Arlington’s Ricky Vac knows a thing or two about rock ‘n’ roll

Published 9:00 pm Thursday, April 21, 2005

There’s a picture of a late 1950s band hanging above the washing machine in Ricky Vac’s rural Arlington home.

Centerstage is a smiling, baby-faced kid with a slick hairdo whose style is reminiscent of James Dean and Elvis Presley.

“I look at the pictures and I feel like that’s not even me,” Vac said.

But it is – in another time and place. He’s 66 now, and the former leader of Ricky Vac and the Rockaways has something new to smile about.

Nearly 2,500 miles away from his laundry room, pictures of his old band are hanging on another wall – inside the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.

Vac talks about his unlikely road to the Hall of Fame in a taped interview with disc jockey Van Ramsey that airs at 5:30 p.m. Saturday on KSER, 90.7 FM. Vac will also be live in-studio with Ramsey between 2 and 4 p.m.

“It’s a fun, interesting story,” Ramsey said. “He really kind of lived that rock ‘n’ roll dream, with the screaming teens, the malt shop, the drag races.”

Breaking barriers they hadn’t even thought of, the Rockaways, who rocked Berea, Ohio, for about seven years from 1955 to 1962, were installed – not inducted – as part of a Hall of Fame display that touts Ohio’s music history.

The band was unique at the time because it had a black guitarist – Jimmy Harris – in an otherwise all-white band, something that caught the attention of Hall of Fame officials with a little prodding from Vac’s friend and former manager, Jim Jaworski.

“We were just in the right spot at the right time to make some kind of history that we weren’t even thinking about,” Vac said. “We never looked at him as a black man; we looked at him as another guitar player.”

Harris died about five years ago, but Vac met with his parents in Cleveland and presented them a CD and DVD featuring the Rockaways. Harris’ guitar and a pair of Vac’s old silver shoes are also part of the display.

“I think it’s fantastic; I think it’s outrageous,” Vac said about being displayed anywhere inside the Hall’s walls. “I don’t care if my picture is in the broom closet – it’s in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”

The renewed talk about his old band conjures memories for Vac of a simpler time in the Cleveland suburb of Berea. He shuns cell phones and computers and treasures an old Lone Ranger Atomic Bomb ring that came from a cereal box coupon for 10 cents.

“The ’40s and ’50s,” Vac said, “they weren’t bad ways to live. The times were so different then, I can’t tell you how much fun it really was. It was just a great time.”

It was in that world that Vac was 16 years old and saw the movie “Blackboard Jungle,” featuring Bill Haley &the Comets performing “Rock Around the Clock.”

“I told my girlfriend, ‘I’m putting together a band and I’m going to play rock ‘n’ roll,’” Vac recalled. “She said no, so I gave her ring back and left.”

The band came together and the rest is history. The Rockaways became a local sensation with songs such as “Kook-a-Burra Twist,” “Colleen” and “Doo Flicky Junction,” played a local radio station’s road show and made an appearance on a national telethon hosted by Danny Thomas.

Vac was drafted into the military in 1962, ending the Rockaways for good. In the following couple of years, a manager took him to Nashville to record some tracks with Presley’s band, but by the time Vac’s military service ended the times had changed.

“It was 1964 and The Beatles had come,” Vac said. “The ’50s were gone.”

He now runs a talent management business, King-Vac Productions, out of his home. With some perspective, he appreciates this last bit of excitement the Rockaways have given him.

“I feel if I were to lay on my death bed tonight,” Vac said, “the Rockaways can be put to rest now.”

FAR LEFT: Ricky Vac (left) is interviewed by disc Jockey Van Ramsey at Everett’s KSER Radio.

Photo courtesy Van Ramsey

LEFT: Ricky Vac and the Rockaways were a popular Cleveland-area band in the late 1950s and early 1960s.