was a hot Sunday night, and Ray was driving me home. We were driving through West Asbury and I said to Ray, “Ray, I’ve never in my life seen so many out-of-state cars.” Across every street west of the tracks was lined. There wasn’t a parking spot on any street and they were all Southern license plates from Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama. You name it, hundreds and hundreds of cars lining the streets.

Then the next morning the riots started and they were tons of people walking up Cookman Avenue, just breaking windows, dragging stuff out. The thing that really offended me with that film was that the locals didn’t do it. The locals were so negatively affected, because I spoke to them. I spoke to a lot of locals at that time because I had the office there. They were saying, “What’s going on? They burned all the businesses.” See, because a lot of the businesses … granted, a lot of the businesses on Springwood Avenue were Italians and Jewish people. There were whites that had these delicatessens and these grocery stores. But they also helped the local people because they used to extend credit to them in the middle of any month until their checks came in. Because a lot of the people were on public assistance and the checks came in at a certain date. They kept the people alive. They did. All of a sudden all this conspiracy comes from out of town to make a point, but they had no regard for the damage they were doing to those lives by wiping the business, burning the homes, burning everything. I mean, it did no good whatsoever.

And it’s such a shame that that point has never been made, that this was not a local problem. They targeted it because it had a very poor black area. But up to that point, we didn’t think [inaudible 01:28:07] the people. We really didn’t have that much contact. We did because we were writing songs and we were working with black artists. But that was terrible. I got a little long-winded on that point and I apologize.

Gillian Demetriou:

No, no. I’ve never heard anything like that. That was amazing. Now, obviously not amazing but-

Billy Terrell:

Right. But it’s something that’s been totally overlooked that really … and the reality of it is, even in recent times, when you look at what happened with the Black Lives Matter and all this other thing, I mean, these are not locals. These people are being bused in from around the country and doing all this havoc. So it was the same thing in Asbury Park but it was completely overlooked and all the media was there and the major networks from New York were down in there, but they were never reporting. They weren’t focused on the fact that the people doing all this destruction were from other states. It was just to make a point and it did nobody any good and it ruined the city for decades. See, the other problem, the other thing that isn’t reported, is that the city government at that time was pretty corrupt. I won’t mention names, but there were several players in town that had the inside scoop that gambling was eventually going to come to New Jersey. So they figured within five years gambling would be in New Jersey and Asbury Park, they were hoping that Asbury Park would be the place because it was closer to New York …where they figured that was the quintessential spot for gambling. So after the riots and after everything was decimated, people left and property just rotted. So they sat on the property and just let it deteriorate.

They bought up the land cheap and they just let it deteriorate figuring once gambling comes in, it’s going to be a windfall selling that property to the big casino lawyers. So by 1976, the town wasn’t a worth a nickel and gambling goes to Atlantic City, and for the next several years Asbury Park was just sitting there as a blown up environment.

Gillian Demetriou:

Yeah. Were you still living there at the time?

Billy Terrell:

No. I was living in Belmar, but then in 1975 I had a big hit with Frankie Avalon. I was recording a lot in Philadelphia, the record label in New York had built a studio in Philly so I was working a lot, staying down at the Marriott in Philly, practically living there a couple of weeks a month. I still maintained a little place in Belmar but I was on the go. From working in Philadelphia recording, I met my second wife. So at that point I was with her. We got married in ’77 and I bought a house in Cherry Hill. I was in that marriage in Cherry Hill for 10 years.

Gillian Demetriou:

You guys have any kids?

Billy Terrell:

Never had biological children, no. My first wife actually in Asbury had a daughter and I had her daughter, but that marriage only lasted about nine months. I was still in heavy PTSD mode and I didn’t realize it. Then the second marriage, I had a stepdaughter that I raised for 10 years. With that marriage, unfortunately I never heard from them again. Sad, but you know how it goes.

Gillian Demetriou:

Yeah. So backtracking just a little bit, you had said before that the music scene had drastically changed while you were in Vietnam. Could you describe how it changed and how were you eventually able to re-acclimate yourself to that?

Billy Terrell:

Absolutely. Well, prior to going in the army, I was like a rock & roll writer. I was writing songs of three or four chords on the guitar. I had aspirations of being like a Ricky Nelson artist or Freddy Cannon, or one of these teen idol type guys. So going into Vietnam, because I wasn’t near a city or base camp, we were in remote based camps, I didn’t hear any music, except some guys had some records sent over. We had a little record player, but I really didn’t have much connection or knowledge of what was going on between 1966 and ’67 when the music really took a big leap. So when I got home I was very frustrated. First of all, I went back to New York in my uniform, naively figuring it’s only a couple of years, I’ll just go back up. But everybody turned against the war. They turned against us, and I was very discouraged because I couldn’t even get in to see them. It took about two weeks to get an appointment and I was so, so arrogantly rejected that it really made a terrible, terrible impact on me and pushed me into alcohol. I wasn’t a drinker up to that time.

So to get to the music, what had happened became very frustrating because I took a job at a collection agency. It didn’t make much money but I had to help out a little bit at home. They always had the radio on and 1967, I’m listening on one side of the dial. I’m listening to Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, Jefferson Airplane, and all these acid rock bands. Then on the other side of the dial, I’m listening to the Fifth Dimension. I’m listening to Dionne Warwick. I’m listening to The Vogues, I’m listening to these sophisticated Bacharach and David songs. So I felt my life was over. I says, “I don’t hear anything I can relate to creatively” and it drove me nuts. Then as luck would have it, Ray Dahrouge was playing the clubs and I used to go hang in the clubs. And Ray said, “Do you want to write?” I said, “Yeah, sure.” Then we decided … Ray was always a very good R&B writer and I picked it up and we started writing and I focused on black music.

For one year I was drunk and in ’68 I fixed that menagerie. I said, “This is not working,” and cleaned up. I started writing R&B. I really dedicated myself to getting better on the piano. I started writing R&B and then we had our first couple of hits and I straightened it out. But it was really frustrating being away from music two years and coming in and listening to stuff that I, wow, this is really not in my area. So fortunately I found it in black music.

Gillian Demetriou:

Yeah. I can only imagine, going away for two years and then coming back and hearing Jimi Hendrix doing his thing, I’d be like …

Billy Terrell:

Well, it was just so foreign. It was just so foreign, you just couldn’t get it with a mindset. You couldn’t get in that mindset, which was pretty interesting. But as I wrote in the book, the thing that turned it for me was … the radio was on in the collection agency and it was killing me to stay there. I had to get to New York. I knew I had to do it. One day Windy came on the radio by The Association; “who’s peeping down the streets of the city, calling the name that’s lighter than air.” And that song for whatever reason just energized me. I said, “I can do that. I know I can do that.” I went out to lunch and I was down at Flo’s Luncheonette in Asbury Park, right down the street from the bus, Greyhound … actually, it was a Greyhound bus stop, and something just got to me. I bought myself a one way ticket to New York. I started going around to the buildings and finding the publishers and I stuck with it. I’ve been doing that ever since. I never went back.

Gillian Demetriou:

What year was that, ’68?

Billy Terrell:

’67?

Gillian Demetriou:

’67?

Billy Terrell:

Yeah. That was ’67.

Gillian Demetriou:

And were you partners with Ray at the time or not yet?

Billy Terrell:

No. Well, we started to get involved in the fall of ’67 and then in ’68 we caught on.

Gillian Demetriou:

So you moved to New York for a little while? No?

Billy Terrell:

I never lived in New York.

Gillian Demetriou:

Never lived in New York.

Billy Terrell:

No, I always lived in Jersey. Except, I lived in Pennsylvania for a little while before my second wife and I were married.

Gillian Demetriou:

So you’ve obviously built a career and that started with your partnership with Ray?

Billy Terrell:

Yes. Well, it started … Yeah, it did. It started earlier, but my successful music was with Ray. We had the R&B hits and then we recorded as artists, which is a whole other story. As a matter of fact, in ’67 up to ’68, we used to go up to Monmouth College in the evening, and we would use the piano rooms to write songs. We hitchhiked up there a couple of times, and we were able to use the pianos at Monmouth College. We wrote a song called Ain’t Nothin’ Shakin’ up there that we recorded for Metromedia Records. As I told you, the letter that I wrote to the university from Vietnam is in the archives there.

Gillian Demetriou:

Yeah. I saw it. They had it listed on the library’s website and it was interesting.

Billy Terrell:

Yeah. It really worked out. A lot of students wrote to … I often wondered through the years since Vietnam, I often wondered if any of those students followed through or wrote to the soldiers after the war, or maybe got in touch with them after the war. I often wondered if any of them ever paired off.

Gillian Demetriou:

Yeah, maybe.

Billy Terrell:

Yeah, it’s possible.

Gillian Demetriou:

Long lost pen pals or something. Sorry, I’m trying to think of my next question, how to word it. So what else have you done? You’ve been living on the shore the entire time.

Billy Terrell:

Pretty much. I lived in Cherry Hill. Now I live in Delran. I’ve lived in South Jersey most of the time now over the last several years. I live in Delran, which is about 20 minutes out of Philly. I mean, I have a brother and sister there and I’m still very connected to the shore.

Gillian Demetriou:

Yeah. So you still have family there and obviously you’ve been back to Asbury Park since you lived in and around the area, right?

Billy Terrell:

Oh, yeah. I played there two weeks ago at McCloone’s Supper Club. I did my show there. I’ve got a lot going on down there. I’m helping bring entertainment. I’m hoping to bring New York venues in there to help the city.

Gillian Demetriou:

Could you elaborate on that? That sounds really interesting.

Billy Terrell:

Yeah. Well, I got involved … about two years ago I was invited to the Asbury Park Historical Society Award dinner. It was shortly after my book came out and I met Mayor Moor there. I felt compelled to give the mayor a copy of my book because so much of the book is about the shore area, because of growing up and everything. The mayor sent me an email, I mean, he was totally taken back by the book. He said, “what a life you’ve lived, this needs to be a film or a series.” So we became friendly. Then he introduced me to Sylvia, the president of the Chamber of Commerce. I had said to them … when this COVID thing really knocked everybody out, I said, “I think Asbury park is going to boom like crazy. I want to convince some New York venues to do annex in Asbury Park, new pop-ups.” So I brought Patsy’s Restaurant, which is a very famous restaurant on 56th street, New York, which was Sinatra’s favorite. It goes back to 1921.

Billy Terrell:

I was able to bring Patsy’s Restaurant into the Berkeley Carteret Hotel and that lasted for about three months. I’m also working with the Sackman group of the house …

PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [01:45:04]

Billy Terrell:

I’m also working with the Sackman group of- the House of Independents down on Cookman Avenue is a great venue. And I’m bringing the new Y Network in there to do pay per view programming from there. And I brought in a top rock agent out of Pennsylvania who books all the top rock acts, and we’re going to bring top entertainment on Cookman Avenue. And really get it going.

Gillian Demetriou:

That sounds awesome!

Billy Terrell:

Yeah. So I’m working with the chamber on different things. And I’m trying to lure other venues from New York because New York, they got a mountain to climb. With that violence and with tourism, with the 85% of the offices empty, they’re going to have a mountain to climb, to keep those businesses going because the people aren’t there. So I’m trying to convince a lot of good iconic places to open up these pop-ups in Asbury Park, because so many people are moving out of New York to the Jersey Shore. The audience is moving so why don’t you move? That’s what I’m telling them. We’ll see how it plays out.

Gillian Demetriou:

Well, I hope that works out for you. Honestly, I would much rather see a concert in Asbury Park than I would schlep to the city.

Billy Terrell:

Oh I’ll tell you that the House of Independents is going to have some great stuff. Definitely have some great stuff.

Gillian Demetriou:

And you said you started doing this before the pandemic hit?

Billy Terrell:

Actually, I had this idea- and which, I really believe this too- I’m not saying-  what saved Asbury Park was 9/11. I said then, and I said it before then, I said all through the eighties and nineties, when I reflected back on Asbury Park and how much it meant to me to start there. I said, you got to get the people there first. Businesses are not going to go. They’re not going to be able to justify investing if you don’t have the customers. And the property was so cheap that Madison Marquette came in and bought up a gang of the 10, then Sackman group bought a gang up and they started to build the condos along Lake. And they were doing okay with little condo units and people coming in. But when 9/11 hit, a lot of the people that work downtown Manhattan panicked, and they wanted to get out.

Plus an efficiency was $3,000 a month and you’re living in a closet. So what happened is a lot of people realized that it’s an easy train ride from Asbury Park, right into New York.

Gillian Demetriou:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Billy Terrell:

And now you’ve got all these marvelous condos being built on Lake Street… and there. And what had happened is that 9/11 basically jump-started the move to Asbury Park. And the more and more people came in, then restaurants started open up on Cookman. And then that’s what lured in iStar to take over that monstrosity that laid dead there, that they started to build. And they turned to put a couple of million bucks and you’ve got a big resort there. The Salvation Army building was converted into the Asbury Hotel, that’s another 400 bucks a night. The Berkeley was redone and now you’re in the middle of a Renaissance. That’s only going to get better.

And now with all of the violence in New York and was what COVID did to New York, driving everybody out, I think within five years Asbury Park is going to be a Mecca of conventions, entertainment, more and more hotels. And I think it’s just going to be incredible. And I’m at the forefront of talking to these New York establishments and saying, listen, get in the game, get in early. Because the people are there. And I’m hopeful that we can start bringing the Broadway style shows into the Paramount on the boardwalk. Because the Broadway audience is there. So I think Asbury has a tremendous future.

Gillian Demetriou:

Well, it sounds awesome and I really, really hope that all works out. That sounds amazing.

Billy Terrell:

Well, I believe it will because it’s well on its way. When you’re looking at $450 a night hotel rooms and they’re booked… And when you look at the Ocean Resort where the condos are selling from between a one and a half million to 3 million… And if you want to go up to the penthouse floor up there, you’re going to go 5 million- and they’re selling! In the first three months of 2021, the Ocean Resort sold $50 million worth of condos. So people are coming.

Gillian Demetriou:

That’s crazy. Oh my goodness. That’s a lot of money.

Billy Terrell:

A lot of money, but you got to take into consideration that when people come in and couldn’t afford that kind of money, they can also afford very expensive meals and they can also afford great expensive entertainment. And, the property values are through the roof. The tax base is strong, so everything is pointing in the right direction for Asbury.

Gillian Demetriou:

So obviously you’ve been in and around Asbury throughout all of this. So how have you seen Asbury change since you first arrived there?

Billy Terrell:

It was an up and down situation, at first, especially in the late fifties, I mean, it was the creme de la creme. I mean the Plaza Hotel, and great entertainment. As a matter of fact, a lot of black artists like Duke Ellington and Count Basie and these, these wonderful musicians cut their teeth on not only in west Philadelphia, but they cut their teeth at the Plaza Hotel, which was up near the ocean. And so a lot of that entertainment and a lot of great songwriters would vacation at the Berkeley.

So Berkeley Carteret used to be referred to as the Catskill’s South. It was the heavy Jewish trade and a lot of big composers, the Gershwins, Cole Porter, used to vacation in Asbury Park and it’s rumored that some big, big songs were written at the Berkeley Carteret, read by these writers of the great American songbook back in the day that were writing prolifically, and some of the songs were started and even written in Asbury Park. So that was a big thing. And then of course in the sixties, up to the late sixties, Asbury was rocking. I mean, that entertainment was king. Every corner. And then it went down after the riots obviously and it laid dormant. And, it was really like a bombed out town and allowed to stay that way.

And then in the nineties, I guess it was late nineties. These major groups got in there and they were able to buy up a lot of it very inexpensively and started to invest. And people started coming. Another generation at that point had come in, the generation working on Wall Street, working in lower Manhattan. And then the gay community played a big, big part in it because a lot of the gay community from New York would come in and take over those Victorian homes and refurbish those Victorian homes beautifully. And that helped up the property values. And then of course, Shep Pettibone, who was a big gay New York disc jockey, who played a lot on my records because I had a lot of success in the disco days. Referred to, I don’t know if I believe it or not, but I’m referred to as one of the pioneers of disco and I’m in books and in Europe, they refer to me as one of the pioneers. I don’t know how true that is. They can do it if they want.

But anyway, Shep came down and he was able to take over the Empress Hotel and he was able to get in there very affordably because the town was decimated and he opened the Paradise Club. And that was a big attraction for the gay crowd. And the gay and lesbian crowd from New York started barreling in there. And then eventually they allowed him to get the hotel going, because the business was there. So that was a big plus for the city and the taking over the Victorian homes and making the city. So as the developers built, condominiums and restaurants started coming to Cookman and the homes, in the streets, the closest to the ocean, these Victorian homes, started to look really great.

They were really coming back and there was a civility that started to take over. And that was a big part of it. And then of course, like I said, I don’t want to keep repeating myself, but when you look at the 9/11, and everybody just had to, it was a perfect spot. It was a perfect spot. Because you have the ocean, you had things happening, and nice condos coming in and you jump on the train. You don’t have to deal with those high rents in New York.

Gillian Demetriou:

Yeah, oh my gosh. They’re excruciating. I’m just thinking about it, it’s gross.

Billy Terrell:

Oh it’s unbelievable. Well, now it’s going the other way because people are jumping ship. That’s really sad. The violence is just unbelievable.

Gillian Demetriou:

Changing pace a little bit but, have you ever been back to Vietnam?

Billy Terrell:

Yes, I went back. I went back in 2013. While we were there, we saved 110 orphans and Catholic nuns when the Mang Lang orphanage in Phu Yen province was attacked and we were supporting the 101st Airborne and we went in and were able to win that fight. And, at the same time, move a lot of orphans into the Tuy Hoa area. They were crammed into a very dirty hospital outside of Tuy Hoa, all under one wing. And the children were literally piled up on each other. So we got involved and we raised money from collections, from units in the area.

And Lieutenant Shear wrote home to his parish in Chicago and they took up a collection enough for us to build an orphanage which is still in existence. Also in 2013, I had an opportunity to go back and film part of a documentary that PBS committed to. We haven’t been able to do it because it’s too much money, but we went back and I reunited with the nuns and four of my babies that were still with the nuns, three in wheelchairs and one in the mental ward. It was quite a rewarding trip back.

Gillian Demetriou:

Oh, that’s great. And what’s your favorite song that you’ve written?

Billy Terrell:

Well, it hasn’t come out yet. I remember this song called And I Can’t Wait. That I’m doing in my show now, that I revamped my show and I’m bringing the show back out, I’m in New York, on July 14th, so I have to try out theater.

Gillian Demetriou:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Billy Terrell:

And I think, I’ve had big ones. Rio de Janeiro was a classic and I wrote a lot of big R&B, but I was very influenced by Charles Aznavour who was a French artist and writer. And my favorite song is, And I Can’t Wait. It’s a remarkable song. As a matter of fact, if you care to, I could send you an MP3 file.

Gillian Demetriou:

Of course!

Billy Terrell:

I’ll email you, I’ll email you an MP3. And When the Good Guys Used to Win is a great song that we wrote [Inaudible 01:59:51] and I wrote that I recorded with Frankie Avalon in 1999. And it talks about the simplicity of television and music in the fifties, it’s really a good song. But And I Can’t Wait, just has that melody, that European, French type melody and the lyric is nailed. I mean, I’ve wrote a lot of songs, and a lot of them and a lot of my life a lot, but that one for some reason just feels, right. And I will make myself a note to send you that.

Gillian Demetriou:

Cool. I would love to hear it.

Billy Terrell:

I’m going to do it doll, I’ll do it- MP3 to Gillian!

Gillian Demetriou:

Thank you.

Billy Terrell:

Matter of fact I’m going to do, I’ll do it when we’re done.

Gillian Demetriou:

Very cool. And who’s been your favorite artists to work with? If you can pick one.

Billy Terrell:

It’s tough. It’s tough to narrow it to one. But Bobbie Eakes, who was on All My Children, she was a soap opera woman, but she was also Miss Georgia at one time. Very, very pretty woman, but a great singer. And the album I did with Bobbie Eakes is flawless. But I mean, I recorded Bobby Rydell who’s very good. David Clayton-Thomas from Blood, Sweat & Tears was an excellent artist. And yeah, the black artists, well, Debbie Taylor was wonderful. The Manhattans, The Moments who were from Asbury Park, they were great. And of course, Frankie Avalon, I’m endeared to Frankie Avalon because that was the breakthrough production. And we’ve been friends now 46 years. So it’s hard to narrow it to one but creatively, I’d say Bobby Eakes with that album, that was flawless album. And it was a great idea. It was my idea to have a woman singing songs that were made famous by men. And it was some Elvis stuff and Van Morrison, and then Del Shannon that was really, super album.

Gillian Demetriou:

And what’s your favorite song? That isn’t one that you’ve written?

Billy Terrell:

All the Way. All the Way written by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen, sung by Frank Sinatra, 1957. I do it in my show, I do a tribute to Sammy in my show and I sing All the Way.

Gillian Demetriou:

Good song. Love it. And is there anyone you would still like to get a chance to collaborate with that you haven’t already?

Billy Terrell:

Well, yeah. But some of them are gone now. Some are gone. Trying to think of who’s alive. My goodness. It’s a tough one because a lot of the people that I would love to work with are gone. But I mean, Larry Carlton was great to work with, a great guitar player, jazz guy. He was great. Probably would love to record. Sorry about that. It’s such a tough one. It’s so broad, wow.

Gillian Demetriou:

You’re stumped. It’s okay.

Billy Terrell:

I’m really stumped because, most of the names that come, they’re gone, they’re not even around anymore. I would love to have worked with Charles Aznavour. Oh, he would have related to me, as a producer, and of course Helen Reddy was, I’d have to say, you know what, put Helen Reddy at the top of the list. Yeah Helen Reddy was the top. She was incredible. She gave me 12 finished performances in three hours, unheard of. I did her only Christmas album.

Gillian Demetriou:

Yeah. I read that.

Billy Terrell:

Helen Reddy was the top, top of the heap. Definitely. She really was.

Billy Terrell:

And I asked you sort of this question before, but I’m going to ask it again, in just a little different context. So, obviously you’ve lived through a lot of historical events and before I had asked you which one you thought affect your childhood and growing up. So kind of, how after your childhood and besides Vietnam, because obviously that was a very big, very big.

Gillian Demetriou:

Does that make sense?

Billy Terrell:

Yes.

Gillian Demetriou:

Okay.

Billy Terrell:

So are we looking for one that affected the childhood?

Gillian Demetriou:

Well, you’ve talked about it. You said the Kennedy assassination and…

Billy Terrell:

There was one earlier…

Gillian Demetriou:

Go ahead, whatever you want to talk about.

Billy Terrell:

Well, think it was 1951 or two, the first time they televised an atomic bomb test. It was in April, I believe of ’52. And we were visiting relatives that had a small television and TV was on. Nobody was watching it, but I was over by the TV and it was the first time they televised an atomic bomb test. And when I saw that bomb go off, few days later, my mother said to my brother, “Richie, where’s Billy?” And he said, he’s behind the couch. And I was behind the couch with one of my sister’s dolls sitting in the corner. I was severely affected by that bomb when it went off. It freaked me out and I was hiding behind the couch. It was quite a while I was severely affected. And as far as the other events, like I explained with Kennedy and everything like that. And then later on, well, the end of the Vietnam war, that was huge because I was totally distraught that day.

I remember they called it quits, I think it was April 15th, 1975. And I remember that day that they pulled out after all that death and destruction. And I remember taking my uniform, all my ribbons, anything that I brought home, I put in a garbage bag, anything related my Army or Vietnam, and put in a garbage bag and put it on the curb. And for a couple of weeks I was really, really down. I just said all that, all that to cut and run? How- all I can think of though, were the 58,479 guys, not as lucky as me. And I suffered. I realized …a lot of my emotional problems were basically survivor’s guilt.

That was a big part of it. The survivor’s guilt was really, really tough, because see it was still ongoing. See the war was over for me, but it wasn’t over. So I found myself many times- and I stayed away from the news, but if I happened to stumble on the news and heard the casualties going on or saw a scene on television that looked very familiar to me, it would really freak me out. It would really put me in a bummed state, because it was still going on and I’m home. And I got people there- it’s a very helpless, it’s a very helpless feeling. So that was a major part of it. A lot of layers, of a lot of dimensions to these emotions.

Gillian Demetriou:

Yeah totally. Well, that’s the end of my written questions for the interview. Is there anything else that we didn’t talk about that you want to discuss?

Billy Terrell:

No, I think that’s pretty much it except, I’m enjoying, continuing to support the orphans. I’m still close with a lot of people, and I feel good about having and I felt really well when my story got out there. A woman found me on Facebook and contacted me. Her name is Joy Wimmer. She was born in 19- let me see, I think she was born in ’72. Yeah, in Vietnam and she was left, wrapped up in a blanket as an infant left on the side of the road. And she was taken to a hospital and ultimately taken to our orphanage. And she was adopted at two; Austrian parents who had moved to Australia. And she contacted me and said that I wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for your orphanage. And it really had a big impact on me.

Gillian Demetriou:

That’s amazing.

Billy Terrell:

And she tells the story, and we’d been in touch, and we stay in touch on Facebook and not, and [inaudible 02:12:20] she wrote the paragraph for my book about how she has no idea where she would be if it weren’t for me and the soldiers who stepped up for the orphans and displaced civilians. So of all the accomplishments in my life, I had a lot of them, I’d have to say that having had the opportunity stepping up to the plate from a humanitarian standpoint is probably the most positive achievement. So that, that carries me forward. I can go to my rest knowing that I did a lot of good from the heart and that I’m appreciated.

Not back when I was darn near dead of COVID in November, there were three days I didn’t think I was going to make it. And it got out on Facebook, what was going on for three days, it was so remarkable. I had over 200 messages per day from five countries. People who know my music… around the world, and to get that kind of response from five different countries was so uplifting, I can’t tell you. So a lot of little stuff like that, not so little, but when you put it all together, you got the picture that it’s been some ride and it’s been a very interesting ride and appreciated by a lot of people, which I appreciate. So that’s about it. Okay?

Gillian Demetriou:

Well, thank you for your service. First of all!

Billy Terrell:

It was a privilege.

Gillian Demetriou:

And thank you for everything else that you’ve done, just for music and for everything. And thank you for sitting down with me and talking with me about it.

Billy Terrell:

My pleasure, I enjoy doing these interviews because it gets the story out more. And I’d like to think that because it’s used for educational purposes, my West Point interview, my Library of Congress, and they’re all used. And I’m hopeful that more students, more people coming up, get this history because it fixed us- a lot of things that history has overlooked, the education system’s overlooked, the media’s overlooked and twisted, where they never been. The nurses in Vietnam, never got their due. They were unbelievable angels there working tirelessly 12 hour shifts, caring for and comforting us that were taken in from the fields in such bad shape, a recipient of that care. So I’m hopeful that these histories, as they’re staying out there in perpetuity, will resonate with younger people coming up to get the story straight. And thanks to you that can happen.

Gillian Demetriou:

Yeah.

Billy Terrell:

Alrighty?

Gillian Demetriou:

Yep. I’m going to stop the recording.

Billy Terrell:

Okay.

PART 4 OF 4 ENDS [02:16:15]