Old trick, new Dog
'Kung Fu' icon David Carradine gets back to his musical
roots with the Soul Dogs at Fall Family Faire
By staff and wire reports
October 21, 2004
High kicks and karate chops? Nah. These days, David
Carradine would rather show off his hot licks and musical
chops.
The actor, who rose to fame on the 1970s martial arts
series "Kung Fu" and earlier this year delivered a killer
performance in Quentin Tarantino's hit film "Kill Bill: Vol.
2," is also an accomplished singer-songwriter who majored in
music at San Francisco State College.
When he's not in front of the camera, Carradine has
lately begun rocking out as the newest member of the popular
Los Angeles-based band Soul Dogs. He and the foursome will
pound out funk, jazz, rock, pop and blues tunes Sunday
during the Fall Family Faire at Juan Bautista de Anza Park
in Calabasas.
Besides the Soul Dogs, the Fall Family Faire will
feature Halloween carnival games, inflatable rides, pumpkin
painting, a costume competition, arts-and-crafts activities,
food and a pumpkin patch people can prowl in search of their
own great pumpkin. Admission is free; activities cost 25
cents to $1.
"We've planned a wonderful day of community fun for
families to enjoy in their own back yard," said Fall Family
Faire chairwoman Sue Orgen. "It's a traditional hometown
event."
Carradine's appearance with the Soul Dogs will no
doubt prove to be a big draw, just as it has at SoCal hot
spots like the B.B. King Blues Club at Universal Studios'
CityWalk.
"We actually operate the way a garage band does, which
is a funny thing for a 67-year-old guy to say, but it's
true," Carradine told syndicated columnist Marilyn Beck
earlier this year. "We regularly rehearse, and we're
constantly working on developing new material, recording
whenever we can. It's like the old blues guys -- it gets to
the point where you don't need to practice so much but you
just like to play. We get together, and if we're playing
great, it's a great night."
Onstage, Carradine isn't content to just be a sideman.
He sings, plays guitar and piano and often whips out his
flute to add a whole new texture to the band's gritty sound.
He also writes a lot of the group's material.
"The music is a mix of country, rock, blues, pop and
classical," Carradine told Cox News Service recently. "It's
hard to classify. I have a formal music background, and I
write songs. Some songs are social commentaries, some are
love songs and a lot are pretty autobiographical."
Carradine, the oldest son of legendary actor John
Carradine and half-brother of Keith Carradine and Robert
Carradine, didn't start out as an actor. Or a musician. He
started out as a sculptor -- at age 4.
Music didn't interest him until he was 7, and he
started taking piano lessons. His dream, early on, was to
write operas.
"Everybody in the family is a musician so music is in
the genes," Carradine has said. "But the acting is almost
inescapable."
So it was. The acting bug hit at San Francisco State,
where the drama and music departments were in the same
building. He got a part in a play, purely by chance, and it
impressed his girlfriend. That was all it took for him to
start pursuing acting seriously.
Success hit hard in the 1970s when he starred as Kwai
Chang Caine in the hit series "Kung Fu." He went on to make
dozens of movies, star in a second "Kung Fu" TV series,
write books and compose music. His latest CD is a
self-produced, self-released album called "As Is."
All these years later, Carradine is philosophical
about the way his acting career ended up overshadowing his
musical ambitions.
"When I started as an actor, I assumed I would have a
career as a Shakespearean actor," he has said. "I never
thought about movies. And I certainly never figured on being
an action star, but that's what I became. Sometimes you have
no choice in these matters."
On the Net: http://www.souldogs.com.
Copyright 2004, Ventura County Star. All Rights
Reserved.
Photo was not used with Star article.© 2004 Marc
Mangano
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