Biography Page 1
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1948-On March 2nd Jay was born in Morgantown, West Virginia to Lawrence Vaquer, also from Morgantown, and Ida Moreira Vaquer from Belem, Para, Brazil. Jay was the second of 6 children.
1950-Jay's father rejoins the United States Army for the Korean War effort and the family is moved to Fort Knox, Kentucky. Jay is sent to a local Catholic school and joins the Cub Scouts. He was forced to take dancing lessons with his sisters and began studying piano at age 5.
1954-Jay's father returns from the war and is transferred to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri and the family moves again. Jay's mother puts the kids on a bus for a 30 minute trip to the nearest town with a Catholic school (Rolla) until Jay began the ninth grade. In Missouri, Jay led the life of a country boy, hunting and fishing. He continued piano lessons and in the Boy Scouts, made it to LIFE SCOUT, had enough merit badges for EAGLE when his father got orders for Germany.
1963-The family moves to Stuttgart, Germany. Jay attends Ludwigsburg American High School where he lettered in football, basketball and track. He was a member of the Student Council and the Lettermen's Club. For Jay's 15 th birthday, his father bestowed a FRAMUS electric guitar and VOX AC30 amp. Jay began studying guitar with a German instructor who was teaching him how to play waltzes. Jay wanted to learn Surf Music and quickly found a spot in a high school band called The Avengers with Mike Anderson. They played music from The Ventures, Johnny Rivers and Chuck Berry. When the music scene in Europe exploded with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and underground groups like The Who, Jay joined a group called The Gamblers. The leaders of this group were American soldiers stationed in Stuttgart. On the weekends, they would put on their long hair wigs and rock out. The band had a German manager who would book the band as "Direct from the USA" and it didn't take long for the group to get recognized. They played for The Star Club circuit where the Beatles started.. The group was offered a franchise by Vox Instruments. In 1966, the "GI"drummer and keyboard player got orders to return to the USA and shortly afterwards, Jay graduated high school and his father got orders to return to the USA. The United States Government was getting warmed up for a confrontation with Vietnam.
1966-When Jay turned 18 the Draft Board gave him an option, go into the army now, as a private, for two years and get benefits, or, go to college for four years and upon graduation, attend Officer's Candidate School and do three years in the Army as an officer. Jay's father got orders for Fort Benning, Georgia and the family returned to the USA. Jay was quick to apply to the local college, Columbus College in Columbus, Georgia, where he became a full time student. Most of the students were local and locked into their social norms, Jay's appearance and attitude were not acceptable-he was a pre-hippie freak. One night he went to the teen club on post and met two other long hairs- Herb and Mike Guthrie. These brothers were musicians whose father had been stationed in Augsburg, Germany just south of Stuttgart. They were familiar with the European music scene and that night they made a band called The Bitter End. This was the most progressive group in the city and became a gathering point for The Alternative Society of freaks. As the War raged in Vietnam, Fort Benning became active transporting soldiers from all over the world through Ft. Benning. The Bitter End played music of Frank Zappa, Love, The Byrds, The Beatles and some esoteric tunes Mike's dad had taught him.
1967-Jay wanted to branch out musically, the Bitter End did not. Jay left the group to form Mary's Grave. Power blues, stacks of speakers, weird lights, the hippies were coming into bloom. Jay worked as a lifeguard at the officers club pool during the summer, took tennis lessons from Mr.Ponce, and got back with the Guthries to form a group called Arnold Bean with Gary Burnett on bass. Everytime a class of infantrymen would graduate, there would be a party and a live band. Arnold Bean was finally banned from playing at Ft. Benning after Herb Guthrie, the drummer, got into a fight with some Major at the Officer'' Club.
1968-Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and Cream, were the major musical influences of Jay's new band called FANE with Manfred Rackow on bass and Steve Swenson on drums. By now, the underground hits of yesterday were becoming today's hits and this band worked a lot of night club dates for dancing until they helped construct The Electric Toadstool- a psychedelic night club. Fane would walk in at nine o'clock and play Crossroads for 45 minutes, and then take a break. Improvisation with a power trio was nearly a religious experience when the crowd and musicians linked into the same trip. Jay wanted to take the band to California but they were full time students and if they dropped out of college, or failed , they would be sent to the war.
1969-Jane Duboc came to the USA from Brazil for Jay's sister Gloria's wedding to Manfred Rackow . Jane and Jay get married at the Russell County courthouse. After changing his major a few times, Jay is in his senior year of college and Vietnam is on the horizon. Jay's musical tastes shift more towards the Allman Brothers, Brian Auger and heavy jazz fusion. Jane becomes the vocalist in FANE and John Aiken is added on Hammond Organ. This group became an immediate success at the officer's club and played mainly at Ft. Benning.
1970-Jay's father, a Chief Warrant Officer, returns from a tour of Vietnam and tells Jay that it was not a just war and many young lieutenants were giving their lives in vain. Jay was due to graduate and report to officer's training school when, one month before graduation, Jay boarded a plane for the Amazon jungle. Jane's father was a medical doctor and loved American jazz. As a wedding gift, he paid to bring Jay's band from Georgia to Brazil. Jay and Jane, Manfred and Gloria, Bill French on drums, and Larry Fox on keyboards lived in a summer farm house 30 minutes into the Amazon outside of Belem, Para , which is a city on the mouth of the Amazon River. The band would rehearse during the week and do gigs on the weekends at social clubs. At this point Jay's musical taste became more esoteric listening to groups like The Flock, Spooky Tooth, The Electric Flag with Mike Bloomfield and the Brazilian jazz groups from the sixties. After months of practicing, the band got an offer to play on a Nationally televised program from Rio De Janeiro. The band arrived at the television station studio to play live. The Globo TV Orchestra had to move their sound equipment out of the way and noticed the top of the line equipment Jay's band FANE had brought to Brazil. Manfred was offered nearly 4 times the money he had invested in his bass rig and Larry was offered about the same for his Hammond Organ, electric piano and PA system. They decided Brazil was not ready for Fane's (which the spelling was changed to FEIN in order to keep the pronunciation the same) type of music and the best thing was to sell the equipment and return to the USA. They did just that, but, Jay, Jane and Bill stayed in Brazil. The guitarrist from the TV Globo orchestra offered them his country home in Teresopolis. It was in the foothills, an hour south, by train, of Rio De Janeiro. Here they met a p roducer from CBS Records who signed them to a recording contract and brought them back to Copacabana to live. His name was Raul Seixas and his nickname was Raulzito, meaning " little Raul" and he was married to an American, Edith Wisner. They all became friends immediately and shared all their free time with each other.
1971-The ecological content of the lyrics on "Feins' Epic label single "Pollution", produced by Raul, was censored by the government. Jay was told by government agents that Brazil had enough problems. And that the people did not want to be bothered with more problems. As song writers they should stick to happy love songs or go to prison and get tortured or deported or whatever. Raul wanted to fight back and give the Brazilian artists freedom of speech and the press. Jay agreed to help, from anonymity, and they began planning a passive sociological shift in reality awareness through music. Every working day, Raul and Jay would take a bus into the city to the CBS studio. Raul would have Jay play on all his sessions. If there were no guitar parts, he would play percussion, sing in the chorus, or what ever to get a check. Soon word spread that an American guitarist with a 200 watt Marshall stack and a Les Paul was available for sessions and Jay had more studio work than he could handle. Just about every night, Raul, Jay, Bill, Edith and Jane would sit on the beach, drink beer and talk about The Alternative Society and how life would be if they had the power. Many of these conversations became themes for the lyrics in Raul's music.
1972-Jay signs a contract with RCA Victor to release his first solo LP. Since Jay was the producer, he contacted Brazil's finest musicians to participate in a non-commercial free jazz effort titled, "The Morning Of the Musicians". While Jay was rehearsing at Egberto Gismonti"s apartment, Jane gave birth to their son, Djae. With free time during post production, Jay and Raul wrote a television show. When they tried to sell it to TV Globo, the only copy of the script disappeared and the contents began surfacing in Globo's new shows. Jay took advantage of his RCA connection and had Raul hired as a producer earning double his CBS salary, where he was not permitted to produce himself. Jay had moved to a large apartment with a studio in Leblon where notables such as Antonio Carlos Jobim (who lived just a few blocks away) would frequent. One night Raul brought Roberto Menescal over to hear some of Raul's material that FEIN was working on. Roberto offered Raul a chance to be an artist at Philips. Roberto and Nelson Motta wanted to make a demo LP of old rock tunes as a test. While they worked on the rock LP, they recorded a single called "Let Me Sing" that Raul entered in a music festival. Raul entered in a music festival. Raul with FEIN played the festival and placed the song on the charts. The rock LP was a success and the door was opened for Raul's first solo LP. To better protect himself from the wrath of the government censorship, Raul sought out an alliance with a noted journalist, Paulo Coelho, to share responsibility in the subversive lyrics. Paulo and Raul hid the meaning through clever use of metaphor and double meanings. Jay took the songs and put them into disguised rock clothing using a system referred to as The Rat System. The first Lp "Grig-Ha ,Bandolo" became a hit and Raul was on the map as a certified rock star.
1973-Bill French, the drummer, had legal problems with visa prorogation and returned to the US. Jay's parents came to Rio to see their newest grandson and advised Jay that the FBI had come to the house looking for him wanting to know why he did not show up for his induction physical. Jay went to the American Embassy in Rio and asked if their doctor could give him the physical. They sent a letter to the commanding general of the Caribbean Sector requesting permission. In the mean time, Raul and Paulo began consuming large quantities of cocaine. It cost about $5 a gram back then and it was readily available. Raul became totally lost in his rock character. Edith, Raul's wife, expressed concern that Raul's personality changes were irreversible. She was right, this was the beginning to the end of Raul. Jane refused to work with Raul anymore and began singing with Egberto Gismonti. Jay tried to hang with Raul for the money. After all, Jay's jazz LP gained him respect inside the music industry but put little cash in his pocket compared to work with Raul.
1974-Jay began working on Raul's next LP called "GITA" (this LP went gold and the only copy of the gold record awarded Raul adorns a wall in the Green Island Recording Lab in Georgia) Raul's drunken behavior became intolerable. Nearly a year after his first contact with the American Consul, Jay returned to the embassy to find a new consul who knew nothing. Jay called his father who arranged a deal with Senator Jack Brinkley of Georgia. The Justice Department agreed to accept a bargain where Jay would return to the University for two more years, since he had completed almost four years, and that would be accepted as Alternative Service. Jay, Jane and Djae left the "Marvelous City" of Rio De Janeiro and headed back to the Amazon River at Belem. With Tom Jobim's Brazilian drummer, Everaldo Ferreira, they played music at night and during the day went sailing on the Amazon River, played tennis, or hung out at one of the many social clubs in town while Jay awaited confirmation from the Justice Department.
1975-Everaldo wanted to travel to the USA but had to return to Rio. Jay and family landed in Columbus, Georgia. Jane took music and acting classes and Jay enrolled in school taking graduate classes in cinematography (it was actually an independent study course like Cinema565U), directing, and photography. Bill French was in Auburn, Alabama studying at Auburn University. On weekends, Jay, Jane, and Bill became "Trio Rio" playing Brazilian music around the Fort Benning area. Jay's musical preferences now were Miles Davis, Chick Corea, the budding Fusion Scene. Jay's sister Gloria had just divorced Manfred and wanted to go to Brazil. Jay gave her Raul's phone number and told her he would help her with whatever she needed. Jay learned to use the film making equipment and started an advertisement agency called Vaquer Productions. He won a Gold Award for a local television commercial for Merit Television which featured Jane singing on George Goddard's (Jay's photography professor) sailboat in the Gulf of Mexico. The jingle was produced in Tommy Merits 16 channel studio on Buena Vista Rd in Columbus. Meanwhile in Brazil, Raul was recording his first LP, since becoming famous, without Jay's Rat System. It was called "NOVO AEON" After the sessions at the end of the year, he got on a plane and went to Columbus, Georgia. He surprised Jay by presenting his new bride, Jay's sister Gloria. When Raul saw that Jay was becoming a film maker, he said he would return to Georgia to make a film and wanted Jay to return to Brazil to work again.
1976-Raul and Gloria show up in Georgia and Jay and Raul sit down and come up with the screen play for The Devil's Triangle. It was to be a 16mm low budget film like Easy Rider. Jay would do all the filming so he wrote the scenes and Raul wrote the dialogs in Portuguese. While scouting locations in Columbus and New Orleans, Jay was constantly shooting film-both 16mm and 35mm stills. In Columbus they filmed at the Columbus College new Fine Arts Hall stage, at TV Channel 38, and deserted sections of Fort Benning. For live music, Raul was backed by a local group called The Proprietors, with Joe Chambers on guitar and Billy Krafton on drums. Raul received a call from Brazil saying his new record Novo Aeon was not selling well and he needed to return to Brazil to promote it. Jay decided to take some of his Raul footage and edit it to some of the tracks on the Novo Aeon LP creating video clips that could promote the LP. Jay finished the editing and Raul took his master video to Brazil. One week later Raul called telling Jay to come collect a few thousand dollars for some of the photos he took of Raul in the US. Jay flew to Brazil, collected the cash, worked on The Devil's Triangle some and returned to the USA within a couple of weeks. Raul's record company realized Novo Aeon was a flop and wanted Raul to make a new record with Jay's Rat System. Jay arranged all independent study courses for the spring quarter and flew back to Brazil to record "Ha Dez Mil Anos Atras" which hit the charts and put Raul back on top. Jay returned to the USA for summer quarter and President Ford granted an unconditional amnesty for draft evaders. Jay was given a Certificate of Alternative Service, packed up his family and moved back to Brazil having satisfied the requirements of being a US born Citizen. Raul's record company Philips, paid all of Jay's expenses including an apartment on the beach in Ipanema with a maid. Jay recorded a single which one side was used on a television soap opera and reached number 6 on the top ten. It was called "Disco Pode Ser Cultura" with "Sem Seu Amor" on side B. Jay and Raul began writing material for Jay's first commercial LP when Roberto Menescal, the Director of Polygram, asked Raul and Jay to make another rock LP like "20 Years Of Rock" , which was still selling strong and would be released under three different titles, it is currently available on CD as "30 Years Of Rock".
1977-Raul and Jay began selecting music for the new rock LP called "Raul Rock Seixas" and for the first time Menescal asked Jay to co-produce the LP with Sergio Carvalho. This LP is erroneously referred to as a collection of studio out takes by misinformed Brazilian Raul Seixas biographers. While working on this LP, Raul and Jay also began writing for Jay's solo commercial LP. All the songs were published first and then, the entire collection was censored. One day Jay was coming home from the city when a pretty girl asked him for a ride home. The girl invited Jay to a party on the weekend with promises of sex, drugs and rock and roll. She said during the week they begged for money and on the weekends they partied. They owned a beautiful home in a nice section of Rio called Jacarepagua. She said the name of their religious cult was The Children of God. Jay had attended enough Catholic schools to know that real religious groups do not spend donations on their own vices. Jay wrote a song called "Meninos de Deus" which outraged the censors and even the recording company executives. They believed the children of God were exactly that, and that Jay was blasphemous in his accusations. One track from this LP "Escravos Da Terra" , an ecological theme, appears on Jay's new CD "Relembrando Raulzito" and all of these songs were bought by Warner Chappell Publishing Company but were never released. As work progressed on the "Raul Rock Seixas" LP, negotiations with a new record company began. Andre Midani was opening a Warner-Electra and Atlantic label (WEA) in Brazil and was recruiting Brazil's best selling artists. Raul was drinking very heavily during this period and Menescal would offer Jay cash bonuses to bring Raul to the studio sober enough to sing the tracks. The LP was almost complete when a manager booked a series of concerts for Raul, which would terminate in his home city of Salvador, Bahia. Jay picked some of the studio musicians for a band and they were off. While they were on the road Menescal found out that Raul was preparing to switch from Philips to Warner Brothers so he had Sergio Carvalho mix the rock LP and put it on the market. Sergio had no idea what was going on with that recording since he was the executive producer, arranging studio time and paying musicians, and Jay was the musical producer in the studio. Sergio left out solos and mixed Jay's Marshall amp guitar tracks in mono, which destroyed the heavy rock atmosphere of the recording. When Raul and Jay returned to Rio they were outraged to find out their Labor of love was ruined and Jay's solo LP was history but Warner offered to make up for it by beginning recording immediately on Raul's first project with Warner using Raul's first producer, Mazzola. Mazzola had ideas about how this new LP called " O Dia Em Que A Terra Parou" was going to sound and limited Jays influence with the music. Jay only worked on 2 tracks "No Fundo Da Quintal Da Escola" and "Tapanacara". While Jay is credited with the arrangements of these two tracks, he actually wrote the music using the Rat System, which was a method of superimposing music. When the sessions ended, Mazzola and Andre Midani took the master tapes to Los Angles, California for additional overdubs, which included adding Lee Ritenour on guitar, and mixing and mastering. When they returned from California Andre called Jay to his office saying the American engineer, Humberto Gatica, and the producer from Warner in the USA, were very impressed with his guitar playing and arranging and wanted to work with him in America. Jay called the American producer who offered him a job with Warner in California. Jay flew to Los Angles by himself and when he got there he called his wife Jane to say he had arrived safely. Jane took advantage of the opportunity and told Jay that she was not going to come to California and that she had another boyfriend and for Jay to not return to Brazil. Jay was shocked and heartbroken, he booked a flight back to Rio without even talking to the people at Warner Brothers. Jay moved in with Raul and Gloria and attempted reconciliation but Jane wanted her own career more than she wanted Jay. Warner had planned to release Raul's new LP with one month of Teatro Bandeirantes in Sao Paulo. Andre Midani asked Jay to be musical director and open the shows with his band. He also offered a cash incentive to make sure Raul would show up sober enough each night to do the shows. While Raul and Jay were in Sao Paulo, Raul's wife, Jay's sister Gloria, decided she was going to raise her and Raul's daughter Scarlet in the USA. When Raul and Jay returned to Rio Gloria left Raul and returned to Georgia. Raul and Jay rented an apartment in Copacabana and became roommates.
1978-Raul and Jay began a national tour of Brazil playing all the major cities. Raul's drinking became worse and his health declined to the point where he would pass out on stage and began canceling many of the shows where a deposit had already been taken. The managers were losing money and began stealing whatever they could get their hands on. They went ahead of the band to all the cities where the band was booked and collected 50% up front then took all the money and left the country. Raul canceled the tour and returned to Rio broke, seriously in debt, and near death. Raul's new girlfriend, Tania, took Raul to his hometown of Salvador to seek treatment and Jay stayed in the apartment in Rio. One Friday afternoon a lawyer showed up at the apartment and told Jay he had to move out because Raul's new girlfriend was taking care of his business and they were not going to pay the rent anymore. Jay argued that Raul owed him thousands of dollars for months of work where Jay received no payment and that the money Jay did receive from Warner for the recording and subsequent theater shows was borrowed by Raul to pay his taxes. The lawyer said that was Jay's problem and he would be back on Monday with the police to make sure he moved out. Jay called Raul's last personal manager, the one who booked the tour where the agent took the cash and fled the country, Elizete Duarte. She said all she could do was give Jay Raul's limousine that was in the shop but Jay had to pay a bill of three thousand dollars to get it out, which was about all the car was worth. Elizete was the Artistic Director of RCA when Jay recorded there and she also had hired Raul from CBS before Raul became famous. She was a friend and sympathized with Jay's situation but she could not resolve the problem. Jay then turned to his English friend Andy Mills, who first came to Brazil as a sound man with Alice Cooper and decided to stay and became the hottest rock engineer in Brazil. Andy suggested Jay sell the musical gear left in the apartment and leave rather than be victimized anymore. Saturday afternoon Jay sold the guitars and amplifiers, except for the Guild guitar Jay had given Raul for his birthday, and bought a one way ticket to Los Angles. On Sunday he said goodbye to his son Djae and the next morning arrived in LA. The only person on the West Coast that he knew was his old bass player and ex-brother-in-law Manfred Rackow. Manfred was living in Seattle, Washington and Jay flew up the next morning. Manfred was still working with FEIN's old keyboardist, Larry Fox, and they were recording at Kay-Smiths studios in Seattle. Jay was not sure what he wanted to do with his life at this point but music only brought him bad memories.

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