Return To 60’s Main Menu Recording Artists Of The 60s
BARBARA LYNN
“YOU’RE GONNA LOSE A GOOD THING”
(BARBARA LYNN Ozen)
Jamie 1220
No. 8 August 11, 1962
.
.
.
A French-speaking Cajun, named in honor of Louisana’s Huey P. Long, Huey P. Meaufl (b. Kaplan, Louisana,
1929) proved to be one heck of a barber, wheeler-dealer, label owner and career-shaper. Huey P. who
played drums in his daddy’s band and with the piano-punching Moon Mulligan, handled numerous swamp-
pop artists like JOE BARRY, ROD BERNARD, Freddie Fender, Roy Head, Jivin’ Gene, Doug Sahm’s Sir
Douglas Quintet and Barbara Lynn.
.
Fresh out of the Army, Huey worked as a DJ, for a mite–he’d mix a little 7-Up and bourbon, say
whatever, and play Cajun music, or dang near anything else. He had some difficulties keeping the job, and
his brother talked him into attending barber school. Huey opened a barber shop in Winnie, Texas, but
continued to dabble in pop music.
.
“I got a tape from a guy in Beaumont,” Meaux recalled to Goldmine’s Colin Escott. “It had been recorded
over. This guy wanted to sell me an act by the name of T-Baby Green. In between the T-Baby cuts was this
girl they had recorded over. It was knocking me o-u-t. It was reaching at the roots of my heart. I just
wanted to meet that voice. I had a guy named Big Samba recording for me [known in the deep South and
the Midwest for his regional hit “The Rains Came”]. I played him the tape and said, ‘Who’s this?’ He said,
‘That’s Barbara Lynn. If you want her, I’ll get her.’
“So I kept cutting hair, and he came back around 6:30 with Barbara Lynn. She was about 15 or 16 [19,
actually], I guess, and she limped a little because she had one leg longer than the other. I said, ‘Barbara, if
you’ll pay the expenses for you and your mother, I’ll meet you in New Orleans at Cosimo’s studio. I’ll pay
for the musicians and the tape.’ She went for it, and we recorded ‘You’ll Lose A Good Thing.”‘
Goldmine’s Almost Slim has reported a different version of these events. It seems that a late-night DJ
named “Bon Ton” Garlow had a home studio for neighborhood kids to jam in. One of these participating
youngsters was a left- handed guitar player named Barbara Lynn Ozen (b. Jan. 16, 1942, Beaumont, Tex).
Barb had been pickin’ piano since grammer school. “I was getting tired of that,” she told Alan Govenor,
author of Meeting The Blues. “Then I heard Elvis and decided that I wanted to do something odd,” like
being a lady guitar player. When Meaux happened on to her, Barb was leader of an all-girl band, Bobby
Lynn & the Idols. “We’d do a lot of Elvis tunes, like ‘Jailhouse Rock,’ and I swung my instrument and we
all wore pants.”
As Garlow told Almost Slim: “I made a tape of her andtook it to Huey Meaux. Huey
listened to the tape and said, ‘She’s coming along, but I don’t think she’s strong enough yet’ . The next time
she was playing, I convinced Huey to come out and watch her lead a band. I picked Huey up and
carried him to the Ten Acre Club outside of Beaumont. That’s when he decided to sign Barbara Lynn.”
Take your choice. Either way, Meaux recorded Lynn’s “You’re Gonna Lose A Good Thing,” which
Barbara had originally written as a simple poem when she was jilted at sweet 16. Six months after the
session, studio boss Cosimo Matassa placed the disk with Harry Finfer’s Philly-based Jamie label. While
Barbara did have further local success, and did manage to chart with a steady stream of treats well
into the ’70s, the bluesy “Good Thing” would be her only top 40 entry.
.
“I got married and that slowed me down,” she told Govenor. “After the divorce I was able to purse my
music more…” Barbara Lynn has still got a band and still hits the hard bars in Texas, Louisana,
Oklahoma. “I have faith, patience, and hope that things will break for me again.”