UNIVERSITY INTERVIEW (Denver, Colorado, February 2005)
TASHA: I am amazed that with all your years of experience in music that so few people
have heard of you. And your music sounds so ... so beautiful and timely. Isn't that strange? Why is that?
KENNY: Yeah, well, that was really the intention for many years. I always avoided the spotlight
and tried to stay in the background as much as possible. I am basically a pretty shy person. In those days I was also quite
insecure.
TASHA: I heard that you had an interesting experience with the Bee Gees when they were just
starting out.
KENNY: That was a long time ago ... yes, we were all working in Niagara Falls,
Canada. My car broke down. That is a story in itself. I was coming off the ramp of a freeway and when I hit the brakes
of the old Studebaker, the pedal went straight down to the floor ... no brakes at all. I went right through a red light
and down the on ramp and into a crowded freeway. I pulled on what I thought was the emergency brake to stop, but it
was the wrong lever. Instead, the hood came up and I could not even see! I had to bend down and peer between the crack of
the hood and the body of the car to see where I was going.
TASHA: Wow! What happened? How did you get out of that one?
KENNY: I rubbed the wheels against the curb and that helped slow the car enough that I could turn
over the curb onto an uphill embankment. When we finally were going slow enough, the rest of the band jumped out of the car
and held it steady. We put some stones that we used like chocks against the wheels and walked back up to the street and called
a tow truck.
TASHA: So what does that have to do with the Bee Gees?
KENNY: Well, we traveled with little money in those days. We moved from gig to gig and the car repair
and towing bill set me back to the point that I could not afford a motel room for the guys. We ended up hanging out at the
Falls and came across a g group of long-haired hippies from Canada who were just about to record their first album. They invited
us over to their room for the night to get out of the chill and we sat around writing songs all night. We wrote these songs
one line at a time, each one offering a line and a piece of the melody in rounds. I never kept any copies of these songs and
poems, but it was a memorable evening. They told us they were the Gibb brothers. Of course, few had heard of them at that
time. We were the Finton Brothers, so we hit it off exceptionally well. I never made any contact with them after that, but
I bet they still remember that evening as well as I do.
KENNY: I don’t know whether they did or not. Some years later I heard the song “Craze
Finton Kirk” that they had on one of their first albums. The name Finton is not all that common, so I naturally wondered
if it came from that evening. They has a line in it about “his his wavy hair continued not to grow” which fit
me to a tee. My wavy hair always balls up instead of getting long. The first verse is: “Craze Finton Kirk, see him go
on his way. Nobody knows where is is, very very nice, very very nice.” It certainly captured the essence of who
I was at that time. If it was not about either me or my brother, it should have been.
TASHA: And now, after all these years, you are ready to get back into music?
KENNY: Ready, willing and able. I'm better now that I ever was before ... and today's music needs
a good dose of the Finton touch.
TASHA: Well. I'm rooting for you, as is the rest of the school. Thanks so much for the visit. Perhaps we can talk again?
KENNY: Anytime, Tasha. And please thank all these kids for their great support.
