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Ken Richards has made some rewarding decisions.
At the age of 13, he picked up a guitar. At the age of 38, he picked up a paint brush. He could not have known that these interests would eventually earn him the admiration of much of the local arts community.
Since 1985, Richards has been singer and guitarist with the local Grateful Dead tribute band Pearly Baker Band. And in 1991, during one of his biannual visits to Mykonos, Greece, he was inspired to capture the beauty he saw on the island through art. To date, the New Bedford resident has sold more than 400 paintings of scenes from around the world, from Padanaram to Paris.
Mike Mahoney of Dartmouth is also a singer and guitarist with the Pearly Baker Band. He and Richards have been musical cohorts since 1974.
“The music of the Grateful Dead is about bringing the joy, and that’s what Kenny does,” he says. “He’s a very intuitive player. His influences include Jerry Garcia, Frank Zappa, Mark Knopfler, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Wayne Shorter. He doesn’t rely on formula, he plays what the moment calls for.”
A 1970 graduate of New Bedford High School, Richards boasts degrees from UMass Dartmouth in biology and sociology. Since 2002, he has been married to his “muse,” Donna Harris, an internationally accomplished vocalist he occasionally performs with at local venues such as Cork Wine & Tapas, and the Rose Alley Ale House.
Pearly Baker currently performs acoustically each Sunday from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Pour Farm at 780 Purchase St. in downtown. Richards’ paintings will be featured at Cork in downtown New Bedford on Nov. 29 from 1 to 5 p.m.
New Bedford Light: How did you get started with painting?
Ken Richards: I was hanging out with a lot of artists. I had always drawn but I was really motivated to try to paint. So after a trip to Greece and a lot of photographs and sketches and stuff, I bought some paint. I copied a Van Gogh painting, so I could learn a little bit about mixing color.
For the first two or three years it was about reinventing the wheel. I never went to art school. A lot of the things they teach you at art school I had to learn from painful experience.
So I started painting. After that I was with two of my best friends from the island who were artists and I liked how they did things. But I realized that my style would not be like either of theirs.
My first artistic break came when I had done two paintings of some sights in Mykonos. I went to a bar with my best friend where I was performing a lot as a musician and I pulled out some photographs, because back in the day we didn’t have cell phones, we just had photographs. An interior designer from Canada walked by and she said, “Who did that?” And I said, “me.” She asked, “Are they for sale?” And I said, “They most certainly are!”
So I was an art major’s worst nightmare with the second painting I ever painted being sold. She knew a couple that had just gotten married and they were interested so they commissioned me to do their favorite beach. They now have about 10 of my paintings and I am the godfather of their kids. And my life as an artist took off.
NBL: Where did things go from there?
KR: Then I decided that I really needed to take it seriously. So I did. I started painting like crazy. I was learning and making connections. I had some shows in Greece, I started getting commissions, and I started doing some shows in the states. One thing led to another and here I am.
NBL: How often do you paint?
KR: It comes in waves. I like commissions a lot because it focuses me. I pretty much paint all the time, but I can go for a few weeks without painting. This year I’ve maybe gone a whole month without painting. I’m always drawing and looking at stuff and taking notes about what I’d like to paint.
NBL: How have you grown as an artist? How would you assess your development?
KR: Well, I have. Technically, the more you do it the better you get. It’s like playing guitar. I’ve not arrived — I still have moments of frustration.
I’m a lot more confident in my abilities now. Sometimes when I’d get commissions I would get very nervous, but now I get excited and nervous but not concerned that I’m going to screw it up. I had an amazing commission this summer — a huge painting, 5 feet by 3 1/2 feet — and the guy is a fan of the Pearly Baker Band. He told me he wanted a huge painting for his new home down in Florida that he’s building. He said he wants me to do a painting based on (the Grateful Dead song) “Ripple.” It was fun, it was how I spent my summer.
NBL: How often are you commissioned?
KR: Not often enough, about three or four a year.
NBL: Where do you find your inspiration to paint?
KR: Ah, it’s like asking a centipede, “How do you control a hundred legs?” If you think about it too much you’ll never do it.
I am what I do. I’m a painter so I look and see a lot. Things jump out at me like light and shadow. Light draws the eye, but the magic happens in the shadows. All of a sudden something smacks me upside the head. Maybe while I’m driving or when I’m walking, and I’ll say, “Wow, look at that! I think I could paint that!”
Sometimes after I draw, I take a lot of photographs. I don’t like to work from one photograph. Sometimes my enthusiasm wanes, and other times I’ll think, “This is going to be one of my best.” So I pursue it.
NBL: Do you have a favorite subject matter?
KR: I take inspiration as it comes to me. I don’t draw people very often, though people who have been buying my paintings have been telling me I’ve got to do more with people.
I tend to like landscapes and seascapes. The New Bedford area is gorgeous. When I travel to Italy or Spain or Africa, wherever I travel, I have my sketchbook and I take photos and I get paintings from these places. I take my photographs and then I try to draw what I think will be a good composition and I take notes.
I write notes about the smells, the temperature and what I’m hearing, and all of that. Nature changes by the minute, so I’m trying to get that magic that happens between you and what you’re looking at. If you can capture that, the light and the shadows, sometimes other people will find it interesting.
When I started painting one of my friends said, “You’re going to find that you’ll become a photographer.” A good photograph doesn’t make for a good painting and vice versa. There are different parameters, at least for me, that I consider when taking a picture. When I take a photograph it’s not to be a good photograph, it’s to be a good painting. That’s very, very different.
NBL: Do you feel that you’ve been successful despite never having studied painting formally?
KR: The short answer is yes. I came to my technical skill honestly by discovering a lot on my own. I go to a lot of museums and I read a lot of art criticism and look at the masters.
Since I didn’t go to art school, I don’t know if it would have been helpful or not. I suspect it would have helped me technically, at least the first five years I was painting. There are some rules that seem to be inviolate, but I’ve been told by art majors “You’ve got to kill your colors, they’re too bright.” And I think, “That’s spoken like a true art major.” They have their own vocabulary, their own thing.
NBL: How do your travels affect and inspire your art?
KR: Light is different all over the place. Light in Mykonos is very different than light in New Bedford. So different things move me from different parts of the planet. It has a lot to offer. If I won the lottery tomorrow, I’d be traveling everywhere, trying to get fresh impressions of new experiences.
NBL: Do you travel with the hope of being inspired?
KR: Yeah. I would keep coming back to Mykonos because it’s so inspiring. Also, I have a house there. But when I went to Italy with Donna, my wife, we went to her family’s home village up in the mountains. I found inspiration there and got some good paintings out of it. Wherever I go I think, “Ah that might make a good painting.”
NBL: What inspired you to pick up a guitar?
KR: I was about 13. When I moved to New Bedford, the first people I met, everybody was learning to play guitar. I wanted to be a drummer actually. I had a drum kit, but I was never a great drummer, I was OK.
But guitar kept calling me and my stepfather had a guitar in the house so I learned the chords. I would say it was the Beatles and playing Beatles’ music. It was the joy that the Beatles gave me. I come from the right generation, it was just explosive — the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, The Who, The Kinks, Dylan, the Grateful Dead.
Puberty and all of that music hit me all at once. It was a one-two punch I never recovered from. Without all of that I would have been a lawyer or a businessman. I got screwed right from the start.
NBL: What attracted you to the music of the Grateful Dead?
KR: You don’t have to play the song the same way. Grateful Dead songs are a syllabus, each song is a syllabus. They’re open ended, you don’t have to play it the same way. Their lyrics are as good as Bob Dylan and their tunes are as good as the Beatles.
I was raised on classical music and jazz by my parents. Miles Davis and John Coltrane informed my understanding of what it was the Grateful Dead were doing, which is different from what the Beatles and the Stones were doing.
As I got more and more into being a musician, it gave me the freedom to play with other people who were similarly inclined and just letting the magic happen and taking chances. Trying to be as free as possible while still paying attention to what you’re playing.
The same feeling I got when I first heard Miles Davis and jazz concerts I went to with my parents. They took me to the Newport Jazz Festival. Later on, the Dead were speaking in rock-and-roll and country vocabulary. I’m an American and a Baby Boomer, so rock-and-roll really got to me. The Dead combined the best of Dylan, the Stones, the Beatles, but also Miles Davis and Wayne Shorter and all those guys.
NBL: Why did you form the Pearly Baker Band?
KR: Mike (Mahoney) and I had been in a band doing covers and stuff, but we got tired of that. We decided that we wanted to write our own music and so we did. And we realized that when you’re playing Grateful Dead music with other people who appreciate what they did, it was as if you were writing your own songs by playing their songs.
I don’t like to think of Pearly Baker as a cover band because we don’t sound like the Grateful Dead, we sound like Pearly Baker. But we do Dylan songs, country and western songs, Beatles’ songs, Stones’ songs, and Dead songs. We do what we like to do with music.
NBL: Why have you been with Pearly Baker for 40 years?
KR: We do it because we have to, we love it so much.
Pearly Baker’s gone up and down. When we started we were playing to about 15 people and that was it, but it didn’t matter. We ended up at the Bullpen club, playing to big crowds and people really liked it. When the Bullpen closed we went to different venues. People find us and we’re really grateful. They seem to like what we do as much as we like what we do. I never complain about playing a Pearly Baker show. It’s Christmas once a week.
Mike and I have been best friends for more than 50 years. We make each other laugh, we still surprise each other. It’s a friendship and a dialogue. We’ve been with Eric Costa (keyboards) and Tim Richmond (bassist) for almost as long.
The four of us have had a long musical conversation which defies logic. I don’t get it but I love it. We all love it. Our drummers (Rob Coyne and Geoff Fortin) weren’t even born when we started the band. I’d like to play with these guys until I die.
NBL: What does an audience derive from a Pearly Baker show every week?
KR: You’d have to ask (our fans) the Pearly Heads. I can’t say what they get out of it, but we get a lot from the Pearly Heads. They become part of the band — their energy and their joy, their love of the music and their acceptance of us as musicians is everything. Without that there’s nothing.
We’re the luckiest band on the planet. Our fans are absolutely the best there are.Sean McCarthy is a freelance writer and frequent contributor to The New Bedford Light.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Ken Richards is a Southcoast treasure! My wife, Carol, and I first met Ken in the early 2000’s when we learned about his beautiful painting of a unique and gorgeous tidal marsh area near our beach cottage in Point Connett, Mattapoisett. We purchased that painting from him, and it has since hung above our fireplace at the cottage. We later purchased a beautiful and vibrant painting of a Barney’s Joy scene in Dartmouth. This painting really demonstrated to us Ken’s focus on light and its impact on colors. We proudly hang that above our fireplace in our primary Mattapoisett home. As a side note, Ken was willing to put together a wonderful and entertaining ad hoc musical group to play at a casual “out of town visitors’ welcome barbeque” for our son’s wedding at Point Connett, like 15 years ago. He is an awesome artist, musician and human being who adds tremendously to the culture of the Southcoast! Thanks for the article and interview.
Kenny is not only the most versatile musician I ever met, he is one of the best people I have ever met. He was my running partner our senior year at New Bedford High School and his spirit has influenced my life. He introduced me to a lot of different musical and literary influences that I have today. We went to see the movie Z when it first showed here and the music of Mikos Theodorakis opened my heart to all different kinds of music and world view. We were regulars at Try Works coffeehouse. Unfortunately, I was caught up in my own trip into oblivion for a number of years, but the memories of I have of spending time with my friend. Kenny have always helped me through all of them. Those were the Days!
Great piece on a terrific artist.