Kenny Kosey - White Cloud Interview

Born and raised in New York, Kosey was heavily influenced by his piano teacher in the Bronx as well as his junior high orchestra teacher. In the mid 1960’s Kosey and his first group, The Star Spangled String Band had the opportunity to go on air for a fundraiser hosted by the local station, WBAI and from there Kosey would go on to play in bands such as Bluegrass Parmigiana, The Euphoric Guitar Orchestra, The Livingstone Cowboys, The AL Brothers, Red Allen and Frank Wakefield, The Dixieliners and David Bromberg before meeting the great Tommy Kaye, forming White Cloud and recording the legendary LP at Electric Lady Studios in 1972.

Who were some of your earliest influences? Did you participate in any groups prior to White Cloud? When and where did the band initially form and how did you meet your bandmates?

My piano teacher in the Bronx. He was a Naumburg award winning pianist-Joseph Schwartz. Joseph Pagliarulo, my junior high school orchestra teacher, Dave Van Ronk, The Kweskin Jug Band, Harold Wilson (a fiddler originally from Asheville, NC who ended up as a super in a building on West 106th Street. Alan Block (a fiddler/sandal maker/poet). Old time musicians used to gather and play together at his little shop on West 4th St., The New Lost City Ramblers and 78 RPM record collector, Loy Beaver. I had expressed myself through music starting around 1961. In 1965 WBAI was running a fundraiser and wanted talent to fill up in time The chief engineer, Tom Whitmore, was also an old time music fan and let us come on the air. We were The Star Spangled String Band, Andy May on guitar, Alan Feldman on banjo and me on fiddle. When Tom greeted us with “I’m Tom Whitmore” and ushered us into the studio I felt something shift in my life and I knew I’d like to be a performer. When I saw Hard Day’s Night I, like every other teenage boy, wanted to have as much fun as them.

Before White Cloud I was with The Star Spangled String Band, Bluegrass Parmigiana, The Euphoric Guitar Orchestra, The Livingstone Cowboys, The AL Brothers, Red Allen and Frank Wakefield, The Dixieliners and David Bromberg. In 1972, when I was working with Bromberg, he recommended me for a recording session produced by Tommy Kaye. I forget the artist, but that’s where I met Tommy Kaye. White Cloud was about Tommy Kay. Thomas Jefferson Kaye, whose birth name was Tommy Kontos, he was a songwriter and producer. He was funny, druggy, capable of a con and capable of great music. He had produced Jay and The Americans (who were supposedly “mobbed up”) and when I met him, a staff writer for Wes Farrell, the king of the bubble gum producers, (The Partridge Family). Gene McDaniels had a cubicle there and one day he played us a reel to reel demo of “Trying to Make it Real” which he had just written-blew my mind. I also met London Wainwright lll up there. White Cloud, in ‘72, accompanied Loudon on the album which gave “Dead Skunk” to the world.

Tell me about writing and recording the band’s lone LP in ‘72. What was the overall vision and approach to this record? When and where did recording begin? What was the experience like to write and record this album? How did the deal with Good Medicine come about?

The first record deal White Cloud had was with the aforementioned Wes Farrell. We recorded at Electric Lady Studios - still fairly new in 1972. Johnny Winters and some of his band were on the session. It felt like imminent stardom. Tommy Kaye and Wes Farrell soon had a “business falling out” and the album was shitcanned. A couple of years later, Tommy cobbled together a deal with Starday records. Starday/King was a B team Nashville label looking to expand into rock. Ironically, for me, their catalogue was an incredible source of great bluegrass and blues. I had been buying there LPs for years. They gave Tommy his own (sub) label - Good Medicine, and White Cloud finally got to record the stuff we’d been practicing and performing for maybe two years. We recorded at a relatively new studio in Blauvelt, NY at 914 Studios, created, managed and engineered by Brooks Arthur. We worked a lot up there being the house recording band for Janis Ian, Gordon Waller (from Peter and Gordon), John Paul Jones and Loudon Wainwright. Usually Richard Crooks on drums, Charlie Brown on electric guitar, Tommy and occasionally me on acoustic guitars, Joanne Vent on vocals, Don Payne on bass, Teddy Wender on keyboards, occasionally Eric Weissberg on steel, banjo and dobro.

The great jazz bassist, Richard Davis played on the Janis Ian record I should say that during this time I became close friends with Richard Crooks and his wife, the singer in White Cloud, Joanne. They were so Californian! It was 1971. We’d smoke marijuana, cook Tex Mex and listen to “Cheech and Chong”. Joanne was a Mavis Staples disciple and she had a soul belt that was a show stopper. Richard and I worked a lot together - on sessions, mostly jingles, in the touring band of Eric Weissberg’s “Deliverance” and I got him to tour and record with “Breakfast Special”. White Cloud didn’t accompany Janis Ian. I played on a few tracks on the “At Seventeen” album which was recorded at Studio 914. That band was Barry Lazarowitz on drums, Stu Woods on bass, and Jeff Leighton on guitar... Although White Cloud rehearsed on a semi-regular basis we didn’t play out a lot. Two, or three times at Max’s Kansas City. I think Tommy Kaye was holding off until the record dropped. Of course by the time the record came out (it had a very brief shelf life), there really wasn’t a band anymore. Marty Cutler remembers coming to see us at either the Gaslight or the Cafe au Go Go (might’ve been the Village Gate).

What eventually happened to the band? Is there anything else you would like to further share with the readers?

He had come in from Jersey after getting a short haircut for a prospective job. When he walked into the dressing room he remembers the band tossing dope and hiding joints until I assured them “He’s cool, he’s cool”. Years later (1989) touring Japan with the Kweskin-less Jug Band, we finished a concert in Osaka and fans came up to us as they do in Japan, with records we had played on looking for autographs. One gentleman handed me a long out-of-print White Cloud album to sign. “Corrector’s item”!, he beamed. Tommy Kaye, Joanne Vent, Don Payne, Richard Crooks and Eric Weissberg are dead. Charlie Brown moved to LA in the 90s and eased out of performing. I did a few sessions in the 2000s for Teddy Wender who had become a successful independent producer. In the late 80s I got a phone call out of the blue from Tommy Kaye. We caught up and in five minutes he was talking record deals and publishing deals for me as an artist and songwriter and In spite of all the jive and con I felt my enthusiasm and hope soaring. He still had that ability to get you on his Hoe Bus, no questions asked. Of course the plans and hopes evanesced and quietly vanished as did Tommy.