Fred Wilson

If ever there was a man who sang for his supper, it is Fred Wilson, a genial, spontaneous, laughing American who has made Pattaya his home.

Fred was born in America in the Corn Belt, in Ohio, to the most unlikely combination of a preacher father and a vaudeville singer mother. A preacher’s stipend was minimal in those days, and with Fred being the third child they had to support, he knew what it was like to be poor. By the time he was eight he was working after school. Shining shoes, farm work, or even singing for nickels.

Schoolwork suffered a little because of that, as well as through his increasing preoccupation with music. Young Fred was by now part of a “warm up” band called the Matadors. “I was lucky to be on the same stage as a lot of performers I remember, but who wouldn’t remember me,” he said somewhat ruefully.

Despite this initial foray into professional life as a singer, he enrolled at Kent State University for a business course, but at that time (1965) the campus was known for its riots and anti-draft sentiments.

However, after hours, the young singer was beginning to make a name for himself, to the extent of signing a contract with the famous Motown records. Future for the farm-boy was looking good. Then came the draft! He had not racked up enough hours at the university so Uncle Sam took him off to serve in a war he didn’t believe in, like so many of his compatriots.

After a year of induction it was Vietnam with an amphibian unit, but even there in the unfriendly jungle he managed to get on stage to perform with some USO bands sent to cheer up the uncheerful draftees.

Eight months into his tour of duty he was injured. “I wasn’t shot in the ass, as some people think,” he laughed. “I’ll even show you the scar if you want.” (I didn’t). So it was back Stateside, to a Purple Heart and a waiting wife with one child. “I had half a college education and music had gone from R&B to Jimi Hendrix in that time.” His Motown contract had been torn up by the draft. Things did not look good.

Ohio had pigs and Ohio had a pig slaughterhouse. “It was a job that nobody wanted, but paid good money.” Fred Wilson worked for nine years in that slaughterhouse packing pig meat. His family grew and he moved upwards to become superintendent of the 5000 strong slaughterhouse workforce, but after another six years nothing was working for him. The marriage was foundering and he was living in a State that did not excite him. Fred wanted to see California!

Taking his two sons with him he attacked the fast lanes of California, but despite a few pub gigs it was not enough to keep them going and he took over managing a catering company owned by a group of investor dentists. “In five years I took a Mom and Pop business to a $5 million turnover in frozen Mexican food.” Fred had seen the opening and capitalized on it. He did so well that another frozen food company bought the dentists out - and closed the factory!

Again jobless, he garnered a little consulting work for some Thai restaurants that were setting up, as by that stage Fred knew the FDA regulations backwards. He didn’t eat Thai food however, “I was from Ohio - we didn’t eat food like that.”

A friend suggested they vacation in Thailand, and on that first trip he discovered Pattaya. “I liked Pattaya so much I was planning my next trip as soon as I got back. Women weren’t the attraction - I liked the simplicity of life, the opposite from California.”

So Fred Wilson uprooted himself, leaving his by now adult children in the US and came to Pattaya to live. “Getting back into business appealed to me,” and his first venture was in Karaoke. This was just starting to take off and the immediate challenge was to make it work. “I had worked in plenty of bars, but I’d never owned one!”

Someone who helped him in those early days was a young woman, Kanika. That business partnership eventually became a partnership in life too and Kanika became his wife. Describing his life, at that point Fred began to use “we” rather than the “I” it had been previously.

Despite singing in his own karaoke which was doing very well, Fred decided they should diversify and they opened Fantasy Photo and then back into the food business with outlets in the Royal Garden and now the new Aungkam Northern Thai food restaurant on Pattaya 3rd Road. So why this desperate need to keep pushing forward? “We were poor when I was a kid. That gave me a sense of not dragging your feet. I never wanted to be poor again.”

I asked Fred if he felt he had been successful and he replied forthrightly, “In Life number one I fathered and raised two sons in America, by hard work doing things I didn’t want to do. In Life number two I built the Mexican frozen food company, and in Life number three there is Kanika. My only regret was that I never completed my singing career. The draft finished that one!”

His advice to others is to, “Follow your dream. Keep it alive by asking yourself every day, what do I want?”

And is Fred now just sitting back and singing lullabies to his two young children? No way! “I have a new idea. I’m looking for the location...” Fred Wilson will be successfully singing another tune before too much longer, I am sure.