BIOGRAPHY
For the songwriter Kenneth Irving Peck (Kenny), Kip has been a lifelong nickname, and folks from Dixie Heights Kentucky to the Coast of California have always known him as a musical kind of guy. He has performed in theater & musical theater, performed alone and with others in live or recorded music and musical comedy. When his father purchased a Harmony guitar at age 13, he was already attracted to the Kentucky sounds of bluegrass and folk music. He was part of the trio “The Young Men’s Trio” in high school in Kentucky and in 1966 Kenny published his first song titled “My Angel Eyes” as a freshman at Hiram College in “The Next of Kin” trio before going to Vietnam for 2 tours of duty with the U. S. Navy..
THE SMOKY JACK BAND is the name of Kenny’s original-music band started back in the early 1970’s. Just discharged from service to his country, Kenny drove from Seattle to San Diego where he began his musical career. The best of his new experiences came when Kenny was invited to perform a 9 song set of original compositions for Dave Mason.
While in San Diego he added new ‘band’ members that included a drummer for Dick Dale and the Deltones, a couple of Texas rockers, and a bass player from Oklahoma. Together they were the Smoky Jack Band. They had a ton of Southern California fun together, and rocked a club or two with Kenny's original music.
By 1972, with some players taking other work, Smoky Jack became a tight, energetic duo that featured Kenny on guitar/vocals, and Jim Carslake on percussion/vocals. Performing original compositions, the two became popular enough to open for traveling headliners: Papa John Creech, Linda Ronstadt, Gino Vanelli and even opened for George Carlin at the Icehouse in Pasadena.
When not performing music or in a professional musical-theater production, the two performers would drive Jimmy’s Volvo up to Hollywood almost once a week and solicit business. Just after Thanksgiving of 1972, they walked up a flight of stairs at a downtown Hollywood business, and met up with William Utley, manager of 3 Dog Night and Steppenwolf. A professional relationship developed but unfortunately for the duo Bill moved back to England and they decided not to follow.
When Smoky Jack disbanded, Kenny played with Robert Eagleman in the “Bob & Kip” duo and then formed “The Special K” with his wife Karen in 1977. The two toured the West Coast, the Pacific Northwest, Canada and Alaska as a music/musical comedy act for eight years.
In 1989, Kenny moved to Cincinnati and decided to settle down and raise a family. He has been writing and recording, refining and defining one of the most beautiful gifts to give, the gift of song and lyric. Wife Karen and son Cris are on "Naked Jack" and "Country Jack".
In the late 1990’s Kenny released a series of albums called KIP: From the Book Volumes 1 through 4. He also released “From the Book – Vol. 1 Smoky Jack Lives” which went onto Tune Core in 2008.
Kenny’s light hearted Christmas song “HO-HO SANTA, DON’T WANNA BOOGIE TONIGHT” was released Christmas, 2012. This Christmas tune is a fun blues song that discusses Santa’s return home on the 26th of December.
The album NAKED JACK, the first CD in 12 years from Kenny, was released at Cincinnati’s 20th Century Theater on January 19th, 2012. This release features 15 songs. It is an amazing array of original songs that travel through a number of pop/rock genres… the lyrics are compelling, and the emotions raw.
COUNTRY JACK, due to be released in the Spring of 2013, is a collection of Kenny’s country style of songwriting, and features a few fun cuts, good dancing material, some terrific players, as well as a NASCAR rocker titled HIKIN’ ON. On this release also is the single previously released last year for Father’s Day titled MY DAD & I, a terrific new, heartwarming song for Dads.
With his incredible arsenal of music, Kenny's story keeps going strong!
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