My introduction to performance was strictly classical.
When I was six years old, my parents — Dad was head of the humanities department at a two-year college; Mom was a teacher at the elementary school my older brother and I attended — determined that classical music was good for their boys’ brains. So my brother was handed a violin, and I, a cello. Weekly private lessons, daily practice and frequent living-room recitals for friends and family were mandatory. What’s more, my brother and I sang boy soprano in the Oxford-style men-and-boys choir at the Episcopal cathedral we attended.
By the time I was in jr. high, I sang in the school choir, played in the orchestra, denigrated pop music as trash, competed on the debate team, studied in accelerated classes, played no sports and wore my brother’s hand-me-downs except for my brown oxford corrective shoes, which the parents said would fix my flat feet. Plus, I wore a near buzz cut long after other boys wore mop tops and longer. My father said long hair on men was “in bad taste.”
Add it all up, and you get one unorthodox human being. (Some would say this has never changed.)
Enter rock ‘n’ roll.
A friend of mine knew that I sang, so he invited me to audition for his band. Previously, my father had forbidden me to sing “that rock music.” He thought it would ruin my voice, which was at the time choir-boy pure and clean. But he was weary of the debate, I think, so he acquiesced — with the proviso, of course, that if I ever came home from rehearsal hoarse, that was that.
I joined the band, which rehearsed weekly and gigged rarely. Because I played cello, the band elected me to pick up the bass guitar when the original guy quit. I grew my hair into a shag and dumped the oxford shoes, donning clogs, bell bottoms and polyester shirts with big, shiny prints.
I had found my calling. I was now “Kyle Henderson, singing bass player,” a man on a mission — rock stardom. Applause and attention replaced nerdiness and invisibility. Heady rewards for a teenage boy seeking his place in this world.
After graduating from high school, I was offered a scholarship to study voice at Butler University. I turned it down to go on the road with a Vegas-style show band called the Entertainers 5. Nobody ever accused me of being risk averse.
Barely out of my teens, I recorded my first major-label record.
I quit the Entertainers 5 to join another show band and then another. That last outfit moved to Atlanta and became Whiteface, a funk-and-soul band featuring the gritty New Orleans growl of an amazing keyboard player/singer, catchy songs, soaring harmonies and my thumping bass.
Whiteface played and lived at The Bistro, a former recording studio turned drug-and-alcohol-soaked showcase club with sleazy living quarters on Atlanta’s near north side. Audiences went wild, and a “buzz” ensued. Hipsters, rock stars, music impresarios and hangers-on packed the place five nights a week to see the band, to be seen and to indulge fearlessly in all that was offered in those wild-and-crazy, pre-AIDS years.
(One of those music big-wigs was Tom Werman, an Epic VP who produced Cheap Trick and many other huge rock bands. He was in town producing the first platinum-selling Ted Nugent record. He was a regular at the Bistro and loved Whiteface. That fortuitous connection becomes significant later.)
Music moguls felt the Whiteface buzz in New York and L.A., and they sent emissaries in order to “get drunk, get laid and sign the band,” as one record-company exec put it. Mercury Records did just that, and the band traveled to world-famous Muscle Shoals Studios to record a much-anticipated album with the late veteran producer Barry Beckett. Mercury regaled upon the band and the biz a record-release party featuring mimes, bimbos and enough food and alcohol to feed and inebriate a small country. It was reported to have cost $250,000. That was the way it was during the era of wretched excess.
Despite the ballyhoo, the record stiffed. It hit stores along with the debut of another Georgia band: the B-52s. An instant tectonic shift occurred in the pop music scene, and Whiteface was firmly planted in the old landscape. Damn.
On the first day of 1980, I left Whiteface and joined with three members of another Atlanta band to form The Producers.
Whiteface was enervated by what was happening in the pop-music universe; The Producers were energized. We dove into our creative task with much fervor and great glee. Guitarist Van Temple and I sat in his apartment living room smoking cigarettes, drinking Coca-Colas and creating a slew of catchy, melodic pop songs. The other members, Bryan Holmes and Wayne Famous, contributed much as well. It was one of those magic times: The muse spoke, and we were situated to listen.
Here’s where Tom Werman comes in. Our scumbag, rip-off manager (we didn’t know that at the time, of course) called Tom and said I was in a new band that he needed to hear. Tom was busy, so he said he’d listen if we’d come to New York and play a set for him at a rehearsal studio. We packed up our two Dodge vans and headed to New York.
On the day of the audition, Tom was friendly, as always, but clearly ready to get to it. As I said, he was a busy man. So we quickly lit into our set of about 10 tunes, starting with the driving rocker “You Go Your Way.” By the time we were halfway through the song, Tom was leaning forward, smiling, and bobbing his head aggressively to the song’s rocking rhythm.
At some point in the set, Tom leaned to our manager and said, “We’ll do the first record in November.” And that was that. We were signed to the Portrait label, a Columbia/Epic subsidiary, and in L.A. recording the first album at the world-famous Record Plant in December of 1980, 11 months after the band formed. Nice.
The band recorded two albums with Tom. They contained MTV favorites “What’s He Got,” “Certain Kind of Girl,” and “She Sheila.” You can watch videos on YouTube. They still make me smile.
The Producers almost made it really big. Almost.
Together, the two albums sold a respectable-but-not-stupendous half-a-million records. We spent 280 days on the road three years in a row, opening for Cheap Trick, U2 and a host of other big bands and headlining clubs. We played the 2nd annual MTV New Years Eve bash at Radio City Music Hall. We traveled the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean. We were #1 in the Dominican Republic. Go figure.
But we were musicians (read: completely ignorant at business). And so, we were royally ripped off by crooked managers and crooked attorneys. All of us should have made a decent amount of money from those records, as we wrote all the songs. We barely made a dime. For that, I’m angry. Mostly at myself for being so stupid but also at those whose character was so goddamn selfish that they knowingly took advantage of us. But, again, I digress.
Following the Producers experience, I was burned out.
Sick of the vanity and weary of the road, my heart hurt. So I gave up the rock-star dream and found a new passion: faith. I drank deeply of Christianity, the conservative evangelical kind. Even did a so-called Christian pop album. It sucked, and the experience of making it sucked even worse. So I was out. No more music business for me. For a long time, no more music either.
Since this bio centers on music, fast forward to the early 2000s.
After the first divorce, I was ready to play again. I began singing with the Funk Club, an Orlando-based funk-and-soul band led by Liberty Devitto, Billy Joel’s drummer for three decades. We played clubs, conventions and the Orlando attractions, opening for Huey Lewis, The B-52s, Kenny Loggins, Hootie and the Blowfish and others at Disney and Universal.
Liberty’s knowledge of pop and soul music was encyclopedic, so we played an eclectic mix of pop, soul, funk and R&B. During this period, my affection for classic soul and blues was awakened and nurtured. I listened constantly to Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, Ray Charles and soul-filled blues singers like Big Mama Thornton.
In 2007, I moved to Madison, where my deep dive into soul and blues continued.
Upon reflection, I’ve concluded that this music has two attributes especially attractive to me: killer grooves and an absence of irony. The first needs no explanation. Just listen to the Funk Brothers’ performance on any Motown record, and you hear it. About the latter: When Otis Redding sings, a man stands at the mic and tells it like it is. No irony. No sarcasm. Humor, yes; irony, no. I hear the same quality in Hank Williams, Roy Acuff, Patsy Cline and other classic country greats. Something about that directness, that honesty, that unpretentious straight-at-you quality attracts me.
Unimaginable tragedy strikes.
This part is painful, and I include it for two reasons that I’ll reveal below. On Oct. 6, 2009, my firstborn of three, Daniel, took his own life. He suffered from terrible, debilitating bipolar disorder for much of his short, sad life, and it finally beat him. Even writing this paragraph takes my breath away. So why include it?
First, this bio is about music, and Daniel’s death had a profound effect on the art that reflects who I am. The songs that have come since that date have Daniel in them. That doesn’t mean all are sad or depressing. Only one, “On Your Memory,” is specifically about the emotional life of mourning his loss. But all look squarely at both life’s joys and its horrors. Life is hard; life goes on.
Second, if you and I ever meet me during warmer months, you will see an enormous tatoo spanning the inside of my left forearm with the text “In memoriam, Daniel: loved, wronged, missed. 5/28/1987–10/6/2009.” It’s my only tattoo, and it’s his memorial stone. He is buried in me; the tattoo marks his place. I’ve noticed that people who see it and don’t know about Daniel usually ask, “Who’s Daniel?” When I tell them, it hurts them, rocks their world and makes them uncomfortable. So I’m putting it out there in case we meet.
Kyle Henderson’s Blue Eyed Soul plays soul and blues, original and classic.
I no longer try to make a living playing music. I earned a master’s degree in communication studies at UW-Whitewater (go Warhawks!), and I work as a senior editor at UW-Madison. I also teach part-time at Madison College. (Yes, I have become my father.) In a way, I like it this way better. My music is my art, not my job. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but I don’t really care. It is. And it gives me pleasure. I hope it can do the same for you.
I recorded “Life Goes On” during the summer and fall of 2011. You can download it on iTunes, Amazon.com and CD Baby. I look forward to meeting you and sharing with you these songs. I hope you’ll enjoy hearing them a fraction of the amount I enjoyed recording them. I perform them with my brilliant band, Blue Eyed Soul: Alison Margaret on keyboards and background vocals, John Christensen on bass, Michael Brenneis on drums, Mike Ripp on guitar and Eric Koppa on sax.
Cheers!