Biography
Gene Terry entered the world as Terry Gene DeRouen in Lafayette, LA, yet spent his formative years in Port Arthur, TX, where exposure to Cajun songs performed by his father and grandfather supplied his chief musical inspiration. In the mid-'50s he assembled his initial group, the Kool Kats, to play country & western material; the ensemble soon shifted toward rock & roll, adopted the name the Downbeats, and placed some of its earliest recordings with Savoy Records. A short excursion into rockabilly followed on Starday Records via the 1957 single "This Woman I Love," after which his subsequent sides appeared on Goldband Records. "Cindy Lou" remained his most successful release.