WHAT HAPPENED TO BILLY SWAN?; SINGER FROM CAPE GIRARDEAU STILL MAKES HIS WAY MUSICALLY

The year was 1962 and a 19-year-old Cape Girardean was singing and playing electric piano in a local pop band called Mert Mirly and the Rhythm Steppers. The band played the Airline Lounge on Kingshighway, a building now occupied by the Golden Dragon restaurant. Also the White Star in Anna, the Seven Cedars north of Jackson and every VFW Hall in the area.

Rock 'n' roll had broken out all over the place and Billy Swan was part of it.

At 16, he'd written a song, "Lover Please," that Mert Mirly eventually recorded almost as an afterthought. The song became a regional hit when Bill Black, whose combo was a fixture in the Midwest during the '60s, recorded it with 17-year-old Cape Girardean Dennis Turner on vocals.

One snowy night only a few weeks later, someone came into the Airline and asked Swan if he'd heard Clyde McPhatter singing his song on the radio.

He didn't even know McPhatter, who'd faded but was still one of the country's best-known rock 'n' roll stars, had recorded the song. This was the big time.

Swan, who now lives in Southern California, remembers driving home down a deserted Broadway at 1:30 that next morning with his radio tuned to "Big U Baby" in Nashville, slamming on the brakes in front of the Statue of Liberty in Capaha Park when the song came on, and spinning circles of joy in the snow.

The catchy "Lover Please" chugged halfway up the Top Ten chart, but didn't immediately change Swan's life. "I really didn't know what I wanted to do," he said. "I thought maybe I'd just write."

Since then, it's been a musical career of breathless highs, dues-paying lows and lots of road signs for the Cape Girardeau native, who graduated from Central High School in 1960.

At the time "Lover Please" became a hit, he was the manager of the basketball team at the college and "majoring in art or something. But I quit as soon as basketball season was over."

People called him Shades because he wore sunglasses to hide an eye injury. Within a year he took the $3,000 he received for the injury and moved to Memphis to write for Bill Black. He immediately went to Graceland, where he met Travis Smith, Elvis' uncle. He wound up living at Smith's house and spending some time on the periphery of The King's social life.

Then he moved to Nashville. Within a year most of the song's earnings were spent and he was evicted from the abandoned building he was living in. There was one two-year period when he didn't write anything.

Eventually he hooked up with Kris Kristofferson, whom he'd met in Nashville. Swan was walking out the door after quitting his gofer job as an engineer's assistant at CBS Recording Studios. Kristofferson was walking in and asked Swan if he knew where he could find a job. He happened to.

Swan's next hit and most successful song didn't come along until 1974, but it captured the national imagination with its honorable offer of assistance to a woman who might be in need:

If your child needs a daddy, I can help.

"I Can Help" went to number 1 on both the pop and country charts and sold five million records. He performed it on tour with Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge.

Now the song has put him back on the national airwaves. In a series of new commercials, Swan sings new lyrics to an old song that just might help Dollar Rent-A-Car.

If you're gonna travel,

no matter where you go

If you need a hand,

we want to let you know,

we can help

... It would sure do us good,

let us help.

Other changes are occurring in Swan's career. After many years of playing in Kristofferson's backup band, he has formed a new group that includes ex-Eagle Randy Meisner and Allan Rich, son of country star Charlie Rich.

They're performing close to his home in Thousand Oaks, Calif., while looking for a record deal. Swan also has been shopping around a new solo album titled "Bop To Be," recorded at Elvis' old stomping grounds, Sun Studios in Memphis.

Swan was at work on a new song, "Greener Pastures," when reached by telephone. The song is about finding somewhere to live that's close to your heart. Not unlike his home town.

"I sure have that river in me," he said. "I remember walking those railroad tracks, and the willows down by the river."

One of Swan's sisters, Joy Grace, still lives in Cape Girardeau. She raised him from the age of 12 after their parents died. He also has an uncle here, Elbert Johnson, and another sister in Advance, Shirley Reutzel.

Swan recorded "I Can Help" a year after he married his wife Marlu, who was pregnant with their first daughter, Planet, at the time.

He said the song mirrored his real-life situation "subconsciously." They have another daughter named Sierra, now 14.

He's still friends with Kristofferson, in fact had just talked to him earlier in the day. They discussed their favorite football team, the Atlanta Falcons.

He hasn't seen Dennis Turner in awhile, but would like to. When they were teenagers, Swan and Turner used to deliver the Southeast Missourian to the east side of the river in a $100 '49 Dodge.

Turner now lives in Thebes. After "Lover Please," he went on the road with Bill Black for a few years but preferred staying closer to home. He works for Union Electric now.

He's a bit bitter that McPhatter aced him out of "Lover Please" before it had a chance for national release. "There was no doubt about that. The song had a chance of being a hit for me," he said.

Both Turner and Swan said McPhatter copied the Bill Black Combo version almost lick for lick. But Swan's still glad that McPhatter, who died in 1972 and has been inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, chose his song.

Mert Mirley kept his band going through the '60s, then quit the music business. He's now retired from plumbing, heating and air conditioning sales.

Swan said the people and places he knew in his youth in Cape Girardeau are in his songs, though specific references would be hard to find.

"You have some wonderful memories of the town if you're from there. If you're born there it's just in you."