Biography
Arkansas native Roger Fakes briefly entertained the notion of a music career, yet that interval proved sufficient for him to register locally in Memphis and reach a broader audience via Bill Justis. Having entered the world in Little Rock, Fakes relocated with his family to Memphis in 1949; during the 1950s he joined the vocal ensemble known as the Spinners, whose recordings with Bill Justis encompassed the track “The Midnight Man.” That number served as the B-side to the chart-topping 1957 single “Raunchy,” which peaked at number two. Earlier still, Memphis newspapers noted Fakes’s presence at a Fourth of July benefit where local hero Elvis Presley awarded him the evening’s door prize. Fakes himself entered the studio at Sun to record the ballad “Somehow We’ll Find a Way,” a piece more aligned with country than rockabilly—although it later surfaced on rockabilly anthologies—and the track remained unissued. He also performed on the television program Top Ten Dance Party. According to Colin Escott, Fakes’s true admiration lay with Harry Belafonte rather than with rock & roll or country idioms, and he never regarded music as a lasting vocation; after completing college he abandoned the profession entirely.