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Kenny Lyon

Guitarist

Kenny Lyon is an American guitarist, bassist, music producer, and author. He has performed and recorded with artists such as the Lemonheads, Jann Arden, NOFX, Mark Curry, Los Super Elegantes, Joel Virgel, Jim Bianco, and Brazzaville

Kenny played in several bands during the 1980s and early 1990s, including Jim Ehinger’s Los Angeles China Club house band, which backed up artists as diverse as Rick James, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Herbie Hancock, John Entwistle, Chaka Khan, and Joe Walsh.

Kenny Lyon

Kenny Lyon

During this time, he also recorded with Paul Roessler and played in the band Twisted Roots, as well as with Priscilla and Rita Coolidge, David Baerwald, and others.

After recording and touring with Mark Curry, recording with Jann Arden, and recording with Doc Lawrence, Lyon moved to New York, eventually recording and touring with The Lemonheads beginning in 1996. The association lasted until 2004.

In 2015 he toured as guitarist with Josh Haden and the band Spain. This led to being the producer of the new project by Spain, Carolina, and performing in its summer 2016 European support tour.

He is the author of the novel Three Monkeys.

Kenny is also one of the original members of the band Brazzaville and accompanied Joe onstage for the following shows:

The Blue Room
Too Close to Home (New York)
Just an Ordinary Man (Los Angeles)

Reviews of Joe’s Work

"Radio's Prince of Darkness Rules the Freeways. [Frank is] alternately dark, bizarre and very funny - but always hard to turn off."

The Wall Street Journal

"The world of Joe Frank is a wildly entertaining surrealistic universe...hilarious, unsettling, zany, powerful, moving and perhaps the most unique, inventive and effective use of radio since Orson Welles convinced much of America there was a War of the Worlds."

The L.A. Weekly

"The perfect Joe Frank experience is driving down an unfamiliar highway alone at night. You turn on your radio and are greeted by a lush, resonant voice that lulls you into a seemingly simple tale of love: a man at an airport saying goodbye to his wife over the phone, which abruptly turns into a vision of betrayal, alienation and death - often from obscure disease - all brought about by some profound personal failing, which is redeemed at the last moment by a nearly transcendent moment of joy."

Salon

"[Frank] travels in the emotional landscape of Bergman and Fellini; there's a tension and sense of mystery halfway between Kafka and Chandler... and a satiric edge worthy of Firesign Theatre and Woody Allen... No one else in radio is doing what Frank does."

The Washington Post

"I came upon Joe Frank's work by accident a number of years ago while driving to my home in the Napa Valley late at night. I couldn't believe the originality and sheer brilliance of what I was hearing. From that moment on I became a dedicated Joe Frank fan. Joe Frank's shows raise the most interesting and enduring questions in new and original ways and are consistently thought-provoking and very funny."

Francis Ford Coppola, filmmaker

"You don't have to close your eyes to appreciate Joe Frank's dense audio universe cascading out of your radio. It helps, though, because there are so many layers - of sound, philosophy, of reality-coursing through his dramas... Come to think of it, after awhile, you won't want to close your eyes because in Frank's short stories for the radio, the tension and pathos are as enveloping as they are intriguing... "

The Washington Post

"Frank [is] the apostle of radio noire... His free-form radio dramas... are sometimes moving, often funny, but always manage to confound the listeners' expectations. A maestro of verité, Frank exploits the power of radio..."

Rolling Stone

"Although commonly categorized as radio drama, Frank's work bears very little resemblance to the stagy artifice of plays performed over air. Frank wanders deeply into the unconscious, producing Dionysian stories with a fairy-tale intensity whose effect is often funny, disturbing and deeply memorable."

Salon

"Frank wanders deeply into the unconscious, producing Dionysian stories with a fairy-tale intensity whose effect is often funny, disturbing and deeply memorable."

Salon Magazine

"To me, he's what radio is really for... his show makes me think he's getting to some great truth... so completely captivating and just unlike anything else."

David Sedaris, writer