About Me
"Kenn was the Shore's first real rock 'n' roll guitar star. As the front man in the popular mid-60's group Sonny and the Starfires, Kenn was the one who cut the path Springsteen and virtually every other Shore rocker would follow in the late 60's."
-Robert Santelli, Asbury Park Press 9/3/93"After leading a procession of bands through the 60's and 70's, including a trio called "Maelstrom" with Southside Johnny, Kenn has concentrated on playing classic blues and blues-rock since the 80's."
-Richard Skelly, The Asbury Park Press 6/12/99"It's hard to imagine what the Jersey Shore music scene would have been without the musical input and vast talent of guitarist and singer Sonny Kenn, he truly deserves the title 'legendary'."
-Robert Santelli"But then, Sonny Kenn -with blond pompadour and sharkskin jacket-bounds on stage...pounding out a "Lucille" that peels the paint off the walls..."
-Jane Goldman, New York Magazine"The leaner, meaner corollary to the horn-bloated Asbury scene made his debut decades ago, we get the wild idea he'll keep on doing what he does 'til he's the last guy off the embassy roof"
-The Asbury Park Press"He's a Jersey Shore blues legend, wowing crowds at every gig."
-Ben Buchwald, Jersey Style Magazine"The blues taps into real feelings, its intensity can stop you in your tracks. Improvisation is more real, and on a more visceral level, more emotional. To be real, you can't separate music from humanity. I still play because I want to...what I play is real for me. I don't play anything I'm ashamed of - and people feel that.
-Sonny Kenn to Ben Buckwald, NJ Style Magazine .........."It was wily old veteran Sonny Kenn and his band that stole the show."Accompanied by bandmates Dan Mulvey (upright bass) and Vic Bayers (drums), Sonny rocked the Stone Pony with revved up renditions of Carl Perkins' "Matchbox" (Sonny ripped it on guitar), Little Walter's "Blues with a Feeling" (Sonny gets down & dirty and gives all the young turks a lesson in the finer art of playing guitar, Chuck Berry's "You Never Can Tell" (Mr. Kenn and the boys rock) and last, but certainly, not least, Link Wray's "Jack the Ripper" (most inspired play of the night)."Actually, I felt bad for the bands that had to follow the Sonny Kenn Band, who just blew the doors off The Stone Pony. But I wouldn't expect anything less from the man Bruce Springsteen called "one of the legends of Asbury Park" and who more often than not stole the show at the Riverfest Jazz and Blues Festival up in Red Bank with his scintillating performances."Look, as long as I've been covering the local music scene, The Sonny Kenn Band has always risen to the occasion and the Asbury Music Awards was no exception. Sonny Kenn was the guy who set the standard for all the local axemen back in the day. The old-timers call him "the dean" and with good reason."Take it from me, Sonny Kenn hasn't lost a damn thing!"Sonny has a chapter on his life as an Asbury musician and the Asbury scene of the 60's and 70's in Gary Wien's book "Beyond the Palace", a survey of the Asbury music scene, past, present, and future. It is available in bookstores or directly from the publisher.Sonny and Vic are featured on "Stringbean and the Stalkers'" three CDs and are currently working with Kenny Sorensen and Dave Myers, winner of the 2005 Asbury Music Awards as "Best Bassist", on a fourth. These CDs appeal to blues purists, Hot Tuna fans, dead-heads, alt-country/Americana/American roots music fans.Sonny's new CD "SCREAMS, GROOVES, AND BRAND NEW BLUES" is now available. Please come out to a gig and get one!Sonny, Vic, and Dan did some improvised music and interaction with Belmar poet Bill Arneth on his CD "LAST CALL". Check out Bill's website.Sonny does some custom guitar work, restorations, repairs and set-ups with our friends at RARITAN BAY GUITAR REPAIR. They are a good group of guys, all active musicians, who are passionate about music and their work reflects that passion.You got to see one of the area's top-notch rockin' blues bands. The Sonny Kenn Band (with George Evans, 2nd lead guitar; Joe D'Angelo; drums; Dave Myers, bass; and Sonny Kenn, lead guitar) opened their first of three sets with the blues-done-right (real mean guitar) cover of "C C Rider" as they locked into a groove (smiles all around, the band doin' what they enjoy most), and proceeded take the crowd on a living, breathing, musical history lesson. "Mistreated" was a slow blues rocker that had a vibe that said: forget about, your problems, forget about the world, and just...PLAY!Finessed and fun, the tunes just kept rollin' out. "Catapillar Crawl" made the hair on the back of your neck stand up. The dirty and dangerous instrumental sounded like they hooked up jumper cables to their amps. During a break, Sonny had mentioned that he's been playing (he also gives guitar lessons) for 43 years, and man, I'll tell ya, it shows in the best of ways! Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Link Wray, Chuck Berry, james Brown - all this musical heritage comes pouring out from this band, and they do it with their own style, while still paying tribute the the originators. They turned Bobby Womack's "It's All Over Now' into a honky-tonkish countrified rocker that rivals the original, as wesl as Rod Stewart's or the Stones' covers. Opening their second set with Chuck Berry's "Nadine," (they also did a knock-out
version of Chuck's "You Never Can Tell"), the somewhat shot-and-a-beer crowd at Bello's was starting to take notice. The honeys were shakin' their tailfeathers, vibing on the sights and sounds (almost like a religious experience!), like the psychedelic blues jam the band brought out in the middle of "Nadine." You couldn't help but take notice. This is one of those bands that has that natural gift and love of music (they were fun to talk to also). It can't be learned, you're just born with it, and this night, like any other night that The Sonny kenn Band plays, they shared it with the audience. Throughout Taj Mahal's "Deep Blue Sea," the band took neat, short solos that spotlighted their talents, without taking away the vibe of the song. Blasting into Link Wray's (he just passed away this year) "Rumble," the band
celebrated the song's raw instrumental riffs with a LOUD, nasty, reverbified jam
(people started to move more to the front to get a better view.)Amid the requests for ZZ Top, SRV, and Skynyrd (yo, dude, it's on the juke box), the band ripped into a righteous, hip-shakin' version of "Boogie Thang" that formed the bottom line for all the above mentioned bands. Sonny don't play, he PONTIFICATES! That was the word of the night as Sonny and the band joked around, connecting with the audience as Dave struck up "Rub-a-dub-dub." A killer blues version of "Bony Marony," with Sonny's vocals shining through, kept the crowd vibing out. During an incendiary version of Berry's "Little Queenie," (and at times throughout the night), Sonny's vocals turned into a roar, as he put a stranglehold on his guitar, squeezin' out some illuminating, musical sparks! This isn't like, standing there staring watching-that-guy-play-guitar. It's more like, HELL YEAH!, let's all get out on the dance floor, this guy hittin' a solid groove!The opening riff of "The Peter Gunn Theme" was like someone let off an electrified, musical depth charge. The band absolutely shredded the originally more passive instro!Their third set was even more reinvigorating than the first two! Opening with a funky-as-hell bass line, than building on it one at a time with drums, and than guitars, Sonny yelps out his best James Brown soul shout - "Huunnn!!" - as the whole bands locks into a slow, bump-and-grind version of "Lickin' Stick." What fun stuff! When a band takes the stage with smiles on their faces, plays their butts off for a few hours, than ends the night ( "Susie Q." was turned into a deep, muddy, blues jam, as the band grooved and gelled on the closing number, "Going to New York"), even more exuberant and happy than when they started (the crowd was vibing out to the band throughout the night), you know is was a good night for music!You get the feeling that this is more than just a band playing in a bar. It's more like the pursuit of nirvana in rock and roll. It's a simple mission, but not many band's make it their priority like the Sonny Kenn band does, night after night.-Phil Rainone.........For upcoming dates and more info, visit www.sonnykennband.com
