Connections: K is for ...

Chester Kamen (2) Connecting in 1994. Guitar.

Chester & friends Guitarist and "premium hired gun", brother of pop star Nick Kamen. Co-writer and producer for Bryan Ferry (Bete Noire, Boys and girls and Mamouna) - he is pictured behind some of the Ferry band. He is variously credited with Latin guitar, Mood guitar, Crad guitar, Gondola, Drift guitar and Mutron guitar. He connects quite a bit with Guy Pratt (wah bass) including the Ferry albums. Fellow contributor Melvin Lee Davis describes his playing as "the raw, rock guitar playing of Chester Kamen. What a Band!!!!".

Away from Mr. Smooth, Kamen also features with a raft of other top names such as Seal's debut, A Tribe called Quest's Oh my God single ("Who are these people? I don't know, probably some Brits. The mix has a real ambient feel, sort of clubby, but not too Bad. But it does have some cheesy synths toward the end that is usually a dead giveaway of UK acid jazz.") and Symphony Or Damn, Terence Trent D'Arby's third album. "Though the almond-eyed maestro is a one-man band, Chester Kamen, Des'ree, Greg Phillinganes and the Tower Of Power horns spice and thicken the sound".

Then there are lightweight pop acts Duran Duran, Mark King (ex of Level 42), Jimmy Nail and Natalie Imbruglia, plus golden girl Madonna (Like a prayer) - also with Pratt. Not forgetting the Mad Professor's dub version of the Massive Attack album Protection, amid working ("Guitar and Aura") with Dundee's late great pop poet Billy MacKenzie on the album Wild and lonely". Billy said "There was a lot of spontaneous affection went into it and all the musicians involved were very natural and intuitive. We were all over-excited and that's the worst state that I could ever be in because, when I'm overexcited, my brain's like a computer print out. It's like somebody's got a remote control on my emotions and they flick from channel to channel to channel and I don't know who the fuck I am. So it kinda evolved, it was a metamorphosis. We just sort of charged about the studio. It was perfect". For Kirsty, Kamen contributed guitar to Can't stop killing you and Just woke up.

Brian Kennedy Connecting in 2002. Singer.

Performed Dear John, Angel and Don't come the cowboy with me, Sonny Jim! in the live tribute concert.

Lewis Khan (3) Connecting from 1989 to 1991. Trombone & Violin.

Lewis Lewis played violin for Kirsty on My Affair and Halloween, and trombone on Halloween, My Affair and My way home. David Byrne also hired him for Rei Momo, and he has worked with both Latin greats Eddie Palmieri, Bobby Sanabria and Larry Harlow - "Not only is there great singing in this album, but you also have great jams, or solos. Harlow, as previously indicated, surrounded himself with great talent in just about every area in the band. The horn section included heavy weights Reinaldo Jorge, Lewis Khan, Ralph Castrella and Charlie Miller. Khan, the other Judío Maravilloso, doubled up as violin player in La Cartera. All of this was wrapped up by Eddie "Guagua" Rivera on bass and Harlow on keyboards and piano."

Liam Kirkham Connecting in 2002. Trombone.

He played in the band at the live tribute concert.

Bob Knight (0+) Connecting in 2000. Drummer.

The younger brother of sax man James, he filled in for Dave Ruffy on a televised broadcast in March 2000. I think he had about 2 hours to practice beforehand, and he duly performed with panache, even if the studio did forget to record his drums for the first half an hour!

James Knight (2+) Connecting from 1999. Songwriter & Saxophone.

James James is co-author of Good for me and plays saxophone on Head. He was a mainstay of Kirsty's final touring band and the man Kirsty had found true happiness with so his importance transcends his playing. Hard to imagine that Tropical Brainstorm could have existed had Kirsty not met James. Having been invited to teach son Louis to play sax, James just stayed!

His earlier work included the RB Funkestra, and the brilliantly named Taka Boom (Chaka Khan's younger sister) and Janet Kay. Around 2002 he was to be seen touring the UK with a Big Band project. Oh alright then, it was the Pop Idol tour! More impressively, he of course played in the band at the live tribute concert and managed to get through it in one piece.

Current project is TALC (pictured) - "two grown men that felt the need to write and perform material that spoke to them, that made them fall in love with music all over again." www.talconline.com "Not at all jazzy".

Andy Kowalski Connecting in 1994. Programming.

Andy Kowalski Programming on Just woke up. A bit of a studio wizard by the look of things, he says things like 'The Spirit Folio Notepad is ideal as a source mixer for the disc editing system. Although the Sadie takes mostly Digital inputs, the Notepad is great for mixing analogue inputs like turntables'. More tech talk at http://www.spirit-by-soundcraft.co.uk/nnews/oldstori/spiritat.htm. The only other trace of him we can find is as engineer for the Wolfgang Press Funky little demons in 1995.

Connections: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W

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