Let’s get the weekend going with another one of Kendell’s lost gems. This one, like “Apple Pickin’ Time,” was recorded in San Francisco during the spring of ’72 when he was working as a street singer on Fisherman’s Wharf.

Kendell Kardt – “Poor Boy”

This next track by Kendell comes from his time in L.A., when he was adjusting, as he puts it, to being “just another nobody” in a town where you “had to be careful not to step on a songwriter in the aisles at the local Ralph’s supermarket.” Leaving his heady and heartbreaking time in S.F. behind, he ended up staying in a cottage that happened to be owned by Gram Parson’s manager, who was also an ex-Navy buddy of the already-jailed Charles Manson. Unwelcome and unfriendly visits from Manson’s people, as well as the LAPD, who were exploring the landlord’s curious gardening habits, made Kendell’s eviction – in order to make way for Emmylou Harris – a matter of understandable relief. Kendell then moved in with a roommate who had a couple of teenage sons, and “Sergeant Barkley and Little Tim” is a tribute to one of the boys’ friends, who had gotten in the habit of “liberating the property of the undeserving” and sharing it with others. This sticky-fingered would-be Robin Hood whose ongoing rivalry with one Sgt. Barkley made for another memorable song from Kendell.

Kendell Kardt – “Sergeant Barkley and Little Tim”