They've done the cover songs, played the requests, dodged the flying bottles, and through all of that they held on to their love for the music. Jimmy and the band have made the journey to the underworld and returned, and they're ready to rock.
Note: Due to the pandemic and other complications this project has been paused. I am removing musicians' names and bios etc. for now, and will update this site when it's appropriate (hopefully soon).
Let's start with this: it's all about the songs. Listen to them. Let's not dumb this down. People are smart enough to know what's good.
Usually by this stage of their careers, a group of musicians would have become cynical. Because it's true, the bars'll wear you down. The lifestyle will kill you. But here we've got a group of players who have gone through it and have come out on the other side fresh and ready to make a statement. They've done the cover songs, played the requests, dodged the flying bottles, and through all of that they held on to their love for the music. Jimmy and the band have made the journey to the underworld and returned, and they're ready to rock.
Jimmy Kennedy, the elder shaman of rock and roll, has traveled the roadways of the musical underground, playing in the wrong sides of towns across America since the 1960s, mostly up and down the Western half of the country, between Tucson and Kodiak. He has been the backbone of blues jams and all-night country git-togethers, happenings and love-ins, rodeo after-parties and insane biker festivals, playing for working people and dancing people, listening people and sometimes empty tables and chairs. There is no counting how many songs this guy knows, thousands, going back to the 1920s, Leadbelly and Jimmie Rodgers through Hank Williams and Buddy Holly, up through Dylan and the Stones, Willie and Waylon and Gladys Knight, up to Cage the Elephant and Black Keys. All of this music lives together in one inflamed brain and the substance that emerges from the stew is solidly grounded originality.
Jimmy has performed with Marshall Tucker's Toy Caldwell, Johnny Lee of "Urban Cowboy" fame, fronted Merle Haggard's band The Strangers for one memorable Cattlemen's Association show, and had a three-piece band in California, Mary and the Blue Jays, with Mary MacGregor, after she scored a national Number One hit with "Torn Between Two Lovers."
He has performed and recorded in Pismo Beach with members of the pioneering surf band The Impacts, who wrote the original "Wipeout," has played Southern Rock at North Carolina pig-pickin's, played the blues in the central valley of California and along the Missouri River in Iowa. He even played a little impromptu bachata and merengue in the Dominican Republic. Published, gave poetry readings and led workshops as one of the Central Coast Poets in California; had a couple of exhibitions of his drawings. Studied classical guitar with maestro Juan Serrano, spent an afternoon jamming with jazz legend Gene Leis and Sonny Richter protege Chris Scarbrough. Little known fact: the first time Jimmy ever played an acoustic solo set in public, John Denver was in the audience. (He said, "Good job, man.")
Through it all he has been writing songs. His first recording contract in the 1970s got his band 20/20 a local Top 40 radio hit in Arizona. After some time on the road he recorded in California with The Daze, resulting in "Barroom Romeos," which became a nationwide line dance and a country indie hit for singer Larry Keyes. After a break from music -- traveling around the world, working a steady day-gig, being a dad -- Jimmy played "the roots of rock and roll" around the mid-Atlantic region, writing and recording through the 2000's and 2010's with The Colliders, who released two albums, "A Difficult Girl" and "Simone." These albums represented a decidedly contemporary vision of American life over a three-piece rockabilly and country framework with a heavy rocking backbeat.
In 2017 he began work on the do-it-yourself album called "The Life of Mischief." The album featured a dozen songs written by the artist, who played all instruments as well as engineering and producing in his home studio. As he told the Montgomery County Sentinel at the time, "The point is not to sell the album, the point is to make it." The songs portray a philosophy of living life without worrying about what anyone else expects you to do, living your dreams in those moments that you can claim for yourself, out of view of the panopticon. The album touches on many genres, from Memphis soul to bachata, electronica and boogie blues (listen at the "Bandcamp" link above). The DIY album provided the outline for arrangements for live performing; it was a medium for expressing the music but is mostly considered to be a collection of demos for musicians. In 2019 Jimmy applied for, and was awarded, a grant from the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County to assemble a band to perform the songs from the album. This is that band. The coronavirus pandemic threw a "Detour" sign into the road to concert performance, as the music business went into quarantine.
The Life of Mischief show features songs from the album plus assorted other original material, spiced up with some of the great masterpieces from the archives of the historic heritage of rock and roll. The presentation defies the constraints of genre, drawing from the sounds and styles that express what needs to be said. Jimmy is known for his clean tone and distinctive, bluesy style -- he has been called "the guy who put the B-flat back into the key of E." You wouldn't call his a pretty voice but interpretations are warm and passionate, full of humor and emotion and humility. And sometimes he steps back while others in the band take center-stage. The band of highly experienced players rocks confidently, pulling back into the groove or cutting loose as the music requires. Arrangements are tight with bursts of spontaneity and improvisation. This is definitely worth seeing.
The Life of Mischief Band is supported in part by funding from the Montgomery County Government and the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County.