I recently had the opportunity to sit down with each of the guys from DMS and talk about their history with music and how that's translated into the music they make today. I asked each of the guys the same set of questions and let them just run away with the conversation. Thank goodness for Zoom and the ability to record, so I could gather it all. It was great to get to know them a little better and see how their different approaches and personalities contribute to their music!
I first got to chat with Kenny Harris, who is the primary composer for nearly all of DMS' 30 years of music. Kenny, an Iredell County, NC native, creates the foundation of DMS's music on the keyboard, which was his first love. He told me that his dad had a student who taught piano lessons and started Kenny on the instrument at 8 years old. Kenny laughingly stated that during his very first lesson, when the teacher told him to count his fingers, his father began to question the value of those lesson but was then pleasantly surprised at Kenny's first recital three months later. He said that by 8th grade, he was invited to participate in the high school band and spent five years playing and performing with them. Kenny doesn't just play piano though; he also plays all the brass instruments, both guitar and bass guitar, and drums. He said he once took a strings class and had minimal success with the cello, but he wouldn't consider that an instrument he's mastered. Interestingly enough, it was his trombone playing in the Jazz band that led him to meet Forrest and Darrelle at Winston-Salem State University.
When I asked about the early days of the friendship, he fondly described the traveling and touring they did with the Jazz band, including gigs they played in New York and New Jersey. Kenny shared that he also played live shows with other friends from the band, but that he, Forrest, and Darrelle continued writing songs together, in the hopes of one day releasing an album and having their own production company. While they had come together playing Jazz, their influences expanded over time, and the music they were writing was more of a fusion of those influences more firmly set in the R&B of the day. In fact, Kenny attributed his early influences to great artists, such as Stevie Wonder, Earth, Wind and Fire, and Michael Jackson. He even told about his father's love of Motown and how he believed that his father was a member of The Temptations for the longest time because his dad would go around the house singing and dancing with their music. Although his early favorites were steeped in R&B, the Jazz artists he learned of in college became an even stronger influence on his music and his preferred method of composition.
Kenny calls himself a chord guy, and his friends agree. Nearly all of his original compositions, even those that harken to other genres, are characterized by a plethora of chord changes, which they all describe as distinctively Jazz. He claims that he often wakes up with a melody of chords and immediately has to get up and play them on his keyboard. According to Kenny, he is able to listen to a piece, whether improvised or fully composed, and hear every note to the point he is able to replay the piece by practicing it in his mind. He also stated that he has perfect pitch, which made practicing on the older practice pianos at WSSU difficult because every piano had a different key out of tune except for one, and he could never get to the piano room early enough to get the perfectly tuned instrument.
When I asked Kenny how he felt his musical style has changed over the past 30+ years, he said he didn't think it had changed much at all. To demonstrate the point, he shared that his favorite tune he's composed is one he began developing in high school that he had taught to some of his other friends he'd play live gigs with. He said the tune, now called "Holding Up the Wall, has evolved over the years, but it still maintains the essence of his artistry. I use the word artistry here because during his later interview, Forrest called Kenny the abstract artist of the crew because he throws together so many different sounds and yet creates something beautiful in its own right that can also be used to build something more. Kenny admits that at times his abstract compositions have had to be tamed significantly to meet the needs of the group to produce fully arranged tunes. He has had to work to break down what initially develops in his mind as multiple chords to the harmonic simplicity of R&B that can accommodate Forrest's lyrics and Darrelle's arrangements. That is how that DMS team works together.
Kenny has a lovely family with his wife and sons and happily balances his time between them, composing music, and teaching band and chorus to middle schoolers. He stated that for him, Darrelle and Forrest are also members of his family, as if bonded by blood. While he admits that getting older and chronic illness have slowed him down some, his love of music and making music as part of DMS is as strong as ever. I was able to get a glimpse of that joy during our conversation, and appreciate him sharing that with me, so I could share it with you.
