Mr. Jerry Kennedy, 85, a Louisiana native, recently passed away in Nashville. The legendary and Hall of Fame guitar player saw Elvis play the Louisiana Hayride in 1954 and said he couldn’t focus on Elvis’ guitar player, Scotty Moore, because the girls at the show wouldn’t stop screaming. Kennedy was such a great guitar player that he was signed by RCA Records at 11 years old. I tracked him down seven years ago to ask a few questions and pick his brain about Nashville. He played with Chet Atkins and eventually moved to Nashville in March of 1961. He would play on Elvis’ “Good Luck Charm.”
“That was a great time, even though it was going at 100 miles an hour, it was fun,” Kennedy said. “Every day you ran into people that you loved to be with. It was a magical time.”
One neighbor was Jerry Reed; another was Roger Miller. And there were many other talented country stars he knew as well.
“The people we socialized with were all in the music business in some way. You go have lunch and it’s hard to find someone you were breaking bread with that was not connected to the music business and that’s the way it was,” Kennedy said.
He would work with and befriend the Statler Brothers and their alter egos — Lester “Roadhog” Moran and the Cadillac Cowboys.
“We got to be buddies and after they left Columbia, they inquired if we wanted them at Mercury,” he said. “When I hear them as Lester ‘Roadhog’ Moran and the Cadillac Cowboys. That was something, I still cry laughing when listening. It’s like I’m hearing it all over again. It was a unique thing for all of us.”
The talented guitar player has backed Bob Dylan, Chet Atkins, Elvis, Kris Kristofferson, Ringo Starr and that dobro on Jeannie C. Riley’s “Harper Valley PTA” is all Mr. Jerry Kennedy. He played on nearly all of Jerry Lee Lewis’ country records.
While running Mercury Records, he produced Roger Miller, Reba McEntire, The Statler Brothers, Johnny Rodriguez and Tom T. Hall. A member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, he is commemorated with a stage named after him there and Kyle Young, CEO of the museum said of Mr. Kennedy, “Before an artist ever sang the first line of ‘Stand By Your Man,’ ‘Harper Valley P.T.A.’ or ‘Oh, Pretty Woman,’ Jerry Kennedy’s masterful guitar playing had already marked the song as a hit.”
He made his mark and his three kids got some of their daddy’s talent and keep making their own. Gordon, Bryan and Shelby have resumes that stand on their own. Gordon, guitarist with White Heart — a Christian rock band — also has written hit songs for Eric Clapton and is a Grammy Award-winning American songwriter, producer and guitarist. Bryan befriended a young, unknown talent, Garth Brooks, and has written No. 1 songs for him including Honky Tonk Bar Association and others and is an entertainer in his own right. He also spent a few years opening for Garth on tour before becoming his tour manager. Shelby has sung on many recordings and written hit songs for Ray Charles, Reba McEntire and others.
Mr. Jerry Kennedy, a strong believer in Jesus, humble man and incredible talent, will be greatly missed. And he’s up in heaven listening to Mr. Roadhog’s renditions of hit songs, I’m sure.
Alright….as the ol’ Roadhog would say.
