Steppenwolf founder John Kay’s concert at Renaissance Center benefits NPT
Release Date: 10/10/2002. Expired: 11/16/2002
For Tickets call 740-5600 or 1(888)700-2300
It would be easy for John Kay to live in the past. For more than 30 years, Kay has been most identifiable as the gritty voiced power behind Steppenwolf, America’s first hard-rock band.
But when Kay takes the stage of The Renaissance Center for a Nov. 16 concert to benefit Nashville Public Television, listeners will discover that Kay is also a blues-rooted troubadour whose solo albums show the entire range of Kay’s styles.
John Kay and Friends will play the Performance Hall at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 16, in a concert to be videotaped by The Renaissance Center’s Multimedia Department to be made available for broadcast on NPT Channel 8 and other PBS stations. Tickets are $37.50 and include a 6:30 p.m. reception with Kay. The rocker also will sign autographs after the concert.
While Kay continues to tour the world performing as John Kay and Steppenwolf, his Dickson concert will highlight his latest efforts from solo albums such as 2001’s “Heretics and Privateers,” a heavily blues-influenced collection of original compositions by Kay.
But Kay promises his Steppenwolf fans are not likely to feel left out as the stage is sure to rock with a couple of the 1960s counterculture standards he made famous.
Since the band’s first album in 1968, Kay’s rocking blues growl has been the sound identified as Steppenwolf with more than 25 million albums sold. The band released 17 albums 1968-76 before legal wrangling over the name prompted Kay to hit the road as John Kay and Steppenwolf, releasing 13 more albums 1981-98.
In the meantime, Kay has frequently worked on solo projects since the first time he stopped touring in 1972 and released “Forgotten Songs and Unsung Heroes.” He has six solo albums and another two albums of music by John Kay and The Sparrow, his first band after Kay came to the United States from Canada.
While Kay’s vocals on his latest works are unmistakably as strong and gutsy as at the height of Steppenwolf’s run, the music is a totally different direction, relying more on slide guitar and harmonica-driven delta blues than the driving rock guitars of the 1960s when he coined the phrase “heavy metal” in the song “Born to be Wild.”
“During the folk music resurgence of the early ’60s I crossed this country playing acoustic blues wherever I could make a few dollars, while learning from the innovators (Son House, Lightnin' Hopkins, Muddy Waters, etc.) whose performances I experienced in clubs and at events like the Newport Folk Festival. It was there that I first heard the topical songs of Tom Paxton, Richard Farina, Bob Dylan and others,” Kay says on his Web site steppenwolf.com. “I was strongly affected by the social commentary of their work and by witnessing thousands of people sharing a feeling of solidarity while being galvanized through this music. Since that time, blues and topical lyrics have often woven their way through my song writing, but never more so than in the songs on (‘Heretics and Privateers’).
“Several of them reflect a personal point of view, while others echo voices I’ve heard while touring through America. Some are the voices of those who’ve discovered that the standard issue road map to life has led them to a dead end and who are now choosing a different path. Many others believe that the social/political climate of recent years has brought an ‘every man for himself’ way of life which left them feeling impotent and disconnected. Most, particularly the young, are wondering if endless consumerism is worth the price it exacts.
“All of them seem to be questioning whether they should still believe in the American dream. They are the heretics and privateers (and I am one of them) who think the status quo is not good enough, who believe the less fortunate should not be left behind, who demand that the world of business and politics be held accountable and who have learned that mere materialism will not fill the inner void.”
Steppenwolf was one of the first bands to bridge the gap between Top 40 AM radio and the underground rock world of FM radio. The band’s trademark driving blues-rooted rock sound didn’t hide the fact that the lyrics were topical and intelligent, striking chords of the time. Kay’s voice and presence, lurking behind the sunglasses he has worn due to severe vision problems since birth, made him an early hard-rock star.
Kay, who now lives in the Nashville area, has hosted an annual fan club concert called Wolf Fest since 1994. The 2002 edition of Wolf Fest, which coincided with the Steppenwolf 35th anniversary, was videotaped by The Renaissance Center’s Multimedia Department for a package that will be made available to members of the Steppenwolf fan club, The Wolfpack. The footage also is being made available to a California producer who is working on a video anthology about Steppenwolf and to Bravo Canada, which is producing a biography on Kay.
As an infant, Kay (born Joachim Fritz Krauledat in East Prussia in 1944) and his mother fled to what was about to become Communist-controlled East Germany. Kay’s father had been killed fighting in Russia a month before Kay’s birth. When he was four, his family made a midnight escape into West Germany where he grew up listening to early American rock and roll on U.S. Armed Forces Radio. As a teenager, Kay and his family immigrated to Toronto where he listened to the rock, rhythm and blues and gospel music that was broadcast on American clear-channel radio stations and began learning to speak English.
He eventually moved to California as a member of the Canadian band The Sparrow, which he had joined in 1965, and began to chase his dream of being a rock musician. By 1967, The Sparrow was finished and Kay was looking for a new gig. Gabriel Mekler, a staff producer at ABC-Dunhill Records, encouraged Kay to form a new band and Steppenwolf was born with former Sparrow members Jerry Edmonton and Goldy McJohn along with Michael Monarch and Rushton Moreve.
“For the times, Steppenwolf was an uncharacteristically tight band,” Kay says. “In San Francisco, The Sparrow had been allowed to stretch out and experiment. But when Steppenwolf was created, I think Jerry and I had both come to the conclusion that the strong rhythmic element was what we really valued. Our philosophy was ‘hit ’em hard, make your point and move on.’”
After more than 35 years of making and playing music, Kay is still making his point and moving on. His autobiography, Magic Carpet Ride, was published in 1994, the same year he returned to the former East Germany for a series of concerts and reunification with friends and family he had not seen since his childhood.
Kay is also a frequent speaker at universities where he tells the compelling tale of his life, both personal and musical. He continues to release solo albums, focusing on the blues element that tinged practically every Steppenwolf song and says that these days he wants to focus on the bigger picture of life and be able to say he contributed to its improvement, with projects such as his support of public television.
For more information on the John Kay and Friends concert at The Renaissance Center, call (615)740-5570. The Renaissance Center is an arts and technology education and performing arts center at 855 Highway 46 South in Dickson, just 35 miles west of Nashville on Interstate 40 at exit 172.
Visit the Events - Concerts and Recitals page for more about musical performances.
News
| Date Released | Expiration | Headline |
|---|---|---|
| No Press Releases to show... | ||