HEADLINES

Ken Lehnig writes and sings Americana songs that resonate, often capturing quirky characters with lyrical stories

January 20, 2020
Ken Lehnig is a chart topping artist, based in San Diego. He is a prolific songwriter, multi- instrumental musician, singer, performer, author, speaker, poet and artist. Ken has had number one songs on Broadjam.com and Revernation.com. charts. He was the co-owner of the previous Songwriters Marketplace.com and is the host of the Songwriter Insight podcast. He currently is the co-owner of American Windsong Music a small independent label and has just started a Literary Publishing company.

Since his first band The Somethin Nu in 1964, he has performed on stages all over California as a solo act, duets with Brother Rick and others, and the front man for bands: Lehnig and Friends, Razin Jack, Lehnig, and twenty years with Ken Lehnig and the Burning Sage Band. That band releasing three rock CDs; Singerman (produced by Ken Lehnig), Four Directions (produced by Rick Lehnig) and Keep the Sun from Going Down (produced by Eric DeLand, Cory Wilkens and Jeff Ser). Available on line. Ken has released three Americana solo albums on the American Windsong Music label; The American Music Show, Holding a Rose, Dr. Daniels Miracle Cure and Medicine Show. Available everywhere.

Ken, a prolific songwriter, signed with Desert Windsong Publishing in 1970 and re-signed again in 2014. He was offered a development contract in 1973 with MGM but choose not to take it. He wrote the music and book for an unproduced Western Musical “Silver Creek”. The music for that play became the album “Dr. Daniels Miracle Cure and Medicine Show”
He has also written and published three books of weird, wonderful, and dark poetry and short stories available most anywhere e-books are sold. 

Ken is an advocate for full expression of creativity having lead seminars and spoke on the subject. The opportunity to teach public speaking came when he was an Area Governor in San Diego of Toastmasters Int, in the late 80s. He was responsible for four clubs.
Ken and his sister Paula, Hallman and Lehnig became well known as artist doll makers and the early 90s doing shows and expositions all around the country. They were featured artists at Disneyland’s one and only Artist Doll Show on the west coast. Ken taught sculpting for doll makers for a number of years throughout California.

Eleven years ago Ken contracted a deadly auto-immune disease that left him in a wheelchair and in horrible pain. He endured the disability with morphine for almost four years. During that time when he was coherent enough he would write or paint. Writing 40 short stories and two books. He went into a coma, died and returned. The job was to regain his health and re-create himself as an artist.

He plays all manner of folk and country styles, and has released a new solo album, The American Music Show. The new disc has 15 original tracks and finds Lehnig as a sort of folk music chameleon, with a cadre of players behind him playing a collection of tunes that at times recalls other roots icons.
Lehnig sings lead vocal (with two duets), backing vocals, playing guitars, banjo, mandolin, and keys. He also produced the project, which seems to go for a sound that avoids slick gloss in favor of reverb-heavy vocals and studio noise — and it actually seems to fit his music quite well. His voice often shifts identities, as the first few tracks are almost a Bob Dylan tribute: “Waiting on a Train” sounds like an outtake from New Morning that got left off that album and “Stronger Anyway,” while folkier, still has Bobby D inflection on every syllable, though with a strong arrangement and decent hook. “Ragman” feels more like Lehnig’s own voice, singing about “Bad men coming for me” in gold rush times, he’s his own worst enemy; it’s catchy and tells a story-like Dylan’s late-’60s tunes.

“Used to Be” works as a keyboard ballad with string effects and Lehnig’s vocal is just right, as he takes the measure of his life entering its sunset phase. A dose of jazz gives “Angela Glows” a boost: it has a beat unlike anything before it, and diminished chords that change things up, his offbeat vocal is about how this mysterious woman is the love of his life. Mark Jackson sings a duet with Lehnig on “Remember That Song,” and Lehnig the chameleon is back, and sounding just like Willie Nelson. “Fall into Whiskey” is a classic theme revisited with a catchy arrangement, and Lehnig blends folk and country, finger-picking and pedal steel to capture the right emotional tone of a man resolved to the loss of his soul to the bottle, “My life is a ruin, so much I would undo.”

“Catch a Fish” is a playful country/ bluegrass fiddle tune, another change of pace that offers a shot of humor and hand clapping in the midst of a string of slow ballads. “Something in the Game” follows, a duet with Tara Alvarado, and though this isn’t really a bad song, it lacks much momentum and drags. Part of the difficulty is no doubt stacking 15 tracks that are mostly slow to mid-tempo ballads for 56 minutes, with not much else to break it up. One of the most effective folk songs here is the closer, “Summer’s Wing,” which is mostly just Lehnig, a guitar, and a haunting melody, mostly adapted from the old English lullaby “I Gave My Love a Cherry;” it closes out with a chorus of backing vocals that punctuate both the song and the album.

Though he was featured in recently released Lifoti's January/February 2020 issue 11, you can check it from below link's for your country:

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