Biography
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Born
1937
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Born In
Dallas, Dallas County, Texas, United States
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Died
17 March 1991 (aged 54)
Max K. Lipscomb was born in Dallas in 1940 and joined up as a rhythm guitarist/pianist in Gene Vincent's Blue Caps in late 1957. Lipscomb was listed as being 20 even though he was already 17. Philly based "teen idol" producer's Bob Crewe and Frank Slay soon recorded him under the stage name Scotty McKay, whom Lipscomb remembers being called at the suggestion of Dick Clark. Scotty McKay released sides on a series of small East Coast labels including Event, Parkway, Swan, and Lawn before the 1960 Payola scandal pulled Clark's "teen idol" scene apart.
McKay ended up recording until 1962 in New Orleans at Ace Records, doing 6 singles with sidemen like Mac Rebbenack, Allen Toussaint and Fats Domino's backing band. An album compiled these 45s, plus bonus tracks by throwing McKay's voice over original Frankie Ford backing tracks made by Huey "Piano" Smith. After his relationship with Ace ended, McKay kept his career as alive as possible with one shot deals with labels like Shelby Singleton's SSS, ABC distributed affiliate Dot, Desk, Phillips, Capri, Falcon and Claridge. In 1963 a song he wrote called Summer's Comin' was a hit for Kirby St. Romain reaching # 49 on the charts.
By 1965, The Scotty McKay Quintet found themselves a cameo role in a low budget Vincent Price horror flick for AIP based on Edgar Allen Poe's "The Black Cat" where he appears briefly on screen performing his own tune Sinner Man and covers of Bo Diddley's "Bo Diddley" and Chuck Berry's "Brown-Eyed Handsome Man". His only other on screen credit occurs in an even lower budget 1967 TV movie called "Creature of Destruction". At one point while on a Dick Clark package tour backing Brian Hyland, he ended up recording a single with brit blues act the Yardbirds that was released in the U.K on Columbia in 1967. He kept trying, also recording for the Squire label as Max K Lipscomb With Bobby Rambeau Orchestra, and tried his luck as Tommy And The Tom Tom's and even as the Shut Downs. In 1970, Scotty McKay contributed a song to Gene Vincent's first Kama Sutra album at Gene's request, and sang backing vocals. Despite some 30 years in the biz and a lengthy, if haphazard discography, McKay never truly reached the pinnacles of pop infamy he'd sought, and retired from performing long before his death came in 1991.
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