Cover photo © 2023 Marilyn Stringer

If you have been studying the liner notes on recordings over the last 30-plus years, it is a safe bet that you have seen the name Kevin McKendree more than a few times. Making his mark as a first-call keyboard player, he is a multi-instrumentalist, recording engineer, record producer, and recording studio owner. He has backed some of the biggest names in the business. The best part is that he has turned his passion for music into a cottage industry in his own backyard.

McKendree was born in Germany. His father was stationed there for the US Army, and McKendree was born six weeks after the family’s arrival in Nuremberg. After his father left the military, they moved to Fairfax, Virginia. Later he attended college in Richmond, VA . Growing up in that area gave him access to the vibrant scene in the Washington DC area.

“I started playing the piano when I was very young. My father played the piano. My grandfather played the piano, so there was always music around. My father had a bunch of blues and jazz records, in addition to rock ‘n’ roll records too. But most of his collection was on reel-to-reel tapes. As I grew up, I just kind of came into music. I started playing the piano when I was three years old. I would sit next to my father or my grandfather and, and we would play together and improvise.

“What we would always do is we’d switch sides. We’d play “Heart and Soul,” which is something that two people always do. But instead of playing the melody, we would improvise over it, play blues over the changes. That’s really how I learned how to improvise. My dad had a bunch of great records – Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jimmy Smith, and B.B. King. He had some Ramsey Lewis records that I would put on a lot.

“A lot of what I’ve learned on piano came from that. And Ray Charles, too. There was a Junior Walker record that was one of my favorites when I was a kid, and still is. I would say it is my favorite album, called Roadrunner. I wore out the grooves on that record. If that record doesn’t make you happy, nothing will.

“It was always music. For me, there was never anything more real or important. As a kid, I didn’t necessarily do very well in school. A lot of my report cards from the early days in elementary school would say things like, well, to Kevin, the world is a drum. He can’t stop making music on his desk or whatever. You know, it’s just who I am. So I don’t think it was ever a choice.

“That being said, the choice to make a living playing music, that was a little different. It was kind of scary as it’s not a real easy way to make a living. And I got married pretty early, so it was tough. It was a tough, tough time. I had a couple other jobs here and there, but I just couldn’t see myself doing anything else.

“I dropped out of college after a year and a half in. At the time, I was playing with the Tom Principato band. I had final exams that conflicted with his European tour schedule, and so I bailed on the exams, went to Europe. My father was the one paying for the college. When I called him and told him, he said, yeah, I think that’s a great idea. He said, college will be here. This opportunity won’t. My father played music, although he never did it for a living. I think that part of him would’ve liked to have done that, so I think at that moment he was like, Son, you have this opportunity that I didn’t have, and you should take it.”

Around the age of seventeen, McKendree was working in a recording studio in Fredericksburg, VA called Wally Cleaver’s. It was run by Peter Bonta, who introduced the young piano player to drummer Big Joe Maher as well as guitarist Bob Margolin, Mark Wenner, the founder of the Nighthawks, and guitarist Tom Principato.

“That really kind of started my career as a piano player. Big Joe kind of found me. The first recording I was on was with him and his band, the Dynaflows. That was the Good Rockin’ Daddy album. When I was with Big Joe, we played every Tuesday night at a place in DC called Chief Ike’s Mambo Room. And you know, we’d have various characters come through. One night we had this guy come up, stating that he was a Metro bus driver.

“And he said, I got a song I wanna sing. And Joe said, sure man. Get on up. The bus driver started singing, I was laying in the alley and a metro bus ran over me! That was the only line he had. He just kept singing that over and over again. So Joe took that and completed the song, which ended up being the title track for his album on Blacktop Records. We went down to New Orleans where Blacktop was, and that was just a great experience, to be down there and do that recording.”

McKendree played with Maher for several years, then joined Principato’s band. The music scene was thriving, and there was plenty for the young piano player to learn.

“Yeah, I was pretty young, and the other guys were all 15, 20 years older than me. I got a lot out of it from playing with people who had been doing it for a while longer. Those experiences kind of accelerated what I was able to learn because my teachers had so much experience. I wasn’t just out there learning it on my own. I had good instruction. I’ve known Mark Wenner for quite a while. What a great guy! He was a hero of mine before I ever met him. And so getting to meet him, and then to befriend him and play with him, that was amazing for me as a teenager.”

After paying his dues for a number of years, McKendree decided the time had come to make a move, a decision that certainly opened up a new world of possibilities.

“We moved to where we are in Tennessee about 20 years ago, right after our son Yates was born. We live in a little small city of Franklin, where we had a little more land for a young boy to run around and do stuff. So we had this place and it had land, and I saw a spot and thought, man, that would be a great place to put a recording studio. I’d always dreamed of having one. And it just was the right opportunity. So I built it and we started operating in 2004. It really started out as just a place for me to have fun with my friends.

“I wasn’t really looking at it as a business or anything like that. It just was a place to record some music. Cause that’s just what I’ve always loved to do. But over the years, we just started making better and better records and, and at this point now it’s what I do. I just work out in my backyard, making records.

I’ve done a bunch of Delbert McClinton records, as I was part of his band for a long time. We did a John Hiatt record here a couple years ago. And I’ve made a bunch of Tinsley Ellis’ records, Shaun Murphy records, and one by guitarist Sean Chambers entitled The Rock House Sessions, named after my studio.”

In addition to recording, McKendree uses the studio to do overdub work for other artists. He recently was involved in a project by singer Teresa James. She was covering a bunch of Beatles tunes. It was during the pandemic, so MeKendree would record his parts in the Rock House Studio, then send the files to James’ husband, Terry Wilson, to integrate into the tracks.

“I play piano, engineer, and produce. I’m a bit of a control freak that likes to do it all. The engineering side of production is really the technical side. You know, the physical part of getting out a microphone and, and setting it up on an instrument, setting it up properly, then recording it after making sure you are getting a good signal.

“The producer’s role can really vary. A producer is kind of like the creative Boss of a project. Boss might not be the right term, but the producer makes the final decisions on stuff. Usually what I like to do is I’ll work with an artist before we start making a record to figure out what songs we want to do, and maybe write some new songs. And part of the production is deciding on what sonic characteristics you want. There are times when I make decisions that are different from the artist. At that point it’s always the artist that will have the last say. But I might try to convince them otherwise. Working with any artist, my goal is always to have their musical dream come out as true as as possible.”

McKendree’s first taste of the big time came, as it often does, from a chance encounter earlier in his career that later paid major dividends.

“I met the great keyboard player Chuck Leavell, who is another of my heroes, when his was producing a Principato album. I figured Chuck would be handling the keyboards, but he insisted that I play. We became friends, and stayed in touch. Later on, country star Leroy Parnell was at a Rolling Stones concert. Chuck was playing in their band, and Parnell saw him backstage, mentioning that he was looking for a piano player. Chuck gave him my phone number.

“At the time, I had one of those jobs that I didn’t like. I was selling pianos at a piano shop in DC.  I decided to quit my job that day and I called home to tell my wife. She wasn’t home and I got my answering machine. Back then we had cassette answering machines. I listened to my messages and there it was, Hey, this is Leroy Parnell. I got your number from Chuck Leavell. He says you’re a piano playing man. So right after I quit that job, I got a new one. It was a fateful day.

“It was kind of magical. The day I met Leroy, his road manager picked me up at the airport and said, Leroy wants to meet you. They’re doing demos at the studio here. Can I just drop you by there before I take you to your hotel? I said, sure, man, let’s do that. So I walk in the studio and I met, Steve Mackey, Lynn Williams, James Pennebaker, Gary Nicholson, Delbert McClinton, and Leroy Parnell.

“And those six people are still people that I work with, almost daily. It made me realize, okay, finally I can do this. You know? I mean, the money wasn’t great looking back at it, but compared to what it had been….and I’m on a tour bus instead of taking turns driving the van and, you know, all that kind of stuff. It was a good move. Like I said, it was a fateful day and everything that I’ve done since then has sprung from that.”

For one of Parnell’s albums, McKendree recorded an original instrumental, “Mama Screw Your Wig On Tight,” an upbeat boogie woogie number that ended up being nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Country Instrumental. One of his first gigs with Parnell was on the first Delbert McClinton Sandy Beaches cruise. He got to know the singer, and started sitting in with his band. When Parnell decided it was time to take some time off from touring, fate once again took care of McKendree.

“There was a point where I was playing in both bands. Leroy was slowing down as his record deal with Arista had ended, and it seemed like the natural time to try something else. Delbert’s band was in transition, so the timing was right. I believe that was in 1997. I have been playing and recording with him ever since, up until his retirement last year. I played piano, organ, and led the band.

“i have spent half of my life with Delbert. I continued doing it because I loved it. He and I became collaborators over the years. We wrote songs together, and I ended up producing a number of his albums. Those experiences have been invaluable. There are times where he would call a tune that I didn’t know, yet somehow we managed to play it. Flying by the seat of my pants made me a better session musician. That is what you are doing when you are recording, experimenting to find the right thing. If you are a good improviser, you can get things done quickly. And in the studio, time is money.

Tinsley Ellis is another artist that McKendree has worked with many times. They met during the days of Big Joe & the Dynaflows, at a show in Atlanta. After talking, McKendree told the guitarist to give him a call if he needed keyboard on a record.

“After I was settled in Nashville, Tinsley gave me a call to let me know he was making a new record, which ended up being his Fire It Up album. It was recorded in Atlanta with the legendary Tom Dowd producing. It certainly was a great experience to watch and learn from Tom, who as far as producers go is the one that I would like to emulate.

“After that, Tinsley called me for the next one and the next one, and then he was coming here to make his records at my place, although he was still the producer on them. I was merely the engineer on those. But then, as it progressed, I became the producer on him. He and I have similar musical roots. I think that ultimately that’s what makes it a good combination.”

McKendree has released two albums under his own name. The first, Miss Laura’s Kitchen, was on East Folk Records.

“That one was literally recorded in our big, big kitchen, and Miss Laura is my wife. At that time the only recording gear I had was a half inch eight track machine. I just set up the band in the house. It was produced by my good friend Steve Bassett. It was his idea, too. He said, look, man, you’re playing good now. Let’s make a record. We wrote some instrumentals and some other songs and that’s what we self-released.”

The second album, Hammers & Strings, was one of the first projects he recorded in his new studio. It featured mostly original songs, with plenty of piano and guests vocals from Big Joe Maher and McClinton. McKendree also sang a couple of vocals, but the emphasis was on piano in the trio format.

“On my first record, I played a lot of guitar, and people who got that record would go, I wanted to hear more piano. So I had a rule on Hammers & Strings – there would be no guitars on it at all! That was the only rule I had. It was a brand new experience as we were just starting to use the new studio, and I was in the process of learning how to use the Pro Tools program for recording digitally, instead of analog tape. So that one was a bit experimental.”

As if he wasn’t busy enough, McKendree started his own production and marketing company with his partner, industry veteran John Heithaus. Their label, Qualified Records, has a number of releases including a Rolling Stones tribute, another one paying homage to the 50^th anniversary of The Band’s Stage Fright album, and others from Gary Nicholson, Big Shoes, and the killer debut release from his son.

As you would expect, Dad is quite proud of his son.

“It is hard when you start bragging on your kids, but quite honestly, Yates is one of the most gifted musicians I have ever known. Like me, he started when he was really young. Unlike me, he had a recording studio in his backyard and had professional musicians coming in and out of his house almost every day, showing him things. He’s very musical like me.

“From the time he was two or three years old, he’s been making music on piano and drums. He started playing guitar maybe when he was seven or eight. And his hands were too small to fit around the neck, so he would take his thumb and, and bend the strings with his thumb and became very good just playing only with his thumb on the fretboard. If you watch him now, he incorporates his whole hand, especially when he goes for those big Albert King bends, where he wraps his thumb over the neck and, and pulls it up. It’s pretty wild.

“Yates has a real love for deep roots music, and blues in particular. He has gone far deeper into it than I have. I mean, he’s just an encyclopedia of knowledge of that music and who played what, where it was recorded and all of that. So when he finds songs that he wants to do, they are strong tunes. We just got to the point where it felt right to do a recording. I think it’s a great album. And he is part of a new generation coming up that is playing the music right!”

Over the course of his career, McKendree has experienced more than a few highlights. He has done projects with Brian Setzer and George Thorogood in addition to working with several country artists. There are a few moments that truly stand out.

“I have been fortunate enough to play on the last four or five Buddy Guy records. I had a chance to sub for Marty Sammon, Buddy’s longtime keyboard player, before he passed. Doing a few live shows with Buddy has to be at the top of my list. Another highlight happened when I was with Leroy. We got to sit in with the Allman Brothers. I was there, back to back with Gregg. He was on the Hammond organ and I was playing his piano. When I was a kid, I would put on my headphones to listen to that first Allman Brothers record. In my mind, I was Gregg Allman. That was my fantasy. To actually live that moment was amazing.

“Another one was when Little Richard came to record in my studio. Unfortunately, it has never been released, but it may very well be the last thing he recorded. It was a gospel song. His band leader and guitarist, Kelvin Holly, is a good friend of mine. He was the one that set it up. Little Richard’s limo pulled up in my backyard. A couple of his bodyguards got out, and started guarding my little country studio!

“And somewhat recently, I got to do a tribute show with Jerry Lee Lewis before he passed. I was told by his guitar player, Kenny Lovelace, that when Jerry got up to do “Whole Lot Of Shakin’ Going On,” when it got to the solo, Jerry wasn’t going to take it, that I should go ahead and do it. He probably wouldn’t be up for it. But he was so riled up that he took the solo, and it was killer, to say the least! I am so fortunate to be able to be around some of my heroes, and have these amazing memories.”

Asked about his future plans, McKendree quickly made it clear what he thinks he can do to make the world a better place.

“My plan is to continue to make music. Right now, I think the market is screaming for honest American music, the kind where musicians get in a room and just play. A lot of music these days is done on a computer, with click tracks and programs that clean everything up. But then the human element is missing. Once people hear music that isn’t made like that, it strikes something. They may not know what it is, but it is the humanity in the music, the roots and traditions that often aren’t there in modern music. I’m trying to bring that back.”