LP - Kenny Knight - Crossroads
"The first-ever reissue of the private-press country-rock rarity by
Colorado auto body painter, Marine, and garage band lifer Kenny
Knight—he played in the original ’60s Black Flag—Crossroads recalls a
homebrew American Beauty-era Grateful Dead in its world-weary, low-key
mood and indelible songwriting. Faded, anxious, melancholy, and
beautifully woozy, this out-of-time document belies its 1980 release
date. Produced in cooperation with Numero Group, it features liner notes
by writer and collector Michael Klausman and Kenny himself.
I met up with Kenny Knight in the parking lot of a Guitar Center at
the southern end of Denver a couple years back. He was there to drop off
a guitar that needed to be repaired, and I took that as a sign that he
was still involved with music. He did confirm that was the case, for
which I was glad. Despite the intervening decades since Kenny had
released his sole LP, it was easy to recognize him as he stepped out of
his pickup truck; although his hair was shorter, he still retained the
compact frame and thoughtful gaze you see on the cover of Crossroads. He
struck me as being somewhat shy and diffident, a person who values his
privacy and probably wary about some random guy being interested in the
music he’d made long ago.
About a year and half before our meeting, I came across Kenny’s
record sitting in the bins at a shop in Denver, and it just had that
look: sepia tones, a rugged guy hanging off a train, all original songs,
a pedal steel player in the credits. Promising stuff, the only thing I
was unsure about was its 1980 release. Yet from the first couple of
notes I was totally elated, for these were beautifully well-crafted
songs, timeless, really, and impossible to date if it hadn’t been for
the copyright on the back of the LP cover. It turned out there was nary a
mention to be found on Google of this album, and none of my collector
friends had ever seen it. Now, I realize there’s nothing more obnoxious
than reading liner notes which paint some self-aggrandizing portrait of
the heroic record-digger, and that’s certainly not what I’m trying to do
here. The fact of the matter is this LP and its songs, which are simply
undeniable; if I hadn’t picked up Crossroads and passed it around, it
would only have been a matter of time before someone else did.
There’s a very singular combination of world-weariness and hope
running throughout Crossroads, a still timely grappling with the
realities of getting by in this country. You can hear it most clearly in
“America,” which is at turns a paean to this nation, as well a plea to
it: “don’t lock me out.” This juggling of sophisticated dualities
extends even to his love songs, as on “One Down” (possibly the album’s
finest track, and one which could sit comfortably next to American
Beauty’s best), where he asks, “how much can one heart take?” while
still acknowledging that he’ll “stay in love forever more.”
As so often is the case, life got in the way of Kenny’s music, and
even after crafting such a perfect LP, his hopes and dreams would remain
unrealized, with family obligations and service to his country
ultimately having to take precedence. As we talked in that Guitar Center
parking lot, I discovered a quietly humble man, proud of the album he’d
made and seemingly appreciative that I’d expressed interest, that the
folks for whom I’d been playing it also thought it was great. It was
sadly obvious, though, that he didn’t think Crossroads had received the
reception he felt it had deserved; he told me rather regretfully that he
had tossed all the leftover copies of the pressing into a dumpster at
some point during the 1990s. And while he didn’t expressly say it, I got
the sense that he had no other choice but to throw them out, as if he
just couldn’t face the album’s commercial failure any longer. Some
records take a while to find their audience, however, and Crossroads is
one of them; it’s just a matter of holding on.
Michael Klausman
Longmont, Colorado
January 2015" - Paradise Of Bachelors
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