WOONSOCKET
-- Wayne Lima was drumming his knees, really getting into the music, when a band member noticed him.
This was back in the 1970s, at the Copper Galley in Providence. Lima, a guitar player, went to check out the band, The Royal Coachmen, with a date because he heard they were good.
The drummer later struck up a conversation with Lima, a fresh-faced recent college grad who had grown up in Cumberland. It turned out the band, which mostly played music that was popular at the time, was losing its guitar player.
So did Lima want to try out? Of course, he said. And he did. Then Tom Santos, the bass player, asked him to join.
That's not the end of the story. It's only the beginning of how Lima, now 47, would eventually form the oldies band Kings Row, which releases its third CD during its seventh annual Valentine's Day gig at the Stadium Theatre tomorrow The CD was recorded during a show last year at the Stadium.
But ix years ago, playing the Stadium was not exactly a plum gig. The theater, now 75 years old, had been closed for some time and was not in good shape. Even before it closed, it had gone through a rough period when adult movies were shown there.
But a group of Woonsocket residents interested in restoring the place's former luster went to work. And Larry Poitras, one of the volunteers, read a story about Kings Row, which made him think the band would be a good one to have play at the Stadium. Their music would attract the type of crowd he hoped would begin filing into the theater.
Poitras listened to a tape of their music and decided he would book them.
"Everyone said, 'They're really good. You should give them a shot,"' Poitras remembered. "They played for practically nothing and it turned out to be a big, major fundraiser [for the theater]. Actually, I guess we sort of fell in love with them and they fell in love with us."
Both Lima and Poitras recalled that the conditions inside the theater were rough for that first gig, however.
"They saw us at our worst," Poitras said. "Every time they hit a high note a piece of plaster would come crashing down or something. I'm not kidding."
But the improvements happened slowly. And now the theater is fully restored. Lima says Kings Row loves to play there.
So much, in fact, that the band decided last year it would record there for its next CD. Tomorrow night, they'll release it. It's called "Kings Row III Live," on Islander Records. It costs $15. Tickets are still available for tomorrow night's show, too.
But before all that, Lima had to form the band.
He played with the Royal Coachmen until around 1979, when he met his future wife. That's when he quit, deciding he wanted to go to graduate school at Bryant College to get his master's degree in business administration. The Coachmen fizzled out.
Fifteen years later, Lima decided to give up his teaching job at Bryant and move in a different direction. He would open a bowling supply shop, and decided to start an oldies band.
The first person he called was Tom Santos, who lives in North Providence. They had not kept in touch.
"You know how long it took him to think about it? Minutes," Lima said.
He then made contact with his other former bandmates, Ray Maitoza, of Fall River and D.T. Teixeira, of East Providence, and Kings Row began.
They gathered at Santos's house to see how they would sound together. And after a few minutes of playing, they had their answer.
"We all looked at each other, and it was like we never got off the bike," said Lima, who now lives in Lincoln.
Their audience has grown, and their CDs have sold well in the region, Lima said. They have labeled themselves "New England's best oldies band."
They play a long list of songs, some original, many covers, including
Love Potion No. 9
to Jerry Lee Lewis tunes. They wear matching suits and sing in harmony.
Lima said Santos has "the highest falsetto of a man in Rhode Island."
"What we won't do is play something that we don't feel we can give a really great rendition of," Lima said.
They're no longer as young as they were when they were The Royal Coachmen. And they don't play the funk and disco that they used to delve into.
But, "We all think we're still 25," Lima said. "We play like we're 25. We just get pumped."
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