Young musicians often find themselves enamored with the music of legendary artists but in some cases, they learn to play that music; on even rarer occasions they get to share a stage with those legends. Connor Kennedy, a guitarist and vocalist from upstate NY, is one of those young musicians who’s done all three.
Born long after the British fueled electric blues resurgence of the late 1960s, and not long after the days of blues and soul on MTV; Kennedy picked up the guitar at age eight and has yet to put it down. Citing influences spanning from classic electric blues guitarists of the 50s and 60s like Freddie King and Hubert Sumlin, deep-cut soul singers of the 70′s-Teddy Pendergrass and Donny Hathaway, and songwriters Lowell George, Jerry Garcia & Robert Hunter; Connor Kennedy has been enthusing audiences throughout the Northeast region with his hard hitting, heavy jamming, bone fide blend of soul-injected down-home roots music. He’s sharing stages with the likes of Larry Campbell (Levon Helm Band, Phil Lesh & Friends), Garth Hudson (of The Band), world-renowned jazz pianist Brad Mehldau, and most frequently, Bruce Katz, Scott Sharrard, and Jay Collins of the Gregg Allman Band. This year, at age 17, Kennedy was featured in the January 2012 issue of Hudson Valley Magazine as one of their “People to Watch,” praising his steady progress in becoming one of the area’s most respected musicians while he’s still in his teenage years.
Although Kennedy’s career has reached heights in just a few years that some musicians seek for entire lifetimes, he’s only just begun. He’s currently hard at work on his first recording, an EP featuring several original songs including one track co-written with Jay Collins (of the Gregg Allman Band) which will be released by June.
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