It is with great sadness that I announce the passing of a great musician who
served the Merseyside and European Music scene for over 40 years. Below is a
message I received from his dear friend and fellow musician
John Cross. Also
a message from an old friend (Roy
Robinson).
Thank you for your kind words and thoughts.
It is a very sad time at the moment but you are right we have had some great
times together and played some great gigs together and I will never forget
them or Kenny, he was a great guitarist.
He had been everywhere:
During the period - 1959 - 1960 recording with:
1964:
-
With a band - called New City Showband - in Germany, Sweden, Portugal,
Denmark, Finland, Spain and France
-
back to England with The Beat Boys recording with Micky Most on the Decca
Label backing group for Screaming Jay Hawkins,, Gene Vincent and Carl
Perkins
1967:
Back to Germany with a group called Great Expectations back to England with
many many more bands .
For the last 3 years with our band Rave On which we both enjoyed
tremendously.
We played with Pete Best and his band, followed by the Norbreck Castle in
Blackpool for the summer season;
We opened the Beatles Festival at the Cavern and even played on the same
bill as your man from Ireland Daniel O'Donnell; and we had lots more great
times together.
It hit our Paul very hard as this was the first friend/muso he was close to
and he thought a lot of Kenny, as we all did.
Some strange things have happened around his death when asked by Kenny's
wife Doreen what music could I suggest I said straight away two tracks off
our CD - Sleepwalk and a track featuring just Kenny which I recorded
unbeknown to him until he finished playing it at a practice night, it's
called Mr Bo Jangles.
I
told Doreen and, her son in law played the CD for her so she could have her
own pick of the tracks, there are 20 in all.
Kenny must have left it on random play the last time he used it and what
happened next was unbelievable. It picked out first Sleepwalk and second Mr
Bo Jangles! what are the odds of that?
Anyway, the funeral went great, lots of tears and lot of stories, and lots
of laughs as Kenny would have wanted it to be.
Afterwards we went to have some food and a lot of drink! I met an old
friend of mine from school, we had our first band together, he introduced me
to his son who turns out to have been taught by Kenny!
He approached me and said it would be an honour to take Kenny's place in the
band and his new guitar he had been waiting for had just arrived that very
day!
It was like Kenny was sorting it all out for us. Isn't life very strange?
Thanks once again for your kind thoughts. Hope to see you very soon.
All the very best
John, Carolyn, Paul (Ringo) and young Jack
I was so sad to here about
Kenny. I hadn't seen him since the sixties but in the last couple
of months we talked together on the phone quiet a few times and I was
supposed to meet him at the gig in the cavern. We were together in
the "Midnight Sect" and then in "Great Expectations". I also knew Vince
Taylor from my time in Paris but although I talked a lot about music to both
of them I never knew they were in the same band which seems very strange now
when I see the photo's on the net. Kenny was always my hero when I was a kid
and my ambition was to play in the same band as him. I'll never forget him.
He was a great man and a wonderful player. Roy Robinson.
