An Interview With Jim Armstrong
60sgaragebands.com (60s): How did you first get interested in music?
Jim Armstrong (JA): By listening to the radio, beginning in the early to mid 1950s.
60s: Was The Kords your first band?
JA: Yes—after a few unorganized motley conglomerations. We were together 1966-1972.
60s: Where and when was The Kords formed?
JA: In Milton, Florida by Jim Armstrong and Rick Taliaferro (in high school).
60s: Per Tommy Ratchford in an interview with 60sgaragebands.com, the band was Ricky Taliaferro (lead singer and bass guitar), Jim Armstrong (lead guitar), John Ripley (organ) and Billy Moss (drums). Is this correct?
JA: The corrected line-up is Rick Taliaferro (bass/lead vocals); Jim Armstrong (guitar/vocals); John Ripley (keys/Hammond B3 and electric piano, flute, vocals) and Larry Kennedy (drums and vocals). We also had two other, brief drummers: Billy Cook and Donnie Huggins.
60s: How would you describe the band's sound? What bands influenced you?
JA: We were greatly influenced by contemporary bands: The Allman Brothers, The Beatles, The Young Rascals, Rhinoceros, Booker T. & The MGs, The Candymen (Roy Orbison's band), the entire Stax and Atlantic R&B catalogs, and everything that came out of Atlanta and Muscle Shoals where we recorded, including the rhythm section. Since our manager/agent was a radio deejay, he pushed us to learn every new style, sound, and fad that came out.
60s: What was the Milton rock and roll scene like in the '60s?
JA: In its infancy—only VFW rock-a-billy and country bands. There weren’t rock bands. We rarely played in Milton since it was such a small town. Pensacola, 30 miles to the west, on the other hand, had some real good rock groups for us to emulate. The first I remember were Susy Storm and The Laymen, and then a much hipper, more contemporary, almost "British-like" group called The Phatons.
60s: Where did the band typically play?
JA: Some high schools and teen clubs in the beginning (The Hullabaloo Teen Club chain, early on) but then a lot of traveling throughout the southeast to most major and some smaller colleges and universities. Of course, as we got older, plenty of nightclubs, especially in New Orleans and, until Hurricane Camille, Biloxi. After success with our recording of ‘Boris The Spider,’ which broke into the top 10 on radio stations in several southern cities, especially Jacksonville (WAPE), we did concerts with The Young Rascals, Paul Revere, Billy Joe Royal, The Lemon Pipers, Gary Puckett & The Union Gap), Black Oak Arkansas, Rick Derringer, The Buckinghams, and others…as well as concerts by ourselves.
We played teen clubs in Mississippi (Pascagoula, McComb, Bay St. Louis), Louisiana (Baton Rouge, Lafayette), Alabama (Granny's in Opp), Florida (Pensacola and Fort Walton Beach (where three of us met our [first] wives); among many others in other states as well (teen clubs…not wives).
We covered the entire southeast as far south as Orlando and St. Pete, up the east coast, through the Carolinas, and as far north as Kentucky and Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, and of course, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.
60s: Did The Kords participate in any battle of the bands?
JA: Not really—nothing I can remember. I don't remember any kind of "competitive" mindset. We loved running into other bands and musicians on the road. We all played the same circuit and same clubs; it was great to get off early and go see a band playing late in some club. It was like we were all "related" in some way. Remember it was the late '60's—PEACE and LOVE.
60s: Did The Kords have a manager?
JA: During my senior year in high school I worked as a deejay at a local Top 40 radio station—WSRA 1490 in Milton—and only occasionally played school dances with a very poorly equipped band. The Top "jock" and manager at WSRA was Charlie Capri who took a liking to us and became our manager. He immediately helped finance new equipment, fancy stage outfits (he took us shopping), gave us great direction in stage presence and choosing new material and then began booking us. He eventually recorded us and got us signed to Laurie Records, which released ‘Boris The Spider.’
Charlie had early access to all of the new material coming out over the radio in those days. He decided he wanted us to record a cover of The Who's ‘Boris The Spider' from their latest album. He shopped it around to the record companies and Laurie finally signed us. The B-side ('It's All In Your Mind') was an original by Rick Taliaferro, Charlie and myself.
60s: Where did The Kords record? What do you remember about the recording session(s)?
JA: ‘Boris The Spider’ and other early recordings were done at Mastersound Studio in Atlanta, with Buddy Buie (Roy Orbison, Classics IV, B.J. Thomas, Atlanta Rhythm Section). Our later sessions were either at Ardent Studios in Memphis (w/Terry Manning, engineer for ZZ Top, Led Zeppelin, and more) or Muscle Shoals Sound Studios with Jimmy Johnson, Roger Hawkins, David Hood and Barry Beckett. The sessions seem like a blur now—they were often very physically and mentally demanding marathons (mainly because of the time/money factor in those days—it was expensive—and there was a lot of pressure to perform well and not make mistakes).
60s: Did The Kords write many original songs? Who was the band's primary songwriter?
JA: We began writing original material after the success of ‘Boris The Spider’ faded. Some of the later songs were really quite good but we never made any quality recordings of them and just as we seemed to be coming into our own, musically, the lead singer quit in '71- '72 and that was the end of the original group. Most of our originals were collaborations among the four of us. None of our other recordings were ever released.
60s: Are there any other Kords recordings? Are there any vintage live recordings, or other unreleased tracks?
JA: Just a couple of decent studio tracks (one original), many older, out-dated studio tracks or low-quality live recordings.
60s: Did the band make any local TV appearances? Does any home movie film footage exist of the band?
JA: None that I know of.
60s: What year and why did the band break up?
JA: In 1972. Pick any five: women, religion, drugs, personality clashes, growing pains, money, immaturity, ignorance, vanity, insecurity, fear, love, the process of life, etc., etc…
60s: How do you best summarize your experiences with The Kords?
JA: Once in a lifetime. It was a blessing to me. I still play for a living, and looking back 40 years later, I realize it was a small miracle. It was a lucky combination of guys. I still hear from people today from all over the country, after all these years, and they all say they same thing: what great memories they have of going to see and hear The Kords and, "What a great band that was." Yes, it was.
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