My Favorite White Man Who Sings the Blues

John Kay


During my tenure at Kat Kountry and its sister station Light Mix 105 the next best thing to making new friends with my co-workers (Big Zack Evans, Gary Poole, Ginger Prado, Robin Daniels, and working with Greg Rambin again) was I got to meet my favorite rock blues singer, John Kay of Steppenwolf. The man still has a great voice and can really rock. I have seen John Kay and Steppenwolf more than any other act. John is legally blind and had a hard time sneaking across the border into West Germany. One of the band's best songs, Renegade documents the torture of being legaslly blind, young, and being fired upon by tanks and other artillery. Eventually John learned English from picking up 50's Rock N Roll from radio broadcats. When his family moved from Germany to Canada Kay befriended Neil Young and Rick James and was in a band with them called the Mynah Birds. Eventually Kay would move to California with other Mynah Byrd alumni including Goldie McJohn and Nick St. Nicholas to form Steppenwolf. My favorites by the band include Magic Carpet Ride, Born to be Wild, Monster, Hey Lawdy Mama, Rock Me, From Here to Their Eventually, The Ostrich, the blues suite on side two of their The Second album, For Ladies Only, and covers of 40 Days and 40 Nights, Snowblind Friend, Hoochie Coochie Man, and Hold Your Head Up. My only criticism of the band in concert is that the bass is handled by the keyboardist or pre-recorded. Every time I see them someone asks me about this. John Kay's autobiography is one of the best ever rock books.