Exile brings 50 years of music to Suffolk

By Frank Roberts

In 1963, “Lawrence of Arabia” won the Best Picture Oscar, the Grammy-winning record of the year was Tony Bennett’s “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” and the Grammy-winning song of the year was “What Kind Of Fool Am I?” Oh, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones hit the scene that year.

But the really big news, of course, was the birth of the band Exile. And, they are still around, still recording (a new CD is on the way) and still touring, including a planned stop at the Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts on Oct. 25 with Juice Newton.

The group is a half-century old and currently features J.P. Pennington, Les Taylor, Sonny LeMaire, Steve Goetzman and keyboardist Marlon Hargis of Somerset, Ky., who took time from a Nashville recording session to chat recently.

“We’re looking forward to visiting Virginia,” he said. “We get around there three or four times a year. We’ve played all over the state, and have visited at least 40 of the states. The key words are ‘hanging on.’ We’re like a family, with some members leaving and coming back.”

“We never tried to change our sounds,” Hargis said, “so you don’t get us on modern country radio. We keep doing what we’ve been doing over the years, and we still draw good crowds.”

What they’ve been doing is offering a healthy mix of country, rock and soft rock. It all started in Richmond, Ky. They began, as so many such bands have done, playing local clubs. The big break came when Dick Clark heard them and added Exiles to his touring Caravan Of Stars.

In ’73 they changed their name from The Exiles to Exile. The origin of the name goes back to the year they got started. It was the year of the Cuban missile crisis when many Cubans “exiled” to U.S.

“It was,” Hargis noted, “a name that was around.”

It really got around in ’78 with their hit ballad, “Kiss You All Over.” Other No. 1 hits included “Woke Up In Love,” “Give Me One More Chance,” and “She’s Too Good To Be True,” to mention just a few.

The “kiss” song was used in the 1996 Adam Sandler farce, “Happy Gilmore,” and in the 2006 film, “Employee Of the Month.”

“It’s our most requested song. We’ll never outlive it. We’re proud of it,” said Hargis who, with his musical buddies has appeared on “Larry’s Country Diner” on RFD-TV, the channel that is helping to keep pure country music alive. They proved to be a happy, friendly group, able to hold their own in the humor department.

“We’ve done that show more than any other group,” Hargis said. “I’m sure we’ll do the Country Reunion shows. We’ve done several (Grand Ol’) Opry shows.”

Exile recently released “Live At the Franklin Theater,” recorded at that large Tennessee venue.

In the Suffolk venue, here is what to expect: “We open, then we do a unique thing with Juice. We all work together. Then, it’s Juice, and we come back with a medley of old Motown hits. Everyone in the audience will know all the songs, and we encourage everybody to sing along, and dance.

“If the crowd’s not having fun, we don’t have fun,” Hargis said.

When he is not working with Exile, Hargis works as a recording session player and as a producer. When not doing any of that, he said, “I spend a lot of time with my new grandson.”

Hargis rightly notes that not many entertainers, in any genre, have been around for half a century.

“We were teenagers when we started, and now we’re at the retirement age,” he said. “But we love traveling, so we’ll keep going.”

“BacktoBack Tour — Juice Newton with Exile” will be at the Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts Oct. 28.

For tickets or information call 923-2900.