Billy Kemp

song and music maker

  • Way Down Upon The Suwannee River- Songs and Biscuits

    Way Down Upon The Suwannee River- Songs and Biscuits

    Jeni Hankins and I are camping at the Stephen Foster State Park and we’ve written three new songs. One about a bug that casts a shadow of a horse, one about a Maryland horse racetrack, and one about Jeni’s grandmother, Mawmaw Margie. During the day the carillon, the world’s largest tubular bell instrument, plays some…

  • Booker T Jones at the Country Music Hall of Fame

    Booker T Jones at the Country Music Hall of Fame

    Last week brought the Americana Music Festival and Conference to Nashville and Jeni and I got to go to a couple of spectacular events at the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum. On Thursday in the Ford Theater, Robert Gordon interviewed the legendary Booker T Jones – musician, composer, producer from Memphis, Tennessee. Mr.…

  • First Recording Session on the Series 70 Recorder at Artland

    This was the result of the first recording session at Artland in Nashville using a vintage analog tape recorder, the Tascam Series 70 1/2 inch eight track. It actually is a six track recorder now because the heads are worn on tracks 1 and 8.

  • Patsy Cline Exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

    Patsy Cline Exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

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    Harold Bradley, who played guitar and/or tick-tack bass on all but four of Patsy’s recordings, spoke about Patsy’s intensity every time she stepped up to the microphone. He also said that two of the things he’d learned from being a session musician was that 1. the singer is always right and 2. the singer is…

  • Bees On The Apples

    Bees On The Apples

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    Here’s a tune I composed while I visited Jeni Hankins’ grandmother, Maw Maw, in Jewell Ridge, Virginia. Maw Maw has a bunch of apple trees and they had dropped a bunch of fruit and it made the bees very happy. This is a work in progress but I wanted to try uploading something for a…