Review
BarnesandNoble.com Editorial Review
"...A stunning concept album...What have dreams wrought? Some kind of masterpiece."

All Music Guide
"...A thoughtful album that reflects on a somber time in American history...it demonstrates why the Kennedys are one of the most compelling acts on the contemporary folk scene. (3½ stars out of 5)"

Vintage Guitar
". . . combines frothy pop exuberance with rootsy instrumental textures . . . Folk-pop is alive and well. Better Dreams proves it."

Goldmine, 2/29/08
"Husband-and-wife group Maura and Pete Kennedy have a talent for catchy and heart-warming folk-rock songs, and this continues here."

Country Standard Time
". . . this record can really grow on you, with jingle-jangle guitar arrangements that evoke Roger McGuinn . . ."

About the Artist
Pete and Maura Kennedy's personal and professional relationship, now in its second decade, is a cross between fate and a fairytale, in which a chance meeting in Austin between the two East Coast-born musicians sparked a songwriting collaboration, a first date at Buddy Holly's grave, and a romantic and creative partnership that radiates warmth, positive energy, and captivating music.

In 1992, Virginia native Pete Kennedy was playing at an Austin club on a brief sabbatical from his duties as country-folk singer-songwriter Nanci Griffith's lead guitarist when he met former Syracuse, NY, resident Maura Boudreau, enjoying a night off from performing with her own country-rock band, The Delta Rays. They wrote their first song together the following day before Pete returned to the road, and rendezvoused ten days later at mutual hero Buddy Holly's grave in Lubbock, Tex., 500 miles equidistant between them.

When Griffith needed a harmony singer on short notice for a British tour in Spring '93, Maura was the obvious choice, and her touring life alongside Pete began. En route to England, Nanci informed the duo that they would serve as the opening act for many of the tour's shows, as well as performing in her backing band. Needing material to fill their set, Pete and Maura wrote an inspired batch of songs in Dublin that became the basis of their first album, 1995's River of Fallen Stars , which earned an "Indie" award as "Best Adult Contemporary CD" by the National Association of Independent Record Distributors.

The body of work The Kennedys have created since their 1994 marriage reflects their musical and philosophical influences and experiences separately and together. A child of the '50s, Pete picked up a guitar after seeing The Beatles perform on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and was soon playing in a garage band while absorbing the new sounds of folk-rock. After a year of studies at Boston College, Pete "started to lose interest in pop and got into taking the long view of the guitar." Back in Virginia, he immersed himself in studying classical and jazz guitar with master players Joe Pass and Johnny Smith. The rise of the "alt.country" scene in the mid-'80s reignited his interest in contemporary music and Pete became a first-call session player in the Washington, DC, area. When a vacancy opened as Mary Chapin Carpenter's lead guitarist, Pete moved into her band. On a final show with Carpenter in 1991, Pete sat in with fellow performer Nanci Griffith, was invited to join her group, and accepted.

Meanwhile, Maura Boudreau was working in a used record store in Syracuse in the mid-'80s, discovering Fairport Convention, the British Invasion bands of the Sixties, and country-rock singer Emmylou Harris, whose recordings led Maura to the music of Patsy Cline and the Louvin Brothers. She subsequently formed the Delta Rays and started writing original songs. A trip to Austin's SXSW music showcase convinced Maura to relocate her band there.

After Pete and Maura's 1992 meeting and several years of touring and recording together with Griffith, the duo seceded amicably from her group and became The Kennedys, recording CDs that encompass their favorite musical styles and incorporating the naturalistic, transcendental and mythological teachings of Campbell, Tolle, Whitman, and various Eastern-oriented philosophers into their music and lives. Their goal is to live in and appreciate every second of sensation, imbuing their music with a sense of wonder and freshness.

With the release of their tenth CD as The Kennedys and recent CDs by their Strangelings and Stringbusters side projects, Pete and Maura remain the Energizer bunnies of the folk/rock world. Their touring schedule makes Bob Dylan seem lazy - they've played about 1500 gigs in the last 12 years, everywhere from house concerts to major festivals. And when they're not recording, performing, or conducting monthly guitar workshops, they're airing their favorite music on their "Dharma Café" show on SIRIUS Satellite Radio's channel 70.

Product Description
Inspiration is where you find it - or it finds you. Open to every moment, the much-traveled married duo of Pete and Maura Kennedy have spun their personal experiences, musical influences and philosophical beliefs into nine previous albums of winsome original songs, frequently seasoned with exquisitely-performed cover tunes, that blend acoustic-based folk, rock, country, pop and secular gospel into an inclusively delightful sound that's all their own.

After celebrating some of their favorite "road music" by other songwriters on their previous CD, Songs of the Open Road , The Kennedys recorded Better Dreams, their first CD of all-original material in seven years, inspired by a pair of seminars they conducted on "using dreams to unlock your creativity." "All of these songs have something to do with the dreamtime," where "we have a different kind of freedom there," they explain.

Time and space become fluid in the dreams The Kennedys have translated into these songs. The cleansing "eternal now" flows through the CD-opening "Breathe," which counsels, "Breathe into a new life, breathe out all the old times." The tricky path to love is illuminated on "I Found a Road" and "Light My Way." Real life nightmares rush into folk history ("Sago Mine," about the January 2006 mining disaster in West Virginia) or flood the modern day (both "Give Me Back My Country" and "American Wish" lament the draining of civil liberties in post-9/11 America). The dream state itself can be a lifeboat (as on the Eastern-tinged title song and "In My Dreams"), an exhausting anchor ("No Mornings"), or, to mix metaphors, an exhilarating rocket ride to a metaphysical sock-hop ("Speed of Soul"). Appropriately, the CD concludes with an ethereal, near wordless hymn to the ultimate dream - peace ("Pacé").

Whatever the scenario, The Kennedys use their full palette of vocal and instrumental colors to bring their songs to glowing life. Maura's lead vocals range from comforting to yearning, from girlish to womanly, from exuberant to delicate, sometimes bolstered by her own sweet harmonies and those of Pete and several guests. As usual, multi-instrumentalist Pete provides a vibrant tapestry of chiming, jangling and twanging guitars, as well as mandolin, keyboards, bass and drums, interwoven with Maura's sturdy acoustic rhythm guitar, harmonica and glockenspiel.

1. Breathe
2. Speed of Soul
3. I Found a Road
4. No Mornings
5. Better Dreams
6. Give Me Back My Country
7. American Wish
8. Sago Mine
9. Light My Way
10. In My Dreams
11. Kindred Spirits
12. Pacé

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000ZOVQ2C/?tag=imwan-20

If you get a chance to see the Kennedys live, do it. I saw them a couple of years ago, and what a great show. These are people who love what they do, and it really shows. And they're soooooo talented. I'm looking forward to the new CD.

It is a shame more people do not know about this great folk duo. This one will be a must for me

Their other albums are pretty good. Some of it is very byrdsish. Roger McGuinn was involved with their first album. I've ordered then new one.

McGuinn contributed to their second album Life is Large. The debut River of Fallen Stars on Green Linnet is also worth getting. It has been reissued in the last couple years; originally it was a "Pete & Maura Kennedy" release but it is now credited as "The Kennedys".

Those albums are both out of print, but they're excellent pickups ~ Amazon's third party dealers have both of them at dirt cheap prices:

[lilred]Life Is Large[/lilred]



http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000005CRK/?tag=imwan-20

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[lilred]River Of Fallen Stars[/lilred]



http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000005CRD/?tag=imwan-20

The Green Linnet releases are nice but look for the reissues from 2003.
They seem to be gone now as well but are the ones to get IMO.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000C52EO/?tag=imwan-20

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000C52EP/?tag=imwan-20

Listened to the new album last night. Pretty impressive. The first track, "Breathe," sounds like a great single.