Born 18 March 1938, Stepney, London, England.
Britain's best-known black all-round entertainer has been a television personality for FIVE decades. The youngest of 13 children, he first appeared on stage at the age of 12 with his sister, singer Maxine Daniels.
After leaving school at 15 Kenny had a variety of jobs he also joined The Ed Nichol's Band before going into the Royal Army Service Corp on national service where he was the regimental featherweight boxing champion. He joined HMV Records and hit the UK Top 40 in 1960 with his debut single, a cover of 'Mountain Of Love'. He was one of the relatively few Black singers on the British pop scene in the early 1960s, and made the Top Ten a couple of times in 1963 with a cover of the Drifters' "Up on the Roof” and his own composition "You Can Never Stop Me Loving You" (which made the US Top 20 when covered by Johnny Tillotson). |
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Kenny was on the same bill as the Beatles on the group's first British tour, which was headlined by Helen Shapiro. Whilst on the coach John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote "Misery" which they offered to Helen but she decided it was not for her, Kenny was recording a new album at the time and said he would put it on there, "Misery," became the first cover of a Beatles song to be released, Kenny gave the composition a much more pop-oriented arrangement than the Beatles would use when they recorded "Misery" themselves on their debut album, “Please Please Me”. Kenny remained great friends with the fab four and years later appeared on the album cover of Wings’ 1973 album “Band on the run”.
Kenny wrote a fairly high percentage of his own material, and also did some covers of songs originating from the Brill Building writers like Goffin-King and Mort Shumann. He was a very successful songwriter, often collaborating with other composers. Some of his compositions were recorded by the Drifters, the Everly Brothers, and Cilla Black; a couple of his more notable efforts were the fine girl-group-styled "He's Got Something" by Dusty Springfield, “Loves just a broken heart” a 1966 no. 5 hit for Cilla Black and a minor hit by Billy J. Kramer, "It's Gotta Last Forever." In the mid-1960s, he somehow got the opportunity to write with Mort Shumann, the Brill Building songwriter who had collaborated with Doc Pomus to pen such classics as "Save the Last Dance for Me" and "Teenager in Love." This resulted in Kenny's most famous credit, as he co-authored "Sha La La La Lee," the Small Faces' first British Top Ten hit. Kenny also co-wrote a couple of other songs from the Small Faces' 1966 debut album, "You'd Better Believe It" (co-written with American soul writer/producer Jerry Ragavoy) and "Sorry She's Mine," which could have been strong enough to make it under its own steam had it been released as a single.
He has performed as a singer, songwriter, dancer, and actor, as well as in comedy. He has worked in management and production, helping many newcomers into the business. This black cockney kid has come a long way appearing very frequently on our TV screens he is such an all-round entertainer that people may associate him with many different things. Although today's "alternative" comedy may be thought to tackle taboo subjects, Kenny would doubtless claim that he's done it all years before.
Over the last 5 decades he has been one of the UK's busiest and most popular entertainers and was awarded an OBE in 1971.
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