From a live demo recorded by Kendell in Chicago in 1976 comes this beautiful track, “Buzzy and Jimmy.” There’s no telling how many albums’ worth of quality material the man has socked away.

Thanks, by the way, to BYM visitor Chris who points out that some of Kendell’s songs can be heard on albums by Jim Post (formerly of Friend and Lover), Redhead, and folk duo Reilly and Maloney.

Kendell Kardt – “Buzzy and Jimmy” (demo, 1976)

posted by Kim Simpson

Finland’s finest doing a live number from their ass-kicking Roadrunner album. Their first album came out in 1973 and pumped out loads of amped-up fifties-isms sung in simulated English, which is often the best kind. This is perhaps where Finland’s rockabilly revival really took off and, to this day, has never touched ground.

More prime Americana from Kendell Kardt’s unreleased 1971 Buddy Bolden LP. This is a sweet slice of Old California that features the fiddle of Bay area bluegrass stalwart Ed Neff. Kendell refers to “Mr. White’s Song” as his “tribute to Gene Autry.” Mr. White, incidentally, is a former police chief of San Anselmo who’d built the Bay area house Kendell was living in while recording the Buddy Bolden album. Kendell liked the house so much that he located Mr. White in a retirement home after which the two developed a friendship. It’s a song that anyone from Neil Young to Mr. Autry himself would have been proud to have in his catalog. (Postcard freaks: The above says “Beautiful Foot Hills, Santa Clara County, Ca.)

Kendell Kardt – “Mr. White’s Song”

Here’s another track from Kendell Kardt’s unreleased 1971 solo LP, Buddy Bolden. It’s called “Black Train,” and it features Jerry Garcia on pedal steel as well as Ronnie Montrose on lead guitar and Hawaiian lap steel. Kendell wrote the song with Rig guitarist Artie Richards for a friend of Richards who had recently overdosed on heroin. (A pretty different version of this song, by the way, appears on the 1975 Warner Brothers Presents…Montrose LP.) Grim subtext aside, the song really smokes. So give it a listen and stay tuned – there’s likely more on the way. [Update: “Black Train” officially had three writers, as Richards has pointed out in the comments – Richards, Kardt, and Matt Fried.]

Kendell Kardt – “Black Train”