[citation needed] At night, he listened to the big bands from New Orleans, St. Louis and Chicago on the radio and pictured himself in those bigger cities.
[citation needed] As soon as he was off parole, he tried his luck in Los Angeles, California, where his musical taste was influenced by frequent visits to Dolphin's Of Hollywood, a record shop which would become world-famous in Doo-Wop circles.
The shop, located in Watts, Los Angeles, on the corner of Vernon and Central, featured a deejay by the name of Dick Hugg, nicknamed "Huggie Boy."
In 1955, when Rock & Roll began, he went back to Poplar Bluff where people immediately started ridiculing him due to his love for black music.
In July 1956, while playing a gig at the El Morocco Club in Gideon, Missouri, he met a local singer by the name of Narvel Felts who had started to build himself a reputation as an Elvis-type rocker.
His experience in drumming in a wide variety of musical styles landed him the job and he started in 1960 as the drummer for the Narvel Felts Trio, which also featured J.W.
The Narvel Felts Trio played across the Missouri/Arkansas/Illinois area from real dives like the Starlight in Lepanto, Arkansas, to honky-tonks in Missouri and strip joints in Cairo and Chester, Illinois.
[3] Lucas was soon asked to sing a couple of songs during each set in order to broaden the trio's repertoire, and he reverted to the blues and R&B he had learned during his years as a drummer in the clubs of East St. Louis and Calumet City.
In the summer of 1961, while Narvel Felts was serving six months in the US Army Reserve, he stayed in Memphis playing drums for Bill Rice and Jerry Foster as well as doing studio work.
Sometime during those six months he recorded "Trading Kisses / Sweetest One" at the Fernwood Studios in Memphis with Alvy Browning on bass, Bill Rice on piano, himself on drums and Roland Janes on guitar.
The reaction was swift and devastating "The record is too wild and crazy and we don't want to play this nigger music on our white radio station".
He wanted more than a local hit in Memphis and on recommendation by Rufus Thomas he went to the number 1 R&B radio station in the world, WLAC in Nashville, Tennessee.
John R., the station's top disc jockey, took one listen to the Renay single and immediately referred Matt to Zenas Sears of WAOK radio in Atlanta, Georgia.
The recording took place at the Roland Janes studio in Memphis, Tennessee with Travis Wammack on guitar, Jamie Isonhood, a talented Jerry Lee Lewis type piano pumper from Jackson, Mississippi, on keyboard and Fred Carter on bass.
"Turn on Your Lovelight" a Bobby Blue Bland hit from 1961 was recorded in Memphis with the same people as "Maybellene" with the organ at the end dubbed in.
In 1971, he made the cover of the prestigious The Globe and Mail Magazine and appeared on the Pierre Burton Show, while CBC TV did a special on him called "Return of a Singer".
The record became a hit in Canada, and also appeared on an album called "Disco mania" with songs by acts like Van McCoy, Gloria Gaynor and The Ohio Players.
Hoping the move to a warmer climate and different surroundings would enhance his chances of making a full recovery from his heart attack, he left Canada and started spreading his brand of Rock & Roll and Blues music amongst the cajuns.
After working the club circuit in Louisiana for a while, he received a call from his agent asking him if he would be interested in playing at "Frenchmen's Reef", the number one resort hotel in St. Thomas on the Virgin Islands.
Other cruise lines started offering him engagements giving him a long steady period of employment while making good money.
A few years earlier, he had fallen in love with a girl in Pittsburgh and after some arm-twisting, he convinced her to join him on the cruise lines as a tour director.
Today, he and his wife Barbara make their home in North Central Florida during the winter while summers are spent in their RV on the roads of the USA.