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With the crash of the storm came the boom of ideas, and Kendall’s mind teemed with lyrics and melodies.
He was fresh out of college and full of energy and ideas. The California native wanted to be famous. He wanted people to like his songs and hoped to make a living doing that. He had big ideas about his world and the world at large, writing about nuclear war and animals and his emotions.
It was 1981, and he was still learning to play the Checkmate acoustic guitar he had bought used for $15. The metal strings still bit into his tender fingertips.
Today, Kendall, 50, is no longer concerned with being famous. He’s an administrator at Saint Mary’s University and uses music to reflect on his life and feed his soul.
He spends an hour in the bathtub every morning, scribbling poems and songs on a pad of legal paper. He writes about people. A nun who rides her bike around Winona. Max Molonock, a baseball player and personal hero. His uncle Phil Binks, who inspired him to sing folk songs.
He also writes about his emotions. Three weeks ago at his daughter’s wedding, Kendall performed a song he wrote about walking her down the aisle.
Kendall has also written songs about the university. In 1990, he wrote a waltz, which he performed at a student concert.
Whatever the topic, Kendall’s music is a way for him to understand his life and the world,
and to process thoughts and emotions.
“It’s a busy, busy world we live in,” Kendall said in an interview. “You almost need to say, Stop, time out.’ ”
Kendall certainly is busy. As vice president of student development, he’s one of the top administrators at Saint Mary’s. He has been a baseball and
basketball coach, an athletic director and dean of students at the university in his 20 years there.
Between his full-time job and family he also manages to find time for myriad hobbies: hang gliding, race car driving, model airplane crafting the list goes on.
And then there’s his music.
Kendall calls himself an “average” musician. His strength lies in songwriting, he said. It’s his passion, his niche.
But the Larryfest Bluegrass Festival thinks he’s great
and even gave him an award recently.
To date he’s written 650 songs, 100 of which have been put to music, Kendall said. He plays frequent shows at the Blue Heron and each week at residences around town with an accordion ensemble. At the end of this month, he’ll appear at the Great River Folk Festival in
La Crosse, Wis.
Eventually, he hopes to publish all his songs or stories, as he calls them in a book.
Kendall’s musical heroes vary from Bob Dylan to his fourth-grade teacher, who sang folk songs to students before lunchtime.
He’s quick to point out how much Winona has inspired him, too, and that moving here from Chicago (where he grew up) to go to college at Saint Mary’s was the best decision he ever made.
Kendall has done a lot since his time in the boathouse. And he’s matured in his goals. He no longer wants to be famous, but he likes to tell stories and take people somewhere.
“Maybe I can take them out on the river,” he said.
Britt Johnsen can be reached at (507) 453-3519 or bjohnsen@ winonadailynews.com.
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