Tuesday, July 4, 2006

Morris County Daily Record

Old songs, old guitars add up to a good time

Ken Lelen plays a mahogany-bodied 1948 Martin 00-17 at a recent concert.
Other vintage Martin guitars behind him are: 1920 0-18 parlor, 1936 00-18G
grand concert, 1943 000-18 auditorium and 1939 D-18 dreadnought.

By Elizabeth Krausher
Special to Daily Record

Wayne NJ — Singer-guitarist Ken Lelen is not just a performer, he's a revivalist. For seven years his shows featured songs from the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s and vintage guitars from the same decades.

"I've learned how to tap into something — a musical era, the time itself and the delivery," said the Titusville NJ resident, who performed for about 120 people at Wayne Public Library on Wednesday. "These are love songs with intimacy and affinity, and people look for these feelings in the music."

Lelen plays for many retirement communities, using a contact list of more than 2,000 on the East Coast. In New Jersey he has appeared nearby at Heath Village in Washington Township and Cedar Crest in Pompton Plains, among other locations.

His shows are aimed at people of all ages, but senior citizens especially appreciate his music since the songs he plays were popular in their dating days. "They might recall they heard a song like Blue Moon for the first time in the back seat of a 1938 Plymouth with a boyfriend," Lelen said.

His venues have grown to include libraries, music festivals, religious centers and social clubs. Lelen said he has booked 120 gigs in 2006 and early 2007, and has performed about 700 paid gigs in the past seven years.

Lelen has had a passion for music from an early age, but only left his job as a reporter at the Washington Post in 1999 to become a professional musician. For two years he sang at open-mike nights until he found his successful market niche.

When he was four years old Lelen was introduced to vintage hit songs by listening to his mother's collection of 78 rpm records on a portable record player. He played folk music in his teens, but about 10 years ago he was sitting on a porch with his mother and began strumming some familiar tunes on one of his older guitars — a 1938 B&D Groton.

"I could hear a melody in my head from when I was younger," he said, referring to Pennies From Heaven. Soon, he began looking for period recordings, original sheet music and old songbooks, and "reclaimed the memory of the music inside."

In the meanwhile, he also collected several dozen vintage guitars made between 1908 and 1952 by such noteworthy firms as Gibson, Martin, Haynes, Epiphone, Kay, Vega and Washburn. He now brings up to eight guitars to a performance, and audiences enjoy hearing his explanation of the design of each guitar, the year of its make and the original sales price.

Using a vintage instrument evokes how the ragtime and swing tunes were meant to he played in the early 20th century, when "regular folk would play on their back porches of their homes on the range," he said. "Today, people from all walks of life respond to a song and sound of a vintage guitar because you cannot hear it anywhere else," he said.

"He was a great performer because he brought back a lot of old favorites that I haven't heard in years, and he played them so that I could recognize them," said audience member Jim Sandford, 70, from Wayne.

"It's a different type of program because its full of history and music," said Deborah Rosenblatt, adult services senior librarian at the Wayne library. A state grant for arts programs at the library provides for shows with people re-creating history, giving lectures or performing music, "so this is perfect," she said.

Despite being brought up on Long Island, Lelen describes his drawl-like speech as "syrupy," not Southern. He uses a mirthful tone to inject personal anecdotes about the songs and their writers. Lelen said he's gleaned much background material from audience members who were around in the heydays of famous performers such as Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby.

"At a concert in Silver Spring, Md. a woman in my audience told me her mother knew Kate Smith as a young girl," Lelen said. "The audience member related the story that the two women, when they were youngsters, told each other their dreams. Kate Smith wanted to work in government in Washington and her friend wanted to be an entertainer. The young women got each other's dream." Lelen has often used this story to introduce Kate Smith's 1931 version of Dream A Little Dream of Me.

Since people at Lelen's concerts don't scream and wave lighters in the air, Lelen said he looks for subtle signals that his audiences are "getting into" the music. "If people smile, that's as far as it has to go," he said.

During the Wayne performance, he could see people humming, swaying and singing to the music. "Now I know who to look at in case I forget the words," he quipped to listeners.

Throughout the performance he engaged in playful banter with the audience. The musician said he uses humor when he's performing because it "generates a feeling that the audience can participate. Once they get into the music and program, they'll jump in."

Back by popular demand, he'll perform at Heath Village for its Wednesday evening concert series on September 27. Lelen has been performing at Heath Village for at least five years.

"He interacts very well with the residents," said Jennifer Richar, assistant to the director of activities. "They love that he does the music they know from their era."

Meanwhile, Lelen said he plans to continue expanding the number and types of venues he performs at and begin performing in a trio. But, as he told his Wayne audience, "Hearing you sing along to my music is better than getting paid."

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© 2006 Daily Record - Morristown NJ