Chapter 57 – Michael Kennedy Remembered

                                    Michael in the early seventies with his Gold-top Les Paul

                                        Mitch Mitchell, Michael Kennedy and Chas Chandler

In Chapter 26 of Silverspoon, the World’s Greatest Band Nobody Ever Heard, the one called Michael’s Abrupt Departure, I touched on the last few years I communicated with Michael Kennedy, but I didn’t really do it justice. There was so much more to the story. I don’t remember exactly how he found my address, maybe it was from Larry Harrison, but I don’t know how he would have found him since he moved around as much as I did. It could have been Stephen, but I doubt it. I know for a fact it wasn’t BJ— he hated BJ’s guts (the guy could hold a grudge). Anyway, one day, out of the blue, I get a letter in blue aviator stationary with a Philadelphia postmark. I think it was early 2002 because the aftermath of nine-eleven was still fresh in the air, still a major topic of conversation, news articles and CNN.

I, at the time, was not a letter writing kind of guy, but I did keep phone numbers (I still have a dot-matrix printout address book that I still refer to in my office). I noticed that the address on the letter was the same one he had back in the seventies, in Jenkintown, so I figured he had the same phone number—I was right. I called him and when I heard that same East-Coast, Philadelphian whine answer on the other end of the line, I knew I had gotten the right number. We talked for over an hour about all the things that had happened to both of us since 1976: When he left L.A. after marrying Larry’s girlfriend, Cynthia, he told me the marriage, officially annulled after three weeks, which I already knew from Larry, but it was nice to finally have his side of the story. He said he had been checking the charts for my name over the years thinking that I should have been a star. He was disappointed when I said that I hadn’t achieved the success we felt I should have reached, but I did have two solo records under my belt at the time and had gotten some good reviews. He asked me why I moved to Tennessee; was I into country music now? I told him I liked where country music was going in 1994, but now it was so banal and stupid, I couldn’t stand it (it’s gotten worse, if that’s possible). I also said I had picked up the pedal steel guitar, which was not the easiest instrument in the world, and he was impressed.

After that conversation, Michael continued to send me letters and gift boxes. He included Beatles memorabilia, tapes of his stuff that he was working on or had completed over the years, guitar parts I told him I was looking for (one was a pickup ring for a 1964 Gretsch Anniversary I had been searching out for years). He became my mentor in the guitar and amplifier world and helped me find rare and exotic deals on Ebay and other musical sources. In fact, he helped me find the Hofner Beatle Bass on Ebay that I still have sitting under my piano (when I’m not playing it). It was the Fourth of July and he made me aware of a listing for a 1970 Hofner on Ebay that was closing in a few hours in my neighboring town of Franklin. It had no bids and I was a bit skeptical of the legitimacy of the ad. So, I emailed the address on the listing and the guy and he said the bass was real and used to belong to Les Paul’s son. He had cut a small hole in the back for a battery pack, therefore it reduced the overall value, but hey, it was still an early Beatle bass. I bid $500. I guess since it was a holiday, everyone was out barbequing or setting off fireworks. I won the auction at five bills. When I went to pick the bass up at his house, I thought the guy looked familiar. He was in L.A. at the same time I was and was at the most outrageous party at Mickey Dolenz’s house in the mid-seventies where Phil Spector, Doug Dillard, most of the Monkees and to top it off, Brian Wilson in his bathrobe at the organ doing his best Carl Wilson impersonation for hours upon hours (it was kind of sad, actually). The guy also played the pedal steel and recorded the steel part on Stephen Bishop’s On and On (he and his brother were in Bishop’s band). The guy’s name? Billy London. He and I are still good friends to this day, but I’m not going to sell the bass back to him.

When George W. Bush declared victory aboard that aircraft carrier in 2003, Michael was as appalled as I was about it. We had already collaborated on two songs by mail and over the phone (he would send cassettes and later CDs, I would upload them on Protools and add my touches, then send it back to him and so forth, it was a tedious process but it was great to be able to create with Michael, a really brilliant guitarist). When he sent a track with a screaming guitar and interesting chord changes, I wrote lyrics about a town in eastern Afghanistan, where a lot of fighting was going on by the name of Jalalabad. It was an imaginary first person account of Osama Bin-Laden hiding out there (or in Yemen).

Got to make a break tonight, Mo.

They’re closing in so I really gotta go.

There’s a heavy with a hot-wired van.

He’s gonna meet us tonight at midnight sharp

Outside the gates of Jalalabad.

After completing the recording, I became a little paranoid, thinking that government agents would be knocking on my door thinking I was a terrorist or something. I know it was stupid, but that’s the kind of fear the government was instilling in the American public at the time (still are). Michael told me there was a guy, another Larry, that had a small record company in Philly that wanted to buy the song outright. Since I didn’t want to have my name associated with the song, I agreed. Got a thousand bucks and that was that. Now I think it might have been a hasty decision, since it was the last thing I ever did musically with Michael, and it was pretty good considering what I had to work with when I got the initial recording. The guitars (although rocking) had an annoying high-pitched feedback which I had to squash with compression and equalization to keep under control. I will send a link to the song on my reverbnation account if I can find it.

As the years progressed, Michael became (what I thought) clinically depressed. He told me he wanted to shoot himself. I was livid. First of all suicide is a major no-no in my book and I hate fucking guns. I tried to talk him down from the metaphoric building, and when that didn’t seem to work. I said that I would never have any respect for a person that took the easy way out. I said his legacy, in my book, would be thoroughly tainted. We had harsh words and didn’t speak after that until I got the email. The heading was MK END. He wrote on September 12, 2006:

      I couldn’t swallow. blocked.
            had a scope put in to look.
            they called a helicopter to rush me to a big hospital that did cancer surgery.
            in hospital for 1 month. took 2 months to get up after that stay. another month to drive a    bit.
            feel weak and bad now.
            don’t call on phone ‘til im up to it. Not this week for sure.  I’m on meds.
            We will def speak next week. I’ll let you know when im up to it.
            thanks, m

I wrote back:

            Michael - just wanted to say I think you are one of the best rock n'
            roll guitarists I've had the privilege to know. GOD bless you and I
            hope you have PEACE my brother. I love you.

            James

On 10/26/2006 he wrote another email: in hospice now
            end soon - have Lennon and red ric 12 w/ me
            see ya around
            mk

That was the last time I ever heard from him. He died on November 18, 2006. It was the seventeenth anniversary of the day my father died. Bad day!

I still have some of the letters and recordings from Michael. I have the gift boxes, (at least some of the contents) including the wooden Martin coasters made from the part of the guitar they cut out to make the sound holes. I have the VHS tape of Titanic, the Beatles posters and records, the Vox adverts (pictured) from the sixties, but most of all I have the memories. It’s too bad there was such a long gap in our friendship (more than twenty-five years), but at least we got to record together again (even if it was courtesy of the U.S. Postal Service). Michael did make it into the Rock Encyclopedia with his old band, Horsepower and sang on the Beatles song, Piggies, from the movie, Helter Skelter in 1976 with our band, Silverspoon. See You Around, Michael; someday maybe, I’ll see you around.