While Kendell was staying with a Hawaiian family that included 10 children during his time in L.A., he was able to meet the family’s grandmother, who was known affectionately – as many Hawaiian grandmothers are – as “Tutu.” This particular Tutu was the widow of a Catholic missionary who’d served on a South Sea island inhabited by cannibals. The revered matriarch’s visits from Hawaii were “anticipated with great delight,” and when she came, the children would traditionally gather at her feet and ask her to repeat once more the story of how she lived in the jungle with the cannibals. Kendell found this little ritual “both charming and amusing,” given the fact that he felt like he too was “living in the ‘jungle’ – right there in LA,” where the “‘natives’ were as exotic and perplexing” as any that Tutu had encountered. His tongue-in-cheek “Tutu and the Cannibals” would become a popular staple of Kendell’s live performances.

Kendell Kardt – “Tutu and the Cannibals”

UK guitar tamer Dave Evans put out four records, including the non-overdubbed, well-chiseled instrumental masterpiece Sad Pig Dance (1974). He also managed to squeeze in this cheeky Old Grey Whistle Test appearance. Not long after this TV appearance was taped he’d call it good with the record scene, go off to Belgium, and focus on building guitars.

In this live radio recording of “Gypsy Dance,” you can hear Kendell giving a stylistic nod to Van Morrison in his vocal delivery. It turns out that shortly after he moved to San Francisco, he and Rig drummer Rick Shlosser were offered jobs by Morrison – Kendell as leader of his backup unit and Shlosser, of course, as drummer. Part of the deal would be that Kendell could have full access to the band for his own projects. For reasons Kendell in retrospect “can’t really figure,” he opted out (although Shlosser said yes).

It’s easy to hear about this now and to think “oops!”, but talking with Kendell, it’s clear that the gravity of the prospect was hardly lost on him then. Two big factors for him to consider were Morrison’s famously thorny demeanor, which he’d had many chances to observe up close, and his own percolating recording ambitions, which would have had to have been set aside to some extent. Nonetheless, Kendell’s closeness to so many in the entourage enabled him to catch Morrison live a few hundred times. So much so that his admiration for the Irishman, as he puts it, “resulted in an experimental change of style that wasn’t quite resolved and took a while to assimilate.” “Gypsy Dance” comes from this era and would have been included on the ‘72 Columbia LP. For now, though, we’ve got this live radio version which, thankfully, still survives.

Kendell Kardt – “Gypsy Dance”

From a live demo recorded by Kendell in Chicago in 1976 comes this beautiful track, “Buzzy and Jimmy.” There’s no telling how many albums’ worth of quality material the man has socked away.

Thanks, by the way, to BYM visitor Chris who points out that some of Kendell’s songs can be heard on albums by Jim Post (formerly of Friend and Lover), Redhead, and folk duo Reilly and Maloney.

Kendell Kardt – “Buzzy and Jimmy” (demo, 1976)

posted by Kim Simpson

Folkways is all about keeping ancient recordings like this one available and viable. Frutiful, even.

Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) sponsored this “Norwegian sing-a-long” special along with many other Nordic delights that perhaps await you now at your nearest Salvation Army. (The Standard-Colonial label actually issued a whole bevy of “World of Music” LPs – not just Scandinavian – but I haven’t been able to verify if they were all sponsored by airlines.) The title of the selection below translates to (I think) “You Get Candy,” and it’s guaranteed to cheer you up under any circumstance.

Walter Eriksson and Andrew Walter’s Orchestra – “Du Ska Fa Sukkertoy”

Oscar Brand has recorded some 1,700,000 folk albums about all manner of subjects. Better check the catalog because he’s probably recorded one about you. Happy Thanksgiving.

Oscar Brand – “Henry Martin”

Henry Thomas was an East Texan who recorded all of his most well known songs in the late 1920s when he was in his fifties, then disappeared. His “Old Country Stomp” and “Fishin’ Blues” feature the slide whistle that caught the ear of Canned Heat and inspired their flute part on their “Going Up the Country” and inspired the Lovin’ Spoonful’s goofy “Henry Thomas.” But his “Texas Easy Street,” in contrast to all that, is just Henry and his guitar, dreaming up a version of the good life.

Some famous covers of his songs:
“Honey Won’t You Allow Me One More Chance” (Bob Dylan)
“Going Up the Country” (Canned Heat)
“Fishin’ Blues” (Lovin’ Spoonful, Holy Modal Rounders, Taj Majal)
“Don’t Ease Me In” (Grateful Dead)

Henry Thomas – “Texas Easy Street”