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My name is Norie Guthrie from the Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library, Rice University. I am interviewing Judy Clements, formerly Judy Stewart of the folk duo, Ken and Judy. Today is November 7th, 2016. This is part of the Houston Folk Music Archive, oral History project. So, could

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you tell me a bit about your early life? You, are we speaking of my childhood, early life, it could be that or it could just be kind of high school? Oh, well, the first time I sang was at Oak Forest Elementary School and I sang "Secret

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Love" acapella. And I guess I always liked to sing when I was younger. I thought I sounded like Roy Rogers, but I'm sure I didn't. But anyway, uh, then high school acapella choir and I guess I was 20 I was, I was not 21

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yet when I met Ken and he said something about getting together to sing and that's how that started. All right. And about what year was, that would have been '62, '62? Well, actually we went on stage in '63 was the first time we sang at the

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Jester was February it was my brother's birthday. The only reason why I remember that but I wasn't quite 21 yet. Ok. So why were you drawn to the genre of folk music? Uh, I suppose because it was the up and coming thing. I mean, before that

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we would do doo wop and then folk music, you know, it's just part of a sign of the times, I guess. Yeah, it was just easy. I don't know how else to describe it. Maybe not as many, like kind of vocal acrobatics kind of things perhaps. Well,

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you could get creative with it but it wasn't, you didn't have to pretend it had anything. When you got up to sing, you just sang and if your voice was able to modulate, then you did. If not, you stayed there. Ok. All right. I guess that

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would answer that best. All right. Um So you said that um Ken approached you and what, what is Ken's last name? Ken Roberts that he approached you about forming the duo? He was an architect and I was at the time running around with a lot of the architect

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students at U of H and he went there and knew a lot of them. So we ended up one Saturday afternoon around the swimming pool. We weren't singing, but he asked me if I liked to sing. And I said, oh, yeah. And so he said, well,

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let's see what we can do. And he was tenor and I was second alto. So we were almost the reverse of what we should have been voice wise and it gave us a different sound. Ok. Now, um, so can you talk about your act? And maybe

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you kind of, what kind of songs you performed or you like to perform? Uh, primarily, uh Peter, Paul and Mary and Ian and Sylvia? And, oh, what is that, that Barry McGuire? Uh, he and I can't remember the other Barry. I can't remember his last name, but they

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both sang with the Christy Minstrels and they put out an album and we borrowed a lot of their music and, um, that really, those were the, the three that we, we, we didn't have an opportunity to be that creative because it wasn't that we came in

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at the tail end of it, but they were already established and Houston wasn't, that wasn't so yeah. Right, it was kind of right before people really started to do that. It was before The Beatles. Right? And that was the end of it. Um So what were your favorite

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songs? Uh "If I had my way", which a gentleman by the name of Blind Gary Davis was a reverend and he originated it. And then Peter, Paul and Mary picked up on it and then we followed suit. Um, so how did you become associated with the

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Jester? Uh It was already getting established and Ken went out there one afternoon and said, hey, can, can we sing tonight? The guy, Mack Webster was the owner and he said, sure. So we sang and I had just gotten over the flu and Ken came over.

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How are you feeling? Oh, I'm much better now. He said good because we're gonna be singing Friday night. And I went, oh, no, I'm still sick. But we did, we sang that Friday night. How did you feel for that first performance? Scared. I did not open

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my eyes. The first three months that we sang, I just, I, and Ken said, whatever it takes to do it. So I'd sing with my eyes closed. Very, very stage shy. So then, um, I guess after the three months you just became a little bit used to it. Yeah,

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I figured, oh, good. They're not gonna hit me with a tomato. So, so I relaxed a little bit each, it got easier each time. Did you, when you all perform, did you tell, do you sometimes do some tell some stories or do you have a little bit

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of back and forth? When Ken would introduce, he really had the rapport with the audience and he would introduce the songs and I would add a little here and there but nothing. I mean, Ken was, he was the leader and I followed, I don't know how else to, to describe that, but

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he, he was very, he was a funny guy. Kept the audience on their toes. That was good. Oh, that's good. Yeah. OK. Um So you said that the owner was, um, Mack Webster was his wife also involved. Say it one more time you said the owner

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was Mack Webster was his wife also involved. Barbara was the, she hated it but he would make her wear not lace stockings, web stockings. She had to look like she was a jester. And so finally she said I am not doing this anymore. So she just

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wore regular clothes. So she had to wear it motley. Oh, wow. Oh, yeah. Well, she didn't think so, she hated it, a little bit. What was, um, what was he like? Uh, he was very easy to get along with. He, he, he ran the Jester. I mean, nobody talked

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when, when people were on stage singing, that was just rule number one. And not only he would tell everybody to be quiet but the rest of the audience would, if somebody started, you know, too many beers, got a little bit loud, you know. "Shh, shh, shh." So they would,

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it was, it was a, it was a place that's like no other. Ok. So kind of, I guess it could be compared to, um, Anderson Fair, which is a bit of a listening room. And so there's right before it starts, um, Tim Leatherwood gets up on

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the stage, the owner and he tells you that you have to turn down your cell phones that there's no conversation. There weren't any cell phones back then. There weren't those. But, yeah, it's also really quiet. Basically the same, same thing. Uh, the audience was, they were, they were all of the same age. And so,

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you know, we, our rapport was easy with them, with them. Were they generally, like in their twenties or thirties or early twenties, early twenties? Ok. And into their thirties. But I mean, if somebody was in their mid thirties, it was rare. It was a young group

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because II, I guess I wondered if some of the people from the Houston Folklore Society might have attended those kinds - well John Lomax would come out and sing. Right. But, uh, I think the, the society really well, no, because Alan wrote the book, his brother Alan. Uh, but John would come

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out and, and Lightnin', usually John would bring Lightnin' out and then John would, you know, perform also. It was really quite an, it's so funny because when you're living the moment you don't realize what that, what's going on, it's just another day and it's, and in

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retrospect it's, it was pretty phenomenal. Yeah. I mean that and the Houston Folklore Society kind of sowed the seeds of all the folk music that came out for the next 20 years. So it is really interesting. It was interesting. I wish Guy was still with

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us. I, I miss him terribly. What did the Jester look like inside? Uh, it was small to begin with. It couldn't have been, it was probably twice the size of this room and the stage was just an afterthought. I mean, it wasn't even that high. He

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had a red light and a blue light for our lights and a microphone, obviously. Uh and you had to step over people to get to the stage until the fire chief came out and said this can't happen anymore. So, but it was that packed that literally

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you had to step up. They were sitting on the floor and uh so then Mack decided to make it bigger and it lost its charisma. It's weird. Of course, also the Beatles were coming on about that time too and now I understand maybe it isn't anymore,

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but it became a Mexican restaurant. Ok. Yeah. So were, was there any seating or is it just people sitting on the floor. Were there chairs? So there were tables with the, with your candle, the red candle? Yeah, to, I guess, take care of the smoke and, and,

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yeah, there were, they're just small tables everywhere. OK, and then people would just kind of fill in the spaces to see, well, until the fire department said you can't do that. So they would have to wait outside when some people were leaving to, you know, however many

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were leaving those that many more can go, could go in. And so it's really, it was amazing when I think about it, you know, and so it was open Fridays and Saturdays or more. It was open every night, every night. Sunday night was, uh, open mic

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and was our only night off, really. We were open Friday night. And, well, during the week until midnight Friday night until two Saturday night until three and then open mic for anybody. They said I was never there. So it's all hearsay. But they said Janis Joplin

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sang there during, during an open mic, right? Ok. Um, so it did serve beer and then I read that you could also bring in mixers if you wanted to, you brought your own bottle. Ok. I mean, this was back in when Houston didn't have open, you

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didn't have drinks over the counter. Ok. Yeah, it was funny. We were a very backward town. It was dr-, dry then. Well, it wasn't dry. They, they sold beer and they sold wine and they sold setups, but you had to bring your own whiskey. Ok. Ok.

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Yeah. All right. It's Houston in early sixties. So, what can I say? And then do you know about the time that the Jester closed? Uh, probably, I think probably early 64. I mean, it, when the Beatles came that, I mean, it just, it was one night

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packed and the next night where is everybody? It was weird. But anyway, because I think, I assume that after that Sand Mountain, the Sand Mountain, yeah. Picked up the slack. But it never, it never packed them in either. I mean, it just, the Beatles did a

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number on us. Did you ever play at Sand Mountain? Un unh, Ken did. Ok. But I didn't. All right. In fact, I knew John Carrick and his mother was the one that opened it. So, yeah, Ma Carrick as, she's referred to I see online as Ma Carrick. I did

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not know that. Yeah, it seems like that's the way that she's referred to in general. Yeah, back then it was, but times, times are funny. Um So how would you describe the other steady performers? Uh Everyone was their own personality. Frank Davis had what he described

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as a daddy banjo was a tenor snare drum with a fender guitar neck and it was very loud, but a lot of fun. And he, his voice was not Vaughn Monroe. So it went well with his daddy banjo. Uh Kay had an absolutely beautiful voice. She

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was soprano at, at the beginning now as KT Oslin, she, well, she had a register that went everywhere but she lowered the register range. Uh Scott and Vivian. Vivian wasn't on stage that much. Scott was on quite a bit. They were remarkable songwriters and one time I

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don't know, was Scott and Vivian and Ken and I got on stage. We'd never done it before, but we sang, "Oh, Great God, You Done Givin Me Pain", which was one of their songs and, and the audience was, wow, we didn't know, you know who's that

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lady? And that lady was Vivian. Yeah, it was fun. It was time out of time. Ok. One of the other regulars there was Alex Martin and he was from Marathon Texas. Talked about it quite a bit. But when he would talk about it, he would stutter

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and the audience was, was hanging on every word until he finally got it all out. And then he would strike the guitar and just the most beautiful voice he would sing. "I am a pilgrim" primarily that Jimmy Rogers type music, not really western and not really

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folk just in between. And he was, he was quite an attraction for the audience too. There, Sarah Wiggins made the comment. It's like we came out of the woodwork all at the same time and then we all went away. It was funny Um So can you

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describe recording? "Look, its us". Uh We, the song we did, we, we did it and then we did it again just to be sure. And we picked the first cut. We didn't get to stay very long. It was perfect. So we said, well, that's it. We

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can't get any better. What was the song that you selected? Um What song was it? Baron? What's the song on the album? "Santiano" Oh, "Santiano". OK, Maxinillians daughter has my love. OK. I won't sing it. You can if you know it. No thats all right, I need

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Ken. Um All right. Uh So you also participated in the Hoot 'n Holler broadcast and that was channel two. OK. And Mary Jane Vandiver was, I don't know what she, I don't think she went by that name. She was the princess lady for the little

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kids. And every once in a while, like Thanksgiving, the program before Thanksgiving Day was aired for Thanksgiving. We sang one time, Jenny, uh, Pais, I guess at the time had a show and we sang one time at hers and Marietta was, had a Marietta Marich had a

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show at midnight at channel two called Midnight with Marietta. And she would ask us to come over, you know, between sets because at the, on Friday night we sang until two and Saturday until three it was a long weekend. Yeah, that's, that's really late. Yeah. Well,

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when you're 20 years old, yeah, it's a little different. Right. It's just, but it still is, even to this day, I mean, that's a pretty till 3 a.m. is pretty late, late night for a club to be open. Yeah. Well, and the club had, had to

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shut down the liquor at midnight, but it was served coffee and people really came to hear the music. They didn't come to drink, which probably disappointed Mac, but he made a little bit upfront with the $5 entrance fee. But that was it. Ok. Um, oh, so

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back to that hoot and holler broadcast. Um, what was that like? You know, we don't, you know, we have a, the audio for it, but we don't have the video. So it's really unclear like what's happening, what kind of sets, there were that kind of thing we

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would sing to the camera because there wasn't an audience there. So we had to, you know, you're the audience and, and then they would play it during Mary Jane's Magic Castle time of hand or Midnight with Marietta, but that was usually uh, uh, Midnight with Marietta was

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a live show. Mary Jane was video. Ok. Um So I read that non-Jester Lounge regulars would sometimes use the venue as a place to work on their craft. Um, so two things that I saw that were mentioned was that, um, Pop Stoman, um, Stoneman

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had come for around six months and then that John Denver came to the, to the club. John came on his way to somewhere else. He sang, I don't know where you got that information. He, he didn't sing there for three months. I mean, he sang there

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one night and he was John Dieseldorf. He hadn't even gotten the Denver name yet. I mean, he was just starting out. Ok. And then Pop Stoneman though was the Stoneman family. Yes, they were established but they were from, I think they were from Kentucky and they

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were just touring the Southwest, I suppose and stopped at the jester and I guess they sang maybe three weekends. Oh, ok. All right. So, did you learn anything from them, from them or interact with them at all or interacted with them? But I, when you're 20

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years old you're not thinking to yourself. Oh, I wanna learn from this guy you just didn't. But the interaction was good between John Denver. We just went mm I don't think so because somebody commented backstage what a nice guitar he had and he said, thanks. I

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got it off a blind pawn shop owner. We thought, but he had just come off the stage saying be kind to your fellow man. And we thought you're a hypocrite. We were not impressed with John Denver. Anyway. And, and then Stoneman, what was uh they were,

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they were Pop. Stoneman. Ronnie played a banjo that this was a girl. I mean, she could play a banjo. Um And I think there were two brothers, one played stand up bass, the other played guitar, one of the girls played mandolin and, and I can't remember

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her name but Ronnie impress me because I mean, she would just do that and you're just, you're mesmerized watching her fingers go. And the music that she produced was incredible. In fact, later on, she was on the uh Roy Clark show, but he didn't give her

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the air time I thought she deserved because I think there was a little bit of professional jealousy there because he played banjo. It was very interesting. So Lightnin Hopkins and Mance Lipscomb also played there, especially Lightnin Hopkins Light for sure. Um What were they like? Very

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um this is the early sixties I'm gonna say very humble. Uh They now man slips to my knowledge, never played at the store. We went, we went to Stephen F Austin one night because he was scheduled to sing there for one of their big folk music

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evenings and he got sick. So they called, well at the time the Rum Runners were there also, they said call Ken and Judy and see if they can come up. So we went up and filled in for him, which I considered it a compliment because he

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was established. And then a, do you have any kind of interesting Lightnin Hopkins stories or anything that you kind of took away from your interactions with him? Well, this didn't pertain to me. Vivian had beautiful nails and she would, her finger polish was pearl white and

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one of Lightnin's friends brought, I guess they weren't bongos. They were and they weren't kettle drums, but they were stand up drums and she was doing that on the drums backstage and they were just mesmerized watching her because her nails were so pretty anyway. She had

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pretty hands and that's what I remember going. Wow. Um, so during your time as a Jester Lounge regular, you played with other people that were there most many times and they went on to major careers like Guy Clark and KT Oslin. How would you describe them

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at the time? Well, here we go back being 20 years old again and we were all 20 years old. So they were just regulars at the Jester. I mean, it wasn't at that age, you don't project into the future, right? You know, and so we were

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all just there singing at the Jesture for $5 a night, 7. 50 on the weekends. Well, did you, did you guys hang out after? Um, because I guess the, we had mentioned this earlier that the parking lot was a place to kind of hang out. Did

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you guys hang out there or go to other places, we would go out there? Because, well, first of all, there was no place to practice. So we would practice out by the cars. But, and it wasn't that we were stealing the audience because there were other people

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playing a lot of times the audience, we would gather people while we practiced. Ok. And the other place we used to practice a lot was right, there's a bench, right where the, the fountains are at the Mecom fountain. And we used to go there and practice

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singing there a lot. Wow. It was fun. That's interesting. Why, why did you guys choose that? Well, because we figured nobody could hear us. It was, it was different. And, and we liked the, the idea of, hey, let's go sing over there, you know. Well, when

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you're 20 years old you do funny things. Oh, not even funny. I just think it's just, it's just, it's different but it, but it's a really peaceful place. Right? And so, and even with the cars going by it, it created it was a quiet. Right. No,

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because, I mean, Mecom Fountain is kind of an interesting little spot, you know. And so, no, I could see that. That would be interesting. Um, and do you have any, um, just to kind of push you on this a little bit? Um, do you have any

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kind of stories about Guy or, or Kay Oslin? Uh, k and I Kay lived, ok. I lived on Briarglen, she lived on Bancroft and we decided we were gonna walk to the grocery store and get a baking potato, lettuce and tomato, and a steak and take it

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back and, and have an early dinner. So we were cooking and we were at Kay's apartment and we're watching Doctor Hudson's secret journal while we were cooking our food and we interrupt this program to bring you an important message. John F. Kennedy has been shot and

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we were just, well, we didn't know what to do. We ended up walking from her apartment all the way over to Highland Village because we just didn't know what to do with ourselves. It was very interesting. I think everybody remember if you probably weren't born yet.

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But as I've had experiences like 9 11, that kind of same thing, um you had mentioned, um, before we started recording, that Guy Clark had lived with um Ken Ken and they lived across the street from my apartment and Guy always, he didn't wear them on

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stage. But if he wasn't on stage. He wore flip flops. It didn't matter what time of the year it was and that was before flip flops were in anyway. That I, I just, I don't know why I fixated on that but it, I did. What are

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you doing in those funny shoes? I didn't say that to him but guy was a nice, nice person. Very, very nice. And so was Ken. We were actually, there wasn't anybody at the Jester that, that wasn't a decent person. All of them were. It's kind of

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a good combination of everybody. So, where else did you perform? Uh, Foleys would have fashion shows and we would sing there and we Rallied for the Alley was trying to do matching funds with the Ford Foundation to build the New Alley Theater back then. Uh, so

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we would sing a different shopping malls to get the crowd to contribute to the Rally for the Alley. Uh That's really basically Midnight with Marietta and, well, that's really the only place there weren't that many places to sing in Houston back then. And so how long

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did you and Ken stay together as a duo? Probably right at two years, maybe 2.5 because The Beatles came about that time and it really shut folk music down. It really did. Very sad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But that was the end of that. So, what did

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you go on to do after Ken and Judy? I went to work at a bank and uh we were still singing but the, the extra shows were dwindling so the extra money was dwindling. So I went back out, what I did was get the phone book

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out and, and do my bus route. I didn't have a car at the time, did the bus route at every bank that was on my bus route. And I'd call, are y'all hiring and Central National Bank was. so I got on the bus and went down

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there and got hired. So that's where I worked for quite a while. Ok. Until the seven, sometime in the seventies or? Oh, when Baron told me I didn't have to work anymore. Well, after that, I went to work at Caudill Rowlett Scott, an architectural firm and I guess

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I worked there almost four years. Ok. And then Baron said you don't have to work anymore if you don't want to. Good. Well, is there anything else that you would from that time period that you would like to talk about? Well, ok, life goes on and

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it's almost Christmas time. And Baron said to me, what would you like for Christmas? Well, I had a horse when I was a teenager. And so I said, hm, I think I'd like to have another horse. So he said, ok, and so he found a horse,

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a black colt, two year old colt went to told the man he'd taken, was gonna wait to go, you know, to make arrangements to have him brought to the barn where I was gonna stall him. And when he went to pick him up, he had sold

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him out from under Baron and Baron was quite upset. So was I, but it was kind of like that's ok. We'll find another horse. And I found a sweet little chestnut Arabian Philly and her name was Finale. And the reason being was she was the last

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product from her sire. And that was the final baby that he had and she was wonderful. She was a, it went from there to one horse, two horse, three horse, 3, 4. And then finally said, we're paying a lot of money. We need to get a farm.

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So we bought a farm up by Brenham and it wasn't like I had thought it would be. I saw myself sitting on the porch drinking my while the horses were out grazing in the managed pasture. And we didn't think about cleaning the stalls and bringing the

00:33:09.199 - 00:33:29.930

horses in. But that's what it amounted to. And it was good work. It was, it was good work. Oh, yeah, we showed and one horse in, well, two horses in particular, one was English Pleasure and the other was Western Pleasure. And both of them we went

00:33:29.939 - 00:33:49.969

to, we went to the nationals with the English pleasure. Didn't, we didn't take flash to the Nationals. I don't know why. But anyway, we were, well, I have a whole bucket full. It's a, it's a copper cook-the-crab thing. It's full of ribbons. Oh, wow. And

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a lot of times I'll take the ribbons out for my little nieces and nephews for their birthday presents. I'll wrap them in one of those ribbons. We'll go to first prize. It's fun. Anyway. Uh, I can't think of anything else. The horses, we still have the

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farm. Um, and I love it. I love living in the country, but I like to come back to Houston too since they have better restaurants. Well, thank you so much for coming in for inviting me. It's really been, it was a lot of fun. It was

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a lot of fun tripping down memory lane.