Waking Up in the Studebaker

Starting with his earliest memories in the 1950s, Kevin Gray covers a lot of ground – including impressions about racism in the former Capital of the Confederacy. Teen music and rites from the late 1950s drew him in by age 10. He offers personal insights on Vietnam, music and the drug culture, and the turbulent times right into 1968. Gray admits, “I thought America the greatest place on the face of this earth to grow up in, but, then, I realized my color (white), my religion (Methodist) and my parents’ middle-class income helped. Then, I wasn’t so sure.” Asthma, extreme shyness when indoors, affected him, but an overriding act first think later attitude actually drove the boy. He also admits, “Life could be pretty boring and quite confusing for a suburban kid in those days. I didn’t live in New York or San Francisco or any of those exciting places. I had to make my own fun and my own life well away from places in the news. The 1960s really weren’t what they were cracked up to be in the media – that is for a kid stuck far from any “happening place.” At least we had the music! Yet, in so many ways, events in both the 1950s and the 1960s reached out and made an impact on people nationwide, even to a young boy growing up in Richmond.” Waking Up in the Studebaker is Gray’s very personal story set during changing times in America. “This is my story,” he said, “and, more than anything, I didn’t want help in whatever I did. I had to live my life my way, even if it gave me many bruises along the way.”