Chris Kevin: Maricopa musician and local entertainer

Christopher Kevin is a Maricopa resident pursuing a dream, a dream as a musician.

That dream didn’t start in Maricopa; it started in the California town of Ramona where, growing up, he found a guitar in an abandoned barn. The broken down sound machine had no strings, but that didn’t deter the aspiring young musician.

A kindly gentleman at a local guitar shop restrung the dying acoustic and taught Chris his first chord. It was the first and last music lesson the boy would ever need.

Chris took his newfound toy home and sat for hours in front of the TV, playing along to an old Elvis video. “I would play songs like “Hound Dog” and “That’s all Right Mama,” Chris said. He learned to play by mimicking songs he heard on the radio or television.

“Chris would follow me around the house, saying, ‘Listen to this momma, listen to that.’ He killed us while he was teaching himself to play the guitar,” said Cheryl Swartwood, Chris’s mom.

Now, nearly 14 years after finding that guitar, Chris’s dream is starting to come to fruition. He released his first LP on April 25, a five-track demo entitled “Mona.”

Chris describes his music as neo-folk. The strongest influences on the 21-year-old artist were not the bands of his youth, but musicians such as Elvis, Bob Dylan, Johnnie Cash and Jimmie Buffet. However, the one with the strongest influence on Chris’s style was Buddy Holly.

“Listening to Holly helped me to break out of my creative block. His music taught me to write what I feel,” Chris said.

One thing Chris has always felt is that he would be an entertainer, and he is actually a natural, according to his mom. One of the family’s fondest memories of Chris as an entertainer came about when his father Marvin was overseas fighting in the first Gulf War. Chris and his mom would put together a video of Chris performing the song “Life is Mine.” “When I got that video, it put a smile on my face and the face of everyone I showed it to,” Marvin said.

Chris always knew he wouldn’t be working a nine to five sitting behind a desk or breaking his back doing intensive labor under the unforgiving sun.

“To ensure I never got a normal job, I got plenty of tattoos,” Chris said. That’s not to say he never has worked a ‘normal’ job. The first song on his LP, “Dishwashing Blues,” was actually inspired by his employment as a dishwasher at the Sunrise Café in Maricopa.

Another one of his songs, “Mona Lisa,” was inspired by a poster he used to stare at from his girlfriend’s couch while getting drunk in the middle of the afternoon, but those days are behind him now.

Chris plans to go on a short circuit tour in the spring of next year, making stops in cities like San Diego, Las Vegas and Tucson. While he waits for the tour to launch, he is performing at a couple of area bars.

He plays Thursday nights at Teakwood’s Tavern in Maricopa, 211411 N. John Wayne Parkway, and on Monday nights at the Stadium Club, 2060 W. Chandler Blvd, in Chandler.

“I basically work 8 to 11 p.m. You can’t beat it,” Chris said.

Chris’s MySpace page.

Submitted photo