02/12 - Friday :: KJ Denhert

Web Site: KJ Denhert

KJ Denhert is a unique artist, singer, guitarist and songwriter who calls her music Urban Folk and Jazz. Her voice is powerful, her lyrics full of intelligent insight, and her musicianship is impeccable. Her eclectic yet unified performances reach out to many different types of audiences without compromising her music and beliefs. She is heard at her best on her most recent recording, Lucky 7 and is known to be especially good live. She performs the unusual feat of being both highly individual and quite accessible.

KJ remembers, “I picked up a guitar when I was ten and immediately I started writing music. I loved Sergio Mendes’ songs, liked John Hartford on the Glenn Campbell Show and really got into James Taylor and Joni Mitchell who I still consider my two main influences. I also loved the singer-songwriters of the time including Carole King and Laura Nyro and later fell in love with Steely Dan’s music, and just wore out my copy of Hubert Laws’ Rite Of Spring. I was completely self-taught, by llistening to records and playing them over and over, teaching myself tablature from a great James Taylor book and modal tunings from Joni Mitchell’s For The Roses song book. I didn’t really do anything but play guitar through my teenage years.”

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Everyone loves the Beatles, who surely have influenced more musicians than any other band. Untold numbers of guitarists started out the day after the Beatles first performance on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. That all said, hardly any groups sound anything like the Beatles.

Enter The Rhodes: Derek Daunicht, Nick Imperial, Rob Sciortino, David Laviola. Rather than emulate later-day, post-Sgt. Pepper Beatles, the Rhodes aim for the first few fab-four albums, with impressive results. They’ve certainly done their homework, from the sparkling “When Your Baby’s Gone,” with fabulous harmonies; the yearning “She Had To Leave,” with clever vocal call-backs; the bright “Shady Lady,” featuring a killer drum part; to the back-beat driven “Shakedown,” where the Rhodes go for the throat. Catchy melodies, sharp, concise arrangements, glimmering guitars and, above all, stellar harmonies, The Rhodes can sure barrel down the highway.