This music star lived quietly in B.C. for years. His songs live on in a popular video game
CBC
Gordon Long remembers his Uncle Bill as a gracious man who loved to paint, play golf and joke around.
His uncle, Bill Kenny, was also a music star who sold millions of records prior to settling in Vancouver, but Long says that never seemed to come up.
"He was our Uncle Bill and the show business part, we never really got into at all," Long said from his home in Maple Ridge, B.C.
Kenny was a member of the Ink Spots, a Black vocal group that recorded several smash hits in the U.S. between the late 1930s and early '50s, breaking down racial barriers along the way.
Long had glimpses of his uncle's musical career. He remembers Kenny bringing him and his brother out on stage during a nightclub performance in Victoria, B.C. He also remembers that Kenny kept performing after surviving a large garage fire that could have killed him.
He's proud of the fact that the Ink Spots have had a surprising afterlife with Kenny's lilting tenor voice featured in movie soundtracks and a popular video game franchise.
"To this day, when I hear an Ink Spots tune in, say, a movie or a commercial or something like that, the first thing that I think of is, that's my Uncle Bill," Long said.
Austin Casey, a musician from Portland, Ore., calls himself a Bill Kenny super fan. He posts old Ink Spots videos to his YouTube channel, manages a Facebook fan page and has collected information about Kenny's life.
At 31, Casey may seem a bit young to listen to music recorded more than 80 years ago, but he says he regularly hears from Ink Spots fans younger than him.
"The thing about Bill Kenny and the Ink Spots that I think is so special is they create a vibe and a sort of magic … the sound was so different and I think that's why it'll endure forever," he said.
Kenny, who grew up in Baltimore, joined the Ink Spots in 1936. Three years later, they released If I Didn't Care, a smash hit that sold millions of copies.
Their songs often fell into a formula that featured the same guitar intro, Kenny's soaring vocals, and a "talking bass" performed by bandmate Hoppy Jones.
The recipe worked for more than a decade, with the group performing at venues in the southern U.S. that had previously been reserved for white performers. Casey says Kenny was not shy about leveraging his considerable fame to speak out on issues of racial justice.
The group formally broke up in 1954 following personnel changes, a shift in musical tastes and a legal squabble between bandmates over the use of the Ink Spots name.
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