The Regents
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Chris Isakson ~ Guitar
1965-1967


Chris Isakson in about 1965

Chris joined the Regents in about April of 1965 when Rich Liebe, original lead guitar, became temporarily ill.  He was able to jump right in and blend into the band with little effort.  Chris was an excellent lead guitarist and vocalist for both leads and backup vocals (In the photo above, Chris is belting out G-L-O-R-I-A to a packed house at Wilson High School, Tacoma, Washington, in late '65 or early '66).

Chris attended the University of Washington and completed a successful career in the military as an officer.  He now works in Asia.  As with Sammy and AFKAD, being a linguist came in handy for Chris too.  Chris reports he never gave up playing.  He still has that Gretsch guitar pictured above, along with some new cool "toys".

Chris writes...  "After leaving the band and going into the army I went to Germany from '71  to '73.  I Got out of the army in the summer of '73 and joined forces with Terry Bailey and a few other guys to play some gigs around Puget Sound.  I cannot even remember what we called ourselves.  Money was tight.   I was going to school at the University of Washington, working in a boat yard and playing guitar.  My house got robbed one night when I was gone, but my music equipment was inside a closet behind the door they used for their escape so it managed to stay with me."  Chris played with Terry and the other guys for about a year and continued to play with Terry's band up until about 1978.

Chris went back into the army in the fall of 1974, studied a second foreign language, Chinese...   German was his first.  After that, he ended up at Ft. Lewis.  That was how he got to be where he, Rich Liebe, and Sammy saw each other in about '75 or '76.  Sammy ran into Chris quite accidentally in about the Summer of 1976 at Fort Lewis, Washington, when Sammy walked into a tent and Chris was sitting there, not in his band uniform, but an olive drab Army field uniform as a non-commissioned officer.  The last time Sammy saw Chris was during another Army field training exercise in late '76 or early '77.

Later in his career, Chris managed to get one of those hardship tours to Hawaii, basking in the sun of that island paradise.  While there, he started studying Korean.  Later, he attended Yonsei University's Korean Language Institute for a year from '91-'92 and worked with the Korean Army as a liaison officer until he retired in 1993 as a Chief Warrant Officer.

Chris adds, "Since retiring, I have worked as a computer software field support engineer for Ilex Systems and Mystech Associates."    He now works as a Systems Engineering Technical Assistance (SETA) contractor in Asia, where he does requirements analysis and office automation solutions... in addition to general technical assistance.

All through the years Chris kept his guitars pretty close at hand.  He practices frequently on his old 1970's Gibson SG and a lovely Ibanez electric hollow body jazz guitar that his wife gave him for his birthday.  He says "The Ibanez is sweet!"  He also has a Gibson Howard Roberts Model (circa 1977) and the same old Gretsch pictured above. Another one of his toys is his Harley Davidson.

Band members once tried to imagine how the other guys would turn out.  We thought Richard AFKAD Rossiter would be the one most likely to live in a hippy commune.  We were dead wrong about AFKAD.  With Chris, he seemed to be the type who would be the successful quiet professional type and a great father and family man.   We pretty much hit the nail right on the head.

We are all looking forward to the day when Chris can make it back from Asia and join the rest of the band for the annual get together.
 
 


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Last Update - 8 April 2000