Ken Lelen Combo
Spring 2011 Virginia-North Carolina Tour

Monday, April 4, 2011 to Saturday, April 9, 2011

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We entertained 300 people at five concerts in six days.

I performed with five guitars: 1926 Maurer #493; 1937 Kalamazoo KG-21 (Riggs); 1933

Martin OM-18 (Sandburg); 1938 B&D Groton 1 flat-top; and 1939 B&D Groton 2 arch-top.

Monday, 4 April 2011
Lakewood Manor, Richmond, VA

With 500 residents, Lakewood Manor is a big continuing care retirement facility set in Richmond's northwest suburbs. Twice a year for about five years I've filled Simms Center auditorium. Our 50-minute concert was no less successful even as we emphasized swing tunes from the 1940s in a 13-song set.

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Tuesday, 5 April 2011

Hanson & Crawford, Raleigh, NC

1939 B&D
Groton 2 archtop

Today I picked up my B&D Groton 2 from Hanson & Crawford luthiers in Raleigh, NC who had made repairs to its frets, bridge, saddle and braces. A 153/4-inch archtop made by the Regal Co. of Chicago circa 1939, it is the sibling instrument to my B&D Groton 1, a 15-inch. flattop also made by the Regal Co. circa 1938.

     For more about the B&D Groton 1, see my posting of Saturday, January 15, 2011, "My first vintage acoustic guitar," in this website's Guitars section.

     Built with a solid spruce top and solid mahogany back and sides, the B&D Groton 2 archtop had received a sloppy neck re-set and other repairs by Ithaca Guitar Works in Ithaca, NY prior to my acquiring the instrument in 2009. Thus, the need for a partial refret and set-up work by Hanson & Crawford.

      Alas, with all its buzzing, plinky treble and lacklustre tone, the geometry of the fingerboard is still not right. It may need a full refret, which would include planing of the fingerboard and installing new frets.

Springmoor, Raleigh, NC

In the past five years I've been blessed to play many times for a good-sized crowd of friendly people at this CCRC located in Raleigh's northern suburbs. This time was no different as I played a 70-minute, 15-song concert played for about 85 people. Considering the enthusiasm of the people visiting the stage at the end of the concert, this event could have gone half again as long. What a pleasure.

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Wednesday, 6 April 2011

Stewart Health Center, Charlotte, NC

Stewart is a 50-unit skilled nursing facility I've played here two or three times a year for the past decade. At this event we pulled about 25 people to my 17-song, 60-minute concert. We got people singing, humming along and tapping their feet to the music. Things were going along just swell until Virginia, one of the health care aides at Stewart, joined in with her free-form dance. Then, the crowd lit up even more!

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Thursday, 7 April 2011

Southminster, Charlotte, NC

When I first I played this community two years ago I discovered an audience of sophisticated, independent-minded people. The songs they liked, the questions they asked and the humor the enjoyed — all indicated a high level of taste and interest. Tonight's event was another fun concert as I played 17 jazz and swing tunes in a 70-minute program. I also told a few stories about Swing Shift Maisies of WWII and Skating Vanities of 1946. 

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Friday, 8 April 2011

Carl Sandburg Home, Flat Rock, NC

1933 Martin OM-18 (Sandburg)

Ever since I acquired a 1933 Martin OM-18 guitar once owned by Carl Sandburg (1878 - 1967), I've been determined to learn as much as I can about the man who famously was a poet, folksinger, biographer and womanizer.

     See posting for Wednesday, July 28, 2010, "Carl Sandburg and his Hollywood liaison," in the Newsletter section of this website.

     I visited the Sandburg home because I want to document that part of his life associated with the guitar, which he bought at a Los Angeles pawn shop in 1957 or 1958. What was the 80-year old poet doing in L.A. at that time? Visiting his lady friend Mildred Loewenthal née Norton (1910 - 2001) and consulting on movie scripts with Hollywood producers.

     This was my first visit to the Sandburg Home, which is owned and managed by the National Park Service and set atop 264 acres in North Carolina's western foot hills. It maintains the Sandburg family's personal belongings, library, furnishings, Mrs. Sandburg's goat farm, and some — but not all — of Sandburg's papers.

     On a splendid spring afternoon I worked indoors with curators Ashley Tate and Miriam Ferris at the Museum Preservation Center where thousands of Sandburg documents are stored. Together we poured through hundreds of letters as well as carbon copies of letters sent to or from Sandburg and his family by his literary agent Lucy Kroll and other correspondents. To my delight, a few letters shed new light on Sandburg's female relationships and on his guitar playing.

     Sandburg owned and played dozens of guitars during his lifetime. Late in life he favored classical guitars because they were easier to play than steel-stringed instruments and to honor Andrés Segovia, his musical ami. When he passed away he left behind six instruments, which the Park Service possesses. Still, mine is the only one with such fascinating provenance, including hand-written love notes from Sandburg to Norton.

     My goal is to document Sandburg's work in Hollywood, his guitar playing and his relationship with Norton. Likewise, I want to locate documents, photographs and ephemera relating to this specific instrument. My findings from this day of research at the Sandburg Home will be displayed in the Journal section of this website at a future time.

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Saturday, 9 April 2011

The Glebe, Daleville, VA

This was my first visit to the Glebe, a sprawling CCRC set along the Blue Ridge in western Virginia. We had a meager crowd of 25 people at a Saturday afternoon event at which we played 18 songs played in a 75-minute concert. However, we expect to attract a bigger crowd in October when we return for a mid-week, evening concert.
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                 © 2011 Kenneth Lelen - All Rights Reserved

Ken Lelen Combo
Spring 2011 New England Tour

Tuesday, March 29, 2011 to Friday, April 1, 2011

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We entertained 175 people at four concerts in four days.

I played four guitars: 1912 Grauso; 1926 Maurer #493; 1937 Kalamazoo

KG-21 (Riggs); 1933 Martin OM-18 (Sandburg); and 1938 B&D Groton 1.

Tuesday, 29 March 2011

Southgate, Shrewsbury, MA

Our second concert at this venue, we drew a small crowd — about 25 people — to the facility's splendid theater. The audience size, which was half newbies and half returnees, was as disappointing to our host as it was to us. But we were heartened to hear several people say afterwards that their friends had missed a nice concert, which included 16 songs in a 65-minute program.
     Nevertheless, our host has planned a return to Southgate in late October for a Sunday afternoon soirée. It will be held in a large informal space with tables and chairs, so we hope we'll see both the facility's residents and their families.
     When residents and family combine to attend our concerts, they tend to enjoy themselves in fun and unexpected ways. First, they're not stuck in the parent's apartment on a visit. And they're not out shopping. Instead, they're sitting in a pleasant setting, enjoying music they both know. The adult children often tell me they recognize all the songs we play. We are not surprised. Long ago we learned that people in their 30s, 40s and 50s grew up hearing mom and dad's music in the background of their youth. So we are expecting a large and pleasant crowd in October.

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Wednesday, 30 March 2011 

Heatherwood, Yarmouth Port, MA

Heatherwood is a gorgeous retirement community filled with warm and friendly residents. Matt and I again filled the facility's Meeting Room for our latest concert, which included 17 songs in a 70-minute event.

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Thursday, 31 March 2011

Mayflower Place, West Yarmouth, MA

Though Sarah Franey, our long-time host at Mayflower Place, has departed for a greener professional setting elsewhere on the Cape, the facility's managers still provided us with a full house. This time, we offered 18 songs in a 70-minute concert. As is usual at Mayflower, our music enticed a few people to get up and dance. This is always fun for us because it makes the rest of the audience glow with joy.

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Friday, 1 April 2011

Overlook Community, Charlton, MA

This was the second appearance for the Ken Lelen Combo at Overlook. We performed a 17-song, 65-minute concert in the Performing Arts Center.

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                                  © 2011 Kenneth Lelen — All Rights Reserved

                                   Elderweek Concert

Delaware County Community College
Media, PA

Tuesday, 22 March 2011

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I sang two 30-minute sets for 60 people and played four guitars:

1938 B&D Groton 1; 1926 Maurer Style 493; 1933 Martin

OM-18 (Sandburg); and 1937 Gibson KG-21 (Riggs).

This concert — the second for the Ken Lelen Combo at DCCC — was a pleasure to play. We had a good-sized crowd that was spread across two 30-minute sets. We played in a fabulous room. Best of all, the audience was involved in the music and the vintage guitars. Everyone seemed to enjoy the fun anecdotes or wry asides I used to introduce the songs and carry the program.

     Our sponsor was Elderweek, an adult-education series hosted by Delaware County Community College in Media, PA. Two or three hundred people attended the event, which offers classes on health, finances and lifestyles for seniors.

     Our concert was held in the tall, sun-lit Aerobics Room, a great space for a concert at DCCC's STEM Center. It attracted more than 60 people to the concert, which was held during the program's 90-minute lunch period.

     For this concert I brought and played three vintage guitars: 1938 B&D Groton 1, which originally sold for $15; 1937 Kalamazoo KG-21, which previously was owned by Floyd Riggs (1923 - 2001) of Vienna, WV; and 1926 Maurer Style 493, a mahogany-bodied, auditorium-sized guitar made by Carl and August Larson.

     I sang 18 love songs and jazz tunes from the 1930s and 1940s. I told several stories of stage door johnnies, drugstore cowboys and Tin Pan Alley artists. And our audience was interested in the songs and stories. In short, a good time was had by all.

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© 2011 Kenneth Lelen - All Rights Reserved

My first real guitar
1964 Gibson Southern Jumbo

Prior to buying my first vintage guitar (1938 B&D Groton 1; see posting of January 15, 2011), I only played new guitars — classicals and dreadnoughts. I learned to read music and play classical flute in the late 1950s, but caught up in the Folk Music Scare of the 1960s I decided to buy and learn to play the guitar.

     So, in the summer of 1963 I paid $50 for my first guitar — a brand-new, no-name, nylon-string classical at Sears, Roebuck. Within minutes of bringing it into my home in Northport, NY on Long Island, I'd installed white plastic pickguards on both sides of the sound hole and taught myself to play. I even took lessons at a local music store, but because I already knew a lot of songs, I spent much class time teaching my teacher the words and chords to popular folk songs.

                            Photo: Duane Webb
Ken Lelen and 1964 Gibson SJ

     Then, 18 months later I sold the classical for $50 to a schoolmate I'd finessed into thinking he got a good deal. With this cash in hand and some savings, I bought my first good guitar — a 1964 Gibson SJ, or Southern Jumbo, dreadnought — for $250.

     At the time I thought I wanted a 1964 Martin D-18, which cost about $300, but my parents wouldn't cover my shortfall in funds. No matter. Now I had my first real guitar, which was what you needed to make music and write songs.
     Within a week I played Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" at a high school hootenanny in nearby Cold Spring Harbor, NY. Like many teenage musicians in the 1960s, I thought playing a big dreadnought guitar was how you made music and improved your popularity with girls. Only later did I learn not all guitars had to be that big. And, as important, it was rock-n-rollers and drummers who got the girls.
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            © 2011 Kenneth Lelen — All Rights Reserved

Why I play vintage songs on vintage guitars
I blame my mother

In the fall of 1997, six months after I'd bought my first vintage guitar, a 1938 B&D Groton 1, I was sitting with my mother and my wife on the front porch of our home in New Jersey. As I plunked out one old-time tune after another on the instrument, I turned to my mother (Sofia Clark, née Dvanzo) and asked: "Why do I know these melodies?"

     “Don't you remember?” she asked. “When you were a little boy you used to play my 78 r.p.m. records over and over.”

     One tune I’d played that afternoon was “Pennies From Heaven,” a popular song introduced by Bing Crosby in 1936. But other melodies, including “Tip-Toe Thru’ The Tulips,” “Ain’t She Sweet,” “On A Slow Boat To China,” “Makin’ Whoopee!” and “Jeepers Creepers,” spilled off my fingers as I played the guitar.

Sofia Dvanzo - 1945

     The 78s I played as a child were records my mother had collected as a teenager. They were popular tunes by Bing, Ella, Satchmo, Frank and the Gershwins with a ragtime, jazz or swing pedigree or classical music chestnuts by Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky and others.
     Back in the day my mother was a bobby soxer called Babe who grew up in the Corona section of Queens, NY. But things got tense as Babe, the third of three girls in a tightly wound Italian family, matured. At 18, she ran away from home.
     Though I know few details of her life in those days, I'm aware she joined a roller skating show and toured the U.S. with a troop of 10 women and 10 men called the Skating Vanities of 1946. They danced to the popular tunes of the day and performed at roller skating arenas across the country, which numbered 1,500 venues back in the day. And they didn't call it roller skating, even though they wore wooden-wheeled skates and danced across wooden floors.
     As my mother traveled across the country she picked up a lot of souvenirs, some of which she paid for. She also acquired a collection of thick, black 78 rpm records.

Skating Vanities of 1946
PROGRAM TWENTY FIVE CENTS

     Five, ten and 15 years later, when I, my sister and brother came along, we'd play her records on a white Philco record player. A portable, the machine had one speed, 78 r.p.m., replaceable needles and heavy metal tone arm that pivoted over the records. Though clumsy in my hands, it poured fountains of great music over and over on me at a young age.

     Forty-odd years later, sitting on my own porch in New Jersey, all these old songs poured from my memory, off my fingers and out of my c. 1938 B&D Groton guitar — a 60-year-old, steel-stringed acoustic.
     So, when people ask me why I play vintage music on vintage instruments, I blame my mother. The rest, we say, is history.
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             © 2011 Kenneth Lelen - All Rights Reserved