Ken Lyon Timeline

1941
Ken Lyon born in Newport, Rhode Island
Father: Jazz drummer, fireman, Methodist/Episcopal preacher Walter Kenneth Lyon, Jr.
Mother: Classical singer Ruth Popple.

1944
Begins vocal studies with mother Ruth.

1956
Acquires first guitar, a Stella acoustic, begins to teach himself to play using a Stephen Foster songbook with chord fingerings.

1957
Forms folk music duo, The Seniors, with Billy Allen.

1959
Begins performing as a folk artist playing the music of The Kingston Trio and Harry Belafonte.

1960
Makes his first professional appearance as a musician performing as “Calypso Ken” during the evening floor shows for the summer colony at Ted Hilton’s Dude Ranch in Moosup, Connecticut. He performs the music of Harry Belafonte and other popular folk-revival acts of the day including The Brothers Four.

Makes his first professional recording, a demo, at Audiosonic Studios in the Brill Building, New York City.

Demo leads to song publishing contract with George Weiner’s Wemar Music.

Weiner’s son Stuart recognizes Ken’s talents as a singer, and signs him to as an artist to his production company. Using a demo (cut by a teenage Paul Simon, then known as Jerry Landis), Lyon records his first record, “The Big White House”. The master is leased to Dot Records and the single is released nationally. The record fails to chart and Lyon is dropped from the label.

1961
Stuart Weiner finds another song for Ken, “Fallen Idol”, and Lyon is signed to Epic Records. This single fares much better than the Dot release and Ken embarks on a national tour doing radio promotion and performing at record hops with such contemporaries as Gary “U.S.” Bonds and The Brothers Four. Despite repeated plays on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand, a #1 chart placement in Baltimore, and a Top 20 placement on the Canadian Top 40 due to heavy rotation in Toronto, the record fails to reach the Billboard Hot 100 and Lyon is dropped from Epic.

In the fall, Lyon relocates to Cambridge, Massachusetts and fares well on the budding folk music coffeehouse scene in Central Square, Harvard Square and Boston. He rubs shoulders with many of the stars and future stars of the folk-revival era, working with Tom Rush, Jerry Corbett of The Youngbloods, The Charles River Valley Boys, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, Judy Roderick, Mike Seeger & The New Lost City Ramblers, and The Holy Modal Rounders.

Lyon composes his first “important” song during this era, the future classic, “Dusty Road”.

1962
A naval reservist since high school, Lyon is called up for active duty. He spends the next two years sailing the Atlantic, the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. He formed a band, Ken Lyon & The Tiger Bay Trio with Mark Lyon (no relation), the bass player from Faron Young’s band and a drummer. The group performs at shipboard functions and takes engagements in clubs whenever the ship made port.

1964
Fresh out of the Navy, Lyon returns to Rhode Island and joins the area’s top band, Albi & The Spellbinders, on bass guitar. The Spellbinders make frequent trips to Manhattan and despite record label interest, no record deal was secured.

1965
Lyon relocates to Greenwich Village. He meets Noel “Paul” Stookey of Peter, Paul & Mary and finds a lifelong friend in kindred spirit Richie Havens. He makes significant inroads into the scene performing at Cafe Bizarre, Cafe Wha? and Gerde’s Folk City. Stu Weiner once again secures a record deal for Ken. They cut the folk-rock single “My Life” under the name Orpheus for Leiber & Stoller’s Red Bird Records supervised by label executive Charles Koppelman. The record is deemed too similar to The Animals’ “It’s My Life” and the release is canceled after only a few promo copies were shipped to radio stations.

1966-1969
Returning to Rhode Island, Ken marries and begins performing as a solo or with his brother, Don Lyon on harmonica, at countless coffeehouses, pubs and colleges throughout New England. He releases two independent singles, “St. James Infirmary” and “Rock Island Line” which cement his position as the number one folk singer in the region.

During this time, anxious to explore the electric side of the blues, Lyon forms the original Tombstone Blues Band in 1967 with guitarist Duke “Honey Bear” Robillard, drummer Tommy DiQuattro, bass guitarist Al Lobello, and harmonica virtuoso Steve Nardella. The addition of local legend Mark Taber on piano marks the beginning of their lifelong friendship and collaboration.

Their powerful live shows lead to renewed interest from Stu Weiner along with his new partner, Mike Lewis. The pair produces a three-song session and manages to secure a deal with Metromedia Records then riding high with TV star Bobby Sherman. Unhappy with the failure of the resulting single, Lyon opts out of the deal.

Despite the stellar lineup and their success on the local club scene, Ken’s drawing power as an acoustic artist had always overshadowed Tombstone. Lewis & Weiner decide to concentrate on that side of Ken’s career and the pair is able to secure a deal with Decca Records. Ken records an acoustic, live album - with help from Don “Little Brother” Lyon - at The Mouthpiece coffeehouse in Providence.

1970
“Ken Lyon In Concert” is released on Decca Records. Ken performs at the MCA Annual Convention (along with another new signing, Elton John) to showcase the album for the promotion and sales teams. Despite significant worldwide sales and airplay, the album is lost in the shuffle during a corporate shakeup which results in the Decca and Uni labels being folded into a new, mega-label, MCA Records. Lyon is dropped by MCA.

Lyon arranges, organizes the band and co-produces with Lewis & Weiner an album for his friend and collaborator, Jay Bolotin. The self-titled LP on Commonwealth United fares well and Bolotin performs for several years, with Lyon and as a solo, but ultimately opts out of the music business to pursue woodcutting and sculpture.

1971-1972
The original Tombstone Blues Band disbands with Robillard joining the fledgling Roomful of Blues and Nardella moving on to a successful solo career. Lyon continues to perform as an acoustic single throughout the area while attending college in pursuit of a teaching degree.

1973
Eager to play electric music again, Lyon forms Ken Lyon & Tombstone with drummer Tommy DiQuattro and bass guitarist Al Lobello. An ever-changing, ever-evolving lineup soon solidified into the area’s top club attraction with the additions of lead guitarist Paul DiChiara, second guitarist Thom Enright, Mark Taber once again on piano, drummer Michael “Squeaky” Quinn, singer-songwriter Jon Polce, vocalists Brenda Mosher and Sybilla, and Ken himself on bass guitar.

Lyon’s producers, Mike Lewis & Stuart Weiner, in Rhode Island on business with their other area act, the self-contained R & B band Rhythm, decide to drop in on the band at their steady gig, The Bon Vue Inn in Narragansett, Rhode Island. They come upon a blocks-long line trying to gain admission. As soon as they heard the new lineup and saw the crowd’s reaction, they knew it was time to act and act quickly. They contact their associate from the Red Bird deal, Charles Koppelman, who had recently replaced the fired Clive Davis as head of Columbia Records. A three album deal is secured and recording for the first album begins.

When released, the album receives glowing reviews in the rock press all over the world. The single, “Sing Song City”, was an FM radio favorite and charted in France and Australia. Early sales are brisk. Ken Lyon & Tombstone tour North America on a bill headlined by Mott The Hoople with opening act Queen on their first tour. Crowd reaction is tremendous at every date and reviewers hail the act as a first-rate live attraction and a group on the horizon.

1974
With satisfactory sales and a rapidly growing fan-base, the band records their second album, but it was not to be. Koppelman, never a popular executive at Columbia due to the large number of Davis loyalists still on staff, leaves the label at that point. The new regime decides to reorganize and begins by dropping all of the acts signed by Koppelman.

Riding on their reputation, the group soldiers on, playing successful dates in major markets all over the U.S. Meanwhile, Lewis & Weiner attempt to secure another deal using the unreleased album as a calling card, but they find no interest at the labels.

1975
Ken Lyon & Tombstone disbands. Ken enrolls in a graduate program and, after receiving his degree, moves to Hawaii where he teaches school for several years. His primary musical endeavor is learning to play slide guitar under the tutelage of Hawaiian master Bo Kalima.

1979
Ken Lyon returns to Rhode Island and forms a new band called simply Tombstone with Paul DiChiara, Squeaky Quinn and Brenda Mosher from the last lineup along with new recruits, guitarists Chris Richards and Timi Keltner. The reception is lukewarm and the group disbands within the year.

1980-1990
Lyon concentrates on his family and teaching, performing only occasionally as a single or in a jazzy trio setting with old friend Mark Taber.

1990s-2000s
Lyon returns to the music scene on two fronts: he joins Pendragon, the finest and most popular Celtic band in New England, and forms a new group, Ken Lyon & The Tombstone Blues Band, with a stellar core lineup of area heavyweights:
Mark Taber on piano, guitarist Ed Vallee, Bruce Mosher on bass guitar, drummer George Correia, and Jim “Killer” Kane on harmonica

He returns to the studio and the group releases a best-selling, independent album, “Up From The Ashes” produced by Phil Greene.

For the last sixteen years, Lyon has been an important, elder statesman on New England’s musical landscape, reclaiming his crown on the folk scene as a solo and with Pendragon, and on the blues scene with the aforementioned Tombstone and other lineups including The Outriders with drummer Don Culp and, of course, Mark Taber. He also got behind the board to produce several releases by a new generation of Lyons - the band Triton fronted by his sons Alexander and Joshua Lyon. In 2003, he released a stripped-down album of rootsy Americana, “Old School”, produced by drummer and WRIU DJ Carl “The Eggman” Eggert.

As of this writing (January, 2007), Lyon is still performing with Pendragon, as a solo, and with The Mark Taber Trio, and hosts a blues jam at Chan’s jazz club in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. He unveiled his new, eclectic, acoustic group, The Shoe Fly Orchestra, this year.

On April 14, 2007, his 66th birthday, Ken Lyon was presented in concert for a musical retrospective at The Stadium Theatre in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. He was joined by a stellar cast of associates - musicians and friends from every era of his career including Mark Taber, Brenda Mosher Bennett, Pendragon and John Cafferty & The Beaver Brown Band.