The whole things started with me saying “yes.”
Pete Kennedy has written his memoir with the same plainspoken elegance as the records he has made with his musical partner and wife, Maura Kennedy. He spins some engaging tales as effortlessly as he plucks a variety of guitars and other stringed instruments. Both talents come naturally to him. He has lived, is living, and hopefully continues to live a fulfilling and interesting life, which he details thoroughly in the 246 pages of this charming, easy to read book.
‘Tone, Twang and Taste: A Guitar Memoir’ is about much more than guitars, however, as Kennedy describes from an elephant’s memory the hundreds of musicians met and/or played with, the numerous venues where he has played gigs, all that he has seen while travelling throughout America and Europe, and the assorted vehicles that must have accumulated a million miles during his half-century on the highways and back roads.
Learning to not only play but understand the guitar is what made all this possible. You don’t become an accomplished guitarist, professional sideman, songwriter and headline performer by accident. Kennedy had help, some that he sought and others that came to him unexpectedly.
His first lesson came as a pre-teen on a Saint Patrick’s Day family trip to watch the Flying Wallendas’ high-wire act. Slipping away from his family, he went underneath the bleachers to encounter a guy with a guitar. “A pied piper had called me down from my seat, to crouch right behind the bandstand,” he recalled. “As he strummed, I tried to imitate the easy, rolling rhythm of his right hand. I felt at home. It was my first guitar lesson.”
He was scolded for his impromptu adventure, but on the ride home he knew that he would become, as he put it, “the guy with the guitar.” There was always music in the house, His older sister tuned in to “American Bandstand” while he and his younger sister jumped up and down on the couch, playing rhythm guitar on tennis rackets to the rock ‘n roll wounds of Buddy Holly, The Coasters, Ricky Nelson and Duane Eddy’s rumbling twang. But when someone dropped ‘Walk Don’t Run’ by The Ventures on the turntable, he was transfixed. “It hit me like a thunderbolt,” Kennedy exclaimed. “This sound was the missing piece in the puzzle of my life. That chord, the A minor in the bridge, I had to figure out how to make that sound myself.”
During his teen years, Kennedy’s life revolved around going to rock concerts (a $3 ticket to see the Stones) and playing in bands, one called the Figments of Imagination. This was the late ‘60s with the rise of the hippie subculture, and the band members felt a more intellectual name was required and thus became the Flying Hospital. Seeing the Who’s chaotic set opening for Herman’s Hermits made a lasting impression. “The guitar thrasher (Pete Townshend) was playing a Rickenbacker twelve-string, but not in the chiming style of the Beatles. The sound was more of a crunch …. later he strapped on a Gibson double-necked SG and roared into ‘I Can See for Miles.’
College years brought folk music and Bob Dylan, and Kennedy went along with the trend by picking up a Gibson J-45 at a pawn shop. His dad talked him into going to a folk mass group, and Kennedy found himself among kindred spirits, hearing them play a Richard Farina song. He went to a rehearsal with the group and found that “just like in the garage band days everyone played chords and sang, leaving me to play lead guitar.”
While enrolled at Boston College, Kennedy went to hear Duke Ellington at the Jazz Workshop and Clarence White at the Boston Tea Party, and that convinced him college was not his path. He quit and found work repairing guitars, which led him to Danny Gatton and a lasting friendship. He had a difficult re-fretting job and called on Gatton, who suggested he bring the guitar along to a gig at the Pussycat Lounge. “Danny strapped on a 1952 Telecaster and plugged it into a tweed Fender amp.” Kennedy was not impressed with the setup. “My snobbishness turned to shock when Danny hit the first lick, the intro to ‘Mystery Train.’ That moment is still prophetic to me. I was literally numb. Here I was in a little bar in Virginia, and the guitarist was completely blowing away anything I’d ever heard. It was clear that, while I never was going to play music on this guy’s level, the attempt would pull me in the right direction.”
The next critical juncture in Kennedy’s career came after a period as an itinerant picker. But that wasn’t paying the bills, so when his ’63 Corvair died, he hitched a ride back to D.C.. One night at a bar, a pipe-smoking stranger approached Pete and introduced himself as Chip Cliff. He told Kennedy that he should be working and offered a job teaching banjo, which he didn’t know how to play. “Just show up,” Cliff advised. “All you have to do is know more than your students.” Cliff taught Kennedy things he would never have learned on his own, sight-reading being by far the most valuable tool. “I knew from then on that I could always make a living with my guitar.”
The next major step in his evolution transpired when he went to see Joe Pass, arguably the greatest guitar player of all time, at the D.C. jazz club Blues Alley. After the show was over and everyone had cleared out, Kennedy got up his courage and shyly asked, “Mr. Pass, would you be willing to give me a lesson tomorrow morning?” As requested, he showed up at 10 a.m. Pass asked Kennedy to play lead over an E#9 chord, and he played every lick he knew. Pass told stories and gave advice for ten minutes, then said he was going to play the chord again and Pete should play the exact same thing he did before. Kennedy couldn’t remember what he had played. “That’s ‘cause you didn’t play a melody” was the master’s cunning response. “This was 50 bucks well spent,” he concluded.
Kennedy tried California on for size and it wasn’t a good fit. He was advised that he needed to smile more. One piece of good advice that stuck, however, came from the esteemed session guitarist Tommy Tedesco. When asked where he was playing, Kennedy sheepishly answered mostly weddings. Tedesco went into his gruff uncle mode and said sternly, “Look, any gig when you have a guitar in your hands is a good gig.”
Back in D.C. again he went with the goal of becoming a singer/songwriter. Hired to back Kate Wolf at the Birchmere, he learned that the guitar wasn’t the reason people came to see the singer when Wolf asked him, “Can you play a little less while I’m singing?”
His old friend Danny Gatton called with an offer to play second guitar in his band, and he jumped at the opportunity. That was a vote of confidence he truly respected. But Gatton’s idea of a compliment came in this epigram: “Pete Kennedy plays and sings pretty good, and he’s not a pain in the ass.”
Both Wolf and Gatton passed away in midlife. Kennedy continued doing session work and was drawn to the “new acoustic” music from playing with Bela Fleck and participating in jam sessions after hours at the Birchmere. The late Tony Rice was part of that crowd, and he offhandedly imparted something to think about. “Pete, always remember that you’re never more than one fret away from a right note.”
Eventually, Pete Kennedy met one Maura Boudreau in Austin, and the two young musicians hit it off. She had her own band, the Delta Rays; he had connected with Nanci Griffith and was heading to Colorado to begin a tour. Before heading out, Pete was doing a solo gig one night and closed with a chord melody of a Claude Debussy prelude, ‘The Girl with the Flaxen Hair.’ Maura was at the gig and asked him if that piece was by Debussy. That’s all it took. “I weighed the odds of finding more than one gorgeous woman in the world, who not only harmonized Buddy Holly songs, but could also recognize Debussy preludes.”
Readers are treated to Pete and Maura’s experiences with Nanci Griffith and the Blue Moon Orchestra, developing a friendship that lasted until Griffith’s death. Through his eyes and open mind, we get elegiac observations punctuated by jabs of memories as the couple travels back and forth across the country. It is an intimate and intensely personal account of an extraordinary life of music, passionate and witty. Kennedy’s writer’s voice is distinctively American, generous of spirit, engaged and rhythmic. He has the git of expressiveness that is also apparent in his music. “Tones, Twangs and Tales” is a poignant reflection on the people and places that helped shape the man and his guitars.
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Author’s Notes: Prior to the publication of this review, Pete Kennedy explained how he goes about developing a voice for his guitars.
Part of my background as a protégé of Danny Gatton is that I’m constantly making changes in my guitars. It’s a quest for tones that are interesting and hopefully unique. As half of The Kennedys, I’m also concerned with finding sounds that blend with Maura’s massive Gibson J200, sounds that also preserve their own voice, so our guitar picture spreads outward like a landscape rather than pulling inward to a single monolithic focus.
While she is singing, I play bass lines on the Telecaster, so I need a full sound on the low strings, like Duane Eddy, but I also need to cut through when I play a higher lead line that replaces the vocal for a moment. My favorite pickups are the older units made by Joe Barden in his garage, back when he and Gatton were working together on design ideas.
This Telecaster is a Fender made in Ensenada, Mexico in 2010. The original pickups were fine, but they disappeared long ago, replaced by vintage Bardens, although at the time of this photo the Telecaster has got an unbranded reissue “Charlie Christian” style neck pickup, a replica of a 1930s Gibson design. The only control is a single volume knob, no switch or tone control. I use both pickups “on” all the time, and vary the tone from dark to bright by moving my picking hand, just as I would do on an acoustic. The Strat is my backup, and of course the Rickenbacker 12-string is called upon when we need a bit of jangle.
These are the guitars which are surrounding Pete Kennedy in this photo…
Reissue “Coral Sitar” heavily modified by me with a single pickup and a cutout sound hole, sympathetic strings removed.
Epiphone Casino, modified by me with vintage Gibson parts and DiMarzio PAF pickups.
Rickenbacker 360-12, modified with a Gibson humbucking pickup. (Sorry, Rickenbacker purists…it sounds great!)
Epiphone Les Paul Ultra, completely hollowed out by me, to reduce the midrange response and bring “air” into the tone.
Fender Telecaster (described in author’s notes)
Gibson J185 cutaway, cherry red. Built in the Bozeman, Montana shop under Ren Ferguson’s supervision.
Fender Stratocaster, modified by me with Seymour Duncan pickups, wired like a Telecaster.
D’Angelico 12-string acoustic. Really great inexpensive guitar.
Ferrington SB-1. Interesting acoustic designed by Danny Ferrington, who made acoustics for Ry Cooder, Albert Lee, Emmylou Harris, Elvis Costello, et al. This particular one was made in the Kramer workshop in Neptune, New Jersey when Ferrington experimented with a few factory-made models for a short time.
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Danny Gatton and Pete Kennedy play “Natcho Blues” with a Beatle’s “Norwegian Wood” interlude. Starts off in a cool, laid-back vibe with the riff from Chuck Berry’s “Deep Feeling”
Pete Kennedy performed live at Trumpets, in Montclair, NJ in 2009 for an Outpost in the Burbs benefit performance, celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Woodstock. See how many 60s songs you can recognize!
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One more thing ….. The Kennedys offer a livestream on YouTube when they are not gigging. Livestream #132 celebrates Pete’s birthday as it coincides with the Super Bowl, in a special episode they’re calling: “Pete’s Super Bowl of Song!” And as it’s Pete’s party, he’ll play what he wants to! This time, he’s choosing all songs by musicians he’s worked with in the past, either on stage or in the studio. And you can be sure that every song will have a juicy story!
