Published in Bay Area Houston Magazine August 2011
Houston singer-songwriter Ken Gaines understood two very important things about music growing up: he understood that songs were written, and that writing and performing songs was “a great way for a shy kid to meet girls”.
Writing his first song while in the 3rd grade, Gaines has since written many songs and met lots of girls – including his wife, Sue, of 18 years.
Learning to write good songs became a life-long passion for Gaines and, to this day, he remains a student of the craft.
“First of all, you have to write a bunch of songs, and secondly, you have to listen to even more songs and see how everybody else solves the problem, in their own particular way. I’ll learn by listening to a songwriter I really admire, and have them as a mentor, whether they want me to or not, and see what I can get out of it.”
Ken Gaines was born in Washington D.C. to Air Force parents. The Gaines family, like many military families, lived in many countries around the world, settling in San Francisco in 1967 when Ken was 16. Hanging out in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco as a teenager in the “Summer Of Love” had it’s effect on Gaines and further cemented his vision of song as a universal connector for human beings.
As Gaines writes in “For A Song”:
Some sell themselves for money
Some sell themselves for love
Some give their lives to pleasure
or some power from above.
If my grandchildren wonder
what I did with my life
Say I sold it for a song.
The music industry has evolved since 1967 but for Gaines, the sentiment that music can change the world hasn’t.
“I think a lot of us did think we could make this world, or at least this country, in our own image. We were naïve, but we still had that feeling, and everyone around us had that feeling…. I think that type of thing exists today, and it does exist in the music. Maybe it’s a little more tempered now… Go to the Kerrville Festival – it does exist!”
Gaines’ idealism proved powerful. His son, Josh, is a performing poet in Chicago and he has a daughter in the Peace Corps in Cameroon.
Peace and politics aside, Ken Gaines writes about everything from fishing to fidelity. His songwriting ability earned him the Texas Music Award 2005 Singer Songwriter of the Year along with invitations to perform at some of the country’s most respected folk festivals.
Ken's song, Catfish Moon, was recently chosen to be on a Patriot Records compilation CD of “fishing inspired” songs, "Songs from the Tackle Box”. The CD features songs written and performed by Jason Allen, Mollie O’Brien, Randy Joe Heavin and many others and benefits the national non-profit organization, Recycled Fish, an organization dedicated to sustaining abundant and healthy ecosystems in the earth’s waters. (www.RecycledFish.org)
For all his confidence and accolades Ken Gaines is a humble man and still draws inspiration from other artists.
“I’ve written a lot of songs and I’m a good songwriter… but I was never brilliant. Every once a while I run into real brilliance and I recognize it. There are modes of thinking above mine.”
Paul Simon, Paul McCartney and Duke Ellington make Gaines’ list of brilliant musicians, along with his friend, Monk Wilson.
As a self-promoting, self-managing artist, road life can be grueling. Gaines does just about everything himself, including driving the van, which takes him, and occasional musical partners Wayne Wilkinson and Karen Mal, across the US several times a year.
“I’ve come to realize that it never gets any easier - none of it. Not the performance, not the writing, not the booking, not the road time. It never gets easier – it gets better – and that’s what you look for.”
With years of experience and new songs constantly in the works, Gaines admits that it still takes him a year or more to learn to sing his own songs.
“When you’re writing a song you have an impression of it… But in the process of singing and playing with someone else it evolves over time. Change the melody or the phrasing or lop a few lyrics off - always a good thing. I think it’s wise to perform a song for a good year, year and a half, to where you really feel like you’re inhabiting it, before you record it.”
Gaines experience regretting a few premature recordings isn’t cause for any heavy self-criticism. As is his optimistic, good-natured way, he looks at missteps as an integral part of the learning process.
As a member of various songwriting and music organizations such as the Houston Association of Acoustic Musicans and MyTexasMusic.com Ken Gaines is a songwriter’s songwriter with a passion that keeps audiences and peers inspired and entertained.
Ken Gaines show dates: www.KenGaines.com
©2014 Zach Tate