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WEHM All Access - Sag Harbor American Music Festival - Danny Kean · WEHM All Access

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, it's WEHM All Access.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Harry Waring, and getting a chance to get to know the artists of the 2026 Sag Harbor American Music Festival.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: And one of them is Danny Keene.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Danny, how are you?
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate that, Danny.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: As we uh get together, getting ready for your performance.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I guess I wanted to start first of where are you originally from?
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm from Farmingdale.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: So uh it's it's a little uh bit of a trip for me, but I've been out east since I was very, very young playing around.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I think a lot of people uh will recognize me and I'll recognize them too.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you are a New York Blues Hall of Fame inductee, and you've been doing a lot of stuff over your career, but I do want to go back to the beginning because for people that don't know, um you've been blind since birth, and uh you've I guess how old were you when you started playing piano?
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: I was two years old.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: I I couldn't even walk.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: My mother has videos of me playing where I could barely sit straight up to play the thing, and and uh it's been headlong since then.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I I guess at that age and what you were experiencing, what did music represent to you even before you could speak really and and talk?
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: What did what did that kind of do you remember at all?
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like kind of the whole how it really came together for you and what music was.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I come from a very sporty community, a very sporty family.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: And when you're blind, you don't get invited to as many things.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you don't get invited to the the baseball game, the football game, or the video game.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And music was something I I didn't have to be invited to.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was right there.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there was always instrument instruments in my house, there was always music in my house.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so there was no shortage of things to try and learn, and it it was very um it was a very solitary activity until people found out I could do it.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then I was invited to all kinds of things.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's interesting.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: What what kind of music did you grow up listening to or around you?
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: What did your parents listen to?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: And what what kind of influenced you?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Everything.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, soul music is huge for me.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh jazz is huge for me, blues is huge for me, uh, rock stuff, you know, like child of the 90s, so uh a lot of the rock stuff that was going on at the time is more important to me than I thought it was, uh, when I look back on it.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh all kinds of music, but it's all in there.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: When did you start to uh I guess train professionally in a way for piano?
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: You you worked with uh Henry Butler.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: I read how did that work?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: How did you kind of connect and what had that unlocked for you that really no one else could?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I never studied with Henry.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: We were in a film together.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Oh wow, okay.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: We were in a film together about blind musicians, and uh that's a whole nother story.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: I went to Russia for that one.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: That was uh a wild experience right before it became what it is now, and uh interesting, interesting experience, and it made me thankful to be where I'm at.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and then but that's a really interesting uh because I I I read about working with Henry, and then what was that like to, in a way, find someone that was like you?
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: And imagine that was kind of really important.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, Henry was uh a talented guy, and and that whole New Orleans thing, I uh I got to work with another blind legend from New Orleans guy named Brian Lee, who's uh a huge deal down there, uh blues man.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Both of them were so so uh great at interpreting the classics in a modern way that put people in touch with the traditions of New Orleans and and uh uh uh it really carried it forward to to young people today that still do it.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: So that that's a a beautiful thing to have experienced.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: I I would imagine you made the uh your mantro jazz festival debut as a as a teenager.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: What was that like uh to to start you were so young, um but but obviously ready to do it.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: What what did that feel like when you were making that debut?
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh sometimes it's like you you're glad you don't know what a big deal something is.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, I I I didn't have access to the internet back then.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh everybody else did.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I didn't know I you know, I I had records from there and stuff, but I didn't know how monumental of a thing it was to be a part of uh until much later.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm glad I didn't know because I didn't approach it with the nervousness that I could have or would have been completely right to have.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: No, that's that's really interesting.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: And now how did I'm curious how you developed your sound?
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, working with other musicians and New Orleans and different sounds for blues, but how did you kind of go in that direction with with blending soul and blues?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh where did that fusion come from?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's just what you like.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: You you play what you like and you like what you play, and it it all it creates an echo chamber of sorts, and um the more things you learn from different places and the more opportunity.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to work as a musician constantly and not do anything else, you're gonna have to do a lot of other things.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've played on heavy metal projects, I've played on gospel projects, I've I've sang uh in other languages, and all of that informs what you're gonna do in a uh a way that you weren't planning on, but you never learn anything that sets you backwards, it always brings you forwards, and uh I think that's a huge part of it.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think as a blind person, I don't know what I look like, and so it doesn't bother me to sound like something other than what uh a suburban kid uh might have been projected to be.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think that might be a part of it, but that's just my own uh supposition on that one.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: But I I think experience is much more uh formative.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you you are what you're around, and I was around some really, really beautiful things, and it really I I I like to think it it got in there somewhere.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I think so.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm curious, uh you started playing piano really young.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: When did you first start to sing and become comfortable singing?
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I I'll I'll be comfortable maybe when I'm 90.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think um I think musicians uh there's there are singers who play and there's players who sing.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: And if you play since you're little, uh singing is always gonna come second, and it's always gonna be something you work at every day.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I I am the most journeyman singer there ever was, and if if it's good, it's only because I worked really hard at it.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: That makes a lot of sense.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: Your early record, Blind by Design.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you did everything for it, really.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: What was that like to kind of throw yourself into that project and and be responsible for writing and arranging all of it?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there were a lot of people doing that at the time, and I those were my influences at that time, D'Angelo and Lenny Kravitz and Prince and Stevie Wonder and Todd Rundgren, and and that was a big thing for me at the time.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's less important to me now.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Whoever plays it well should play it.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Back then I just wanted to do it, and uh, I usually couldn't afford other people to do it, so it got done that way.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, to some degree it still happens that way, but it's it's usually who can do it best.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: If I do it best, I keep it.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: If someone else can do it better, I don't.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: You worked with so many interesting people along the way, uh, like Sam Moore, um, George Porter uh Jr.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um what did you learn from all these artists as you because it sounds like you've really had some amazing experiences, and you really got to learn from them and kind of create your own kind of fusion of all those experiences.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well I I worked with Sam Taylor, who was uh very associated with Sam Moore.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he was a blues man uh to the highest degree, and he was uh a legend around here, and he taught me, he was like a grandfather figure.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: He taught me a lot about how to be a good performer, how to treat people like they're important because they are, and uh they're the reason you're allowed to do it, and how to put your heart into uh into shows.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And every time you do it, it you're really lucky to you know do something that you love.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Most people do something that they have to do to raise their children, and uh if you don't have to do that and you do something that means something to you, then you should always come to it with your heart.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: And uh those guys really uh every musician I've ever worked with had that in common.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I I really try to come with that kind of energy every time, even when people did not come to see me.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: I want them to know that this is an honor for me to play for them.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, whether whether they uh were hoping for music today or not, a lot of times as a musician, you're you're just happened upon, and uh you want to make that special for somebody too.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And and those guys were like that also.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's interesting.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: I was speaking with Raul Madon, who's uh doing a show uh for this uh this festival, Sake Harbor Music Festival, and he has been um visually impaired since birth.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: And it's interesting to hear his perspective, and I'm curious yours on the fact that it almost helps sometimes that he didn't know what was happening in the audience.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the opposite.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: I wish I could see people because uh sometimes you get in this thing, uh I'll be playing small places where music is, I guess what you call incidental sometimes.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it will seem like people aren't paying attention.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: And if I don't think about it from, hey, let me just focus on doing a great job, doing it better than I did yesterday, and uh playing things that I I think people will like to hear because I like to hear them.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: So uh, you know, if I if I do that, uh sometimes people will come up to me on the brakes and go, Oh, I love that Beatles thing.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: You you really took that place as and they were paying attention, they won't tell you.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: But if you could see them, maybe you would see their toe tapping, and maybe you'd see them looking at you.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I I think it for me it it it creates a complex if I let it, uh, not knowing how people are reacting.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I try not to think about them too much unless they let me know uh you know that that they're feeling it, in which case the energy shifts in a very, very good way.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, if it doesn't, that they don't owe me anything.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I I I really try to just make it the best practice session I could ask for.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's interesting.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh in my research, as I learned about you, that your your piano improvisations are described as kind of amazing, a masterclass.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: What's it like to be in that zone um for that when you're improvising on the stage?
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, what what do you feel like and what process do you go to in your head?
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: What are you thinking about?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, process of of improv is a hard thing to explain.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you gotta get out of your own way.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, here's the beginning, here's the end, and somehow we have to get back and forth and have a good time and not confuse anybody.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't I don't want to I don't want it to feel like school, I don't want it to feel like um you need a math book to understand what's going on, but I want it to be special and and all the my favorite uh improvisers do that, and I I really try to have that kind of open-mindedness, but also keep it on the tracks.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Don't don't veer too far off the road because you're gonna lose people.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: I I know that I get lost sometimes in uh when other people do that.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I try not to do anything that I wouldn't enjoy listening to, if that makes any sense.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: No, that makes per perfect sense.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we're speaking with Danny Keene, who's at this year's St.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: Harbor American Music Festival.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: Curious what you're exploring today in your writing.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, maybe in different things that you maybe wouldn't have done 10 or 20 years ago.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: What are you working on right now?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm breaking down and making a blues record.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: I've always been asked to do it, and I always wanted to do it, but I felt like I didn't have enough to say and didn't have enough experiences and was too young.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm I'm really pursuing that, and I'm writing some really fun things.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: I uh really pursuing some some interesting feelings uh musically, uh like organ trio music and and things that I really have always liked and uh want to keep alive.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's what the next record is about to be, and we're uh working on that at the moment, and it's uh really exciting.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: And and the songs are funnier.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh even the even the deep ones are humorous in a way that maybe my prior work had hadn't been, if if it if at all.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting, yeah.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: No, that's it's a new chapter in a way.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: People always wanted that from me, so you gotta give people what they want.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, coming to the St.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: Harbor American Music Festival, uh, what do you have planned for your performance?
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh how does it kind of how do you put together this type of performance for uh an outdoor festival?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing the things that I know of mine.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: They uh it's an all-original show, and that's what they asked of me.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm doing the ones that I know people like, and I know the band does them great, and uh, we have a terrific uh crew of musicians.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a three-piece, and uh it's uh unbelievable set of people.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: I I I think you're really gonna enjoy them, and and uh I I hope you come out and hang out with us.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm looking forward to it.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh this should be fun.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you should be, I believe, in the alley, and we'll get all the details up in the episode description and as we uh air this on uh WEHM.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: Danny, thank you so much for your time.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate it.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's nice to get to know you a bit, and I look forward to meeting you at this year's festival.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Harry.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's a pleasure talking with you.