Video: The Kennedys Minstrel Magic
https://youtu.be/0ZqVOvyeaQ0
Most bands would celebrate their 20th anniversary with a Greatest Hits album.
The Kennedys are not like most bands.
For starters, Pete and Maura Kennedy are married to each other. Maura has been known to hula-hoop while singing and strumming. Pete, a guitar god, enjoys treating concert-goers to Gershwin…on his ukulele.
So, rather than re-package fan favorites, this dynamic duo composed 40 songs — enough for three albums. The Kennedys shared some of these tunes last Friday at The Minstrel in Morris Township. It was a joyful celebration.
Above is video of She Worked Her Magic on Me, a rocking number Maura co-wrote with L.A. poet B.D. Love for Villanelle, Maura’s solo CD that comes out next month.
Love contributed all the lyrics for that album, which includes such gems as Fireflies and I Cry to Dream Again, inspired by a line from Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Breathe Deeply Love was written for a gay couple’s wedding.
“I thought, there should be a song that’s good for everyone,” Maura said. If the nation’s vocal chords ever tire of straining on The Star Spangled Banner, The Kennedys should pen our next anthem.
Pete’s next solo project, Heart of Gotham, due in June, includes an homage to the Williamsburg Bridge, a span that needs some good p.r.
Southern Jumbo, on the The Kennedys new joint effort, West, began as Pete’s ode to a Gibson Southern Jumbo guitar. When he ran out of rhymes after “gumbo,” Maura helped finish the lyrics. Hmmmm, next time we get stuck on a headline…
Friday’s opener, Michael Braunfeld, mines the heartbreak side of the musical spectrum. By contrast, he said, The Kennedys are “happy, jangly and smiley.”
Pete Kennedy put it another way.
“Our agenda is not that everything is happy and smiley, but that it’s possible to move from the dark to the light, and music can facilitate that.”
Here’s to the next 20 years of light from Mr. & Mrs. K.
If you love three-part harmony, another treat is coming to The Minstrel this Friday, April 24, 2015: Gathering Time, a silky-smooth trio from Long Island. Mara Levine opens. Showtime is 8 pm, at the Morristown Unitarian Fellowship, 21 Normandy Heights Road, Morris Township. Admission: $9, plus what you think the show is really worth.
