Page 163 - South Mississippi Living - May, 2017

ROCKIN REBELS PLAY AT AN OLE MISS FRATERNITY PARTY Left to Right - Walter Blessey, Pat Thorton, Ray Fournier,
Doty Fournier, Joe Landry, Barry Feranda and Gerald Blessey.
played alto sax; Richard Fortner played electric guitar; Penu sang and played upright bass; and I played the piano.
The group was known as Johnny Elmer and his Rockets. By that time there were several nationally known Rock and Roll bands and Fats Domino with David Bartholomew as his band leader were household names on the Coast.
For the next four summers, I played with the Rockets. We played at the Old Gulfport Yacht Club, the Slavonian Lodge and French Hall in Biloxi and at several other locations. We were the warm-up band at Gus Steven’s club for the famous comedian, Brother Dave “Flat Get It” Gardner. We played for numerous high school proms on the Coast as well as in Laurel and Meridian, Mississippi.
Needless to say, Rock and Roll was here to stay. In 1958 my younger brother, Gerald, and Ray Fournier put together a group known as the Rockin’ Rebels and that band stayed together with several different musicians over the years.
That group had several musicians who later became educators and professional musicians. Some who played in that group with Gerald and Ray were Doty Fournier, Joe and Dennis Landry, Charles Elliot, Barry Feranda, Pat Thorton, Bun Blessey, and Penu Taranto. I sat in a few times when I was home from college.
Among my memories of those years are the camaraderie of the musicians and the following of the local teenagers who loved to dance. There were many Happy Feet on the dance floors. The Rockin’ Rebels had a reunion dance in 1985 at the Coast Coliseum that had over a thousand dancers show up to reminisce. It is interesting to note that the the current mayors of Gulfport and Biloxi both played in Rock and Roll bands in their youth.
This article is too short to include all the names of musicians and different bands during the period. Hopefully, with some research, I can pay tribute in another article to my fellow musicians.
“There were many
Happy Feet on th”e
dance floors
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