Roy Head’s ‘Treat Her Right’: A ‘Mistake’ That Became ‘A Story Every Man Oughta Know’

‘200 Greatest 60s Rock Songs’ Book Excerpt

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In 1965, at the height of the British Invasion, Roy Head & the Traits scored a №2 hit with “Treat Her Right.” An electrifying blue-eyed soul performer with dance moves inspired by Joe Tex and Jackie Wilson, Head co-wrote the song with band member Gene Kurtz. Head told the Austin Chronicle that the song came out of performances at sock hops and dance halls across Texas.

“The song was a mistake,” explained Head. “I wanted to do ‘Ooo Poo Pah Doo’ by Jessie Hill, and the guitarist played the wrong riffs. So I made up a song about talking to a cow. ‘If you squeeze her real gentle, she’ll give you some cream.’ It was risqué, but in a hillbilly way. The dance floor packed up . . .

“Gene came to me one night and said, ‘Why don’t we make this song about a woman instead of a cow?’ We went over to Goldstar Studios on Broad Street in Houston and did it on the first take, I think. Session cost about $500 to $600.”

The band — Johnny Clark on lead guitar, Frank Miller on rhythm guitar, drummer Gerry Gibson, trumpeter Dickie Martin, Doug Shertz on tenor sax and bass man Kurtz — recorded “Treat Her Right” on June 6, 1965.

"Treat Her Right" by Roy Head & the Traits

The song was released on Don Robey’s Back Beat Records, a recently-integrated soul label. “Treat Her Right” broke big after Head attended a convention of black disc jockeys against Robey’s advice. Head maintained in Little Labels — Big Sound: Small Record Companies and the Rise of American Music that Robey believed that if the DJs didn’t know Head was white, there was a better chance they’d play his record.

“Don Robey wouldn’t let me do any TV, so nobody knew I was white. The people at the convention weren’t going to let me sing. Then [Robey’s musical director] Joe Scott said, ‘Oh, put the boy on!’ . . .

“They had to push me onto the stage. But then they started playing ‘Treat Her Right’ and I started doing my flip-flops and dancing, and the crowd went nuts. The record became an instant hit because all the DJs heard it.”

Head told Garage Punk the secret of the song’s success.

“We just inked a little old song that had a little catchy rhythmic pattern to it. The whole making of that song was that everybody could play it. It was not real hard, it was pretty simple, it was pretty repetitious.”

The song’s ending, Head says, came from watching an ad for Ajax cleanser on late-night TV.

“Remember the commercial ‘Stronger Than Dirt’? That’s where we got the tag.”

Head, 79, passed away in Sept. 2020. His son, James “Sundance” Head, is a successful country-soul singer and songwriter.

Frank Mastropolo is the author of the 200 Greatest Rock Songs: The Stories Behind the Music series and Fillmore East: The Venue That Changed Rock Music Forever.