Album Notes

Kenny Hamber was born on September 18th 1943 in Baltimore, Maryland. Like so many other gifted soulful vocalists of his generation, Kenny started his singing career in the local church at Weldon Baptist Church as well as performing with various Doo-Wop Groups such as The Enchanters and The Del Rios.

His recording career in earnest started back in 1960 in Baltimore, MD with a local disc jockey by the name of Paul “Fat Daddy“ Johnson. Around that time he recorded a number of singles for small labels such as Spar, Zenette (“Tears In My Eyes” appeared on both labels) and De Jac (“Show Me Your Monkey”) which were received well locally but never broke Kenny onto the national stage . It was also Fat Daddy who in 1967 introduced Kenny Hamber to Jimmy Bishop at Philadelphia based Arctic Records where he went onto record the Kenny Gamble written and produced Northern Soul gem “Anything You Want” and an infectiously funky cover of The Valentinos “Looking For A Love”. Artic Records had enjoyed huge crossover success with “Yes I’m Ready” by Barbara Mason but were sadly unable to achieve similar commercial success with Kenny Hamber. A few years later in the city of brotherly love, Kenny also recorded “Camel Walk” for Mean Records. In the early 70’s, Kenny became the lead vocalist with J.G & The Hitchhikers, who were signed to ABC Records and for whom they recorded just one album including the single, “You’re Making A Big Mistake”.

After a recording hiatus, Kenny returned to the studio in 1986 where he recorded a version of Eddie Floyd’s “Never Found A Girl” for Million Dollar Entertainment. It was originally released as a 12” single, which remains highly collectable in the UK and Japan, and re-issued on a limited edition 45 for It’s Soul Time! Records in 2007 along with “Anything You Want”. In more recent years, Kenny has independently released two albums, “This Is R&B” and “In A Romantic Mood”, on his own MCK Records label and a number of those cuts are also included on this CD.

Although never perhaps reaching the heights that his undoubted talent surely deserves, Kenny has consistently delivered his outstanding style of soul and entertainment to thousands of enthusiastic music fans around the United States and overseas.

He has appeared with many other great performers as the Temptations, Four Tops, James Brown, The Stylisitcs, Dionne Warwick, Gladys Knight, The Manhattans, Blue Magic, Ray Goodman and Brown, Donna Allen, Ali Ollie Woodson, Shirley Murdock, Jean Carn, Gladys Knight, Jerry Butler, The Platters and the late, great Jackie Wilson. Kenny has even hosted his own TV show in Washington D.C. and a radio show in Connecticut.

In a career spanning more than 40 years, Kenny is still actively performing and is currently back in the studio working harder than ever on new material and planning to release a gospel album entitled “Truly Blessed” later in 2007. In the meantime we hope you enjoy the best so far of Kenny Hamber.