In the days after the sockhop and before the musical revolution of the late sixties, rock and roll reined supreme and among some of the best known bands in Kansas at the time, The Comancheros were king.
The Comancheros were inducted to the Kansas Music Hall of Fame, Saturday and among them was former lead guitarist and vocal man, Wellington resident, Jack Potucek.
The story of the Comancheros starts in the autumn of 1962, with another band — The Fantabulous Jags. The five-piece rock group was Potucek’s first band and due to commitments at the University of Kansas, Potucek had to quit.
Later, Jags’ bass player Bud Gorman from Anson, Kan., left the band to form his own band in Lawrence with Potucek — The Comancheros.
Left-handed drummer Don Lindley, lead guitarist Ray Naylor and Saxaphone player and organist Kent Leopold eventually joined the twosome.
“We got the bandstand at the Tee Pee and the band just went gangbusters,” said Potucek. A stronger group than the Jags, the band worked on their unity through music and extra elements like Leopold’s Hammond B organ helped catapult the group to local fame.
“Nobody carried that instrument with them. It was expensive and they were out of reach for most rock bands,” said Potucek.
Diversity in the group’s instrumental abilities didn’t hurt either, he said.
Auditioning at the Tee Pee in Lawrence, the group was a local favorite and once Kansas City club owners started to hear rumors of the band, it was only a matter of time before The Comancheros moved east.
The Comancheros eventually went into Kansas City, working Rose Mary’s Lounge on Troost Avenue and the 2500 Club on Truman Road. The group stayed at Rose Mary’s for an unheard of 31 weeks. Most bands were lucky to make it a few months, Potucek said.
The band would play six days a week in Kansas City throughout 1963 and 1964 before Potucek went to Air Force flight school in the November of 1964. Another Sumner County resident, the late Gene Bongiorni played with the Soul Kings at the same time, Potucek said.
“We worked Kansas City hard. We would go back to the Tee Pee for two to three weeks and come back, it was what I liked to call ‘freshening the bandstand,’” Potucek said.
Their hard work showed. The group was so good they had the opportunity to backup music history legends like Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Drifters and Rufus Thomas.
“We played five hours a night and then when those guys would come in, there would be two shows. In the middle of the second set and in the middle of the fourth set these guys would put on a 45-minute show and we backed them up,” said Potucek.
For a time, The Comancheros were on top of the world, eventually splitting up and going their separate ways.
“The 60s, the first half of the 60s belonged to the 50s rock and roll...and the last half of the 60s hooked onto the 70s and on down the road,” said Potucek. “This kind of front line, hard work functioned as a unit where as the last half of the 60s, the more individual you could be the better you were,”
The Comancheros were given the 2010 Bob Haygood award — an award given to a band that came out of a town of 40,000 or less — and Potucek says it’s an honor to have the band recognized for their hard work.
“This Board of Directors selected The Comancheros to go forward and that means a lot to me because rather than someone nominating their favorite band when they were younger...the Board of Directors picked this band using those specifications and to me, personally, it’s quite significant because it means The Comancheros...their savvy and their abilities to do the job they were out to do is well remembered.” said Potucek.
Wellington, Kan. —
