Cleadis Mott and The Tunetoppers -- Lake Charles Musician

I know that I’ve said many times that I was a country music fan long before I was a country DJ. And there’s at least one person that will attest to that statement and I went to see him just the other day -- Cleadis Mott.

Back in the early 1960s, the music of choice was what we call Swamp Pop, and most of the local bands were Swamp Pop bands. There was one band that played country, and that was Cleadis Mott and The Tunetoppers, and they played just about every weekend at the VFW on Country Club Rd.

The Tunetoppers -- Cajun Truck Driver

Now these were the days before YouTube, before everyone in the club could take out a cellphone and take a video. If you weren’t there, you missed it. If your band was lucky, maybe you went down to a radio station or to KPLC cut a record, but not a lot of copies got pressed made, and even many of those are now lost to us.

But, Cleadis’ daughter Janet did a great job of working to track down some of the music her daddy made with The Tunetoppers and with his other band, The Musical Four Plus One. She got those old records digitized and burned a CD for her father so his music wouldn’t be lost. You can even hear the old record needle scratching.

The Tunetoppers -- Same Door You Came In

Cleadis has remained a friend through all these years, and at the age of 83 he hasn’t hardly changed a bit. In my visit, we talked about all the music they played and how they used to sneak me and my friend into the back of the club(we were only 16-17) so we could listen to live country music.

At the end of that visit, Cleadis gave me a copy of that CD his daughter had made for him. What an incredible gift, that was!