Even after ten years, over a thousand gigs and 500,000 miles of touring as a married, music-making couple, singer-guitarists Pete and Maura Kennedy haven't killed each other. The duo savors each instant in life and in each other's company, and it shows in their music. The Kennedys have been charming audiences, record buyers and critics for the past decade with their exuberant mixture of folk, rock, country, pop and their own brand of secular gospel, a philosophical depth in their lyrics, and joyful, kinetic performances and recordings.
"Half a Million Miles," The Kennedys' eighth CD and Appleseed debut, presents ten sparkling roots-pop originals, plus two complementary covers, that are infused with Pete and Maura's "live in the moment" outlook. They don't mind looking back, as on the title track that opens the album, recounting their storybook first date, in which each traveled 500 miles to meet at mutual hero Buddy Holly's grave in Lubbock, Texas. But they are most interested in looking around at what they see as an always-vibrant present tense.
The Kennedys' constant touring, coupled with the influence of writers Joseph Campbell, Aldous Huxley, and Eckhart Tolle, among others, has taught them about "the eternal now," just waiting to be noticed. With eyes wide open, they discover wisdom and musical inspiration everywhere. A mysterious greeting at their local East Village sushi bar is transformed into the buoyant "Namaste" (translation: "The divine in me recognizes the divine in you"). A neighborhood merchant becomes "9th Street Billy, the guru of East Side soul" in a lilting bossa nova. "Live" and "Listen" are respectively forceful and delicate reminders to stop and smell the roses. "Here and Now," inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay, "Self Reliance," reminds us literally that "We can't be happy until, like the rose, we too live with nature in the present, above time."
All ten original songs on "Half a Million Miles" bear references to the Buddhist outlook of openness and enlightenment, and Pete calls the two cover versions - Richard Thompson's wrenching "How Will I Ever Be Simple Again?" and Bob Dylan's "Chimes of Freedom" - "political, peacenik songs," that pay attention to current events.
Proof that profundity needn't be ponderous shines through every song. Maura's lead vocals are sweet and often girlishly playful while displaying a plaintive edge of experience, and Pete's harmonies add a second coating of melodic delight. And the guitars! All those guitars! While Maura lives up to Pete's admiring description of her as "a serious student of rhythm guitar grooves," Pete lays down layers and swarms of chiming, dancing acoustic and 12-string leads, plus filigrees of electric sitar, banjo and mandolin (as well as accordion, organ, bass and drums).
Ear candy and brain food are an irresistible combination on "Half a Million Miles," where The Everly Brothers meet Emerson, The Byrds meets Buddha, and everyone gets along just fine. Join The Kennedys in their celebration of life on this CD, in their next half million miles of performances (including this year's Falcon Ridge and Newport Folk Festivals) and airing the music they love on their "Dharma Café" show on SIRIUS Satellite Radio.
About The Kennedys
Talk about a "cute meet"! Syracuse-born Maura Boudreau was hanging out at Austin's Continental Club, taking a night off from performing with her country-rock band The Delta Rays when she met Virginia native Pete Kennedy, taking a night off from his own duties as lead guitarist for Texas singer-songwriter Nanci Griffith to play a solo show there. As their liner notes for Half a Million Miles marvel, "We instantly connected on a soul level, or maybe something even deeper." They immediately wrote their first song together before Pete returned to the road the next day. Ten days later, they rendezvoused at Buddy Holly's grave in Lubbock, 500 miles equidistant from Austin and Telluride, where Pete was performing, and an enduring romance caught fire.
When Griffith needed a harmony singer to replace Iris Dement on short notice for a British tour in the spring of 1993, Maura was quickly drafted, and her life journey with Pete officially began. As they boarded the plane to England, Nanci informed the duo that they would be the opening act for a number of shows on her tour as well as performing with her. Needing their own material to fill that opening slot, Pete and Maura wrote an inspired set of songs in Dublin and Belfast that would also become the basis of their first album, 1995's "River of Fallen Stars," which earned an "Indie" award as "Best Adult Contemporary CD" by the National Association of Indepe- pendent Record Distributors. Subsequent Kennedys CDs and performances would net over 50 Washington Area Music Awards (the "Wammies") and the World Folk Music Association's annual Kate Wolf Award in 2002.
The music The Kennedys have created in the years since their 1994 wedding is a reflection of their influences and experiences alone and together. Pete, a child of the Fifties with a love of Buddy Holly and The Everly Brothers, picked up his older sister's guitar after seeing the Beatles perform on the Ed Sullivan Show and was playing "Louie Louie" and "Satisfaction" in a garage band within a few years, although the folk-rock of The Byrds was a major inspiration. After a year of studies at Boston College, the disco era was looming, and Pete "started to lose interest in pop and got into taking the long view of the guitar," returning to Virginia to immerse himself in classical and jazz guitar and studying with master guitarists Joe Pass and Johnny Smith during the late '70s and early '80s. The rise of the "cow-punk," "alt.country" scene in the mid-'80s reignited Pete's interest in popular music and he became a key session musician in the Washington, DC, area, along with fellow pickers Steuart Smith (now with The Eagles) and John Jennings. After Jennings produced Mary Chapin Carpenter's first album and toured with her for a few years, he opted for a break from the road and was replaced by Pete as Carpenter's lead guitarist. On a final show with Carpenter (on the "Austin City Limits" TV show) before she took time off for songwriting, Pete sat in with fellow guest Nanci Griffith, was asked to join her band and accepted.
Meanwhile, Maura's entry into musical realms beyond lightweight radio pop came when she worked at a used record store in Syracuse in the mid-'80s. There she discovered Fairport Convention, the great British Invasion groups of a decade earlier, and, most significantly, country-folk vocalist Emmylou Harris. Emmylou's records led Maura to the music of Patsy Cline and The Louvin Brothers, which was to become her lodestar. She switched from playing Fairport-influenced material in Sparse Frontiers ("surely the only British folk-rock band in Syracuse," according to Pete) to forming the more country-oriented Delta Rays and started to write her own songs. A trip to Austin's South-by-Southwest music showcase in the late '80s persuaded her to relocate her band there, although all but one of the original Delta Rays decided to stay at home.
After Pete and Maura's fateful meeting in 1992 and a few years of touring and recording with Nanci Griffith, they seceded peacefully and became The Kennedys, touring all over the US and recording a series of CDs that encompass all of their favorite musical styles while adding their own young-but-wise outlook. Among their best known CDs is 1996's "Life is Large," recorded around the country on a portable studio so they could tape former Byrds leader Roger McGuinn, Steve Earle, Jimmy LaFave, The Dixie Hummingbirds and others in their natural habitats. Pete and Maura still open and close many of their exhilarating live shows with the title song.
Although a fearsome accident on the New Jersey Turnpike early this year totaled The Kennedys' third touring van soon after their tenth anniversary, they bought another one and have returned to the road unbowed. "It's cool that a married couple can stay together while doing something stressful like touring, but it's more significant that we haven't really gone anywhere - we've created a timeless space and carried it around with us."
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