Kelvin was a drummer in the East Bay. He played a lot with Steve Gannon (RIP) and Willie Riser (RIP). I met him and his wife Julie when we took a class together at CSM on composing for visual media in 2002 or so. He inspired me to get back to playing live again after many years of being almost entirely a bedroom musician.

There was a jam at Larry Blake’s that he encouraged me to check out that he did with Gannon and Riser. I think I went twice, and about all I remember was Miz Dee was there, and once Joe Louis Walker showed up. I think this might have been when I was mostly out of work between 2003 and 2005, and after I started working full time again, I never returned. But doing that began a process that led to me stepping out more and engaging with the local blues scene and meeting people like Stan Erhart and Vince Caminiti.

After the class we tried a couple of collaborations. I played guitar on an instrumental tune he’d written – one of the few times I played any slide guitar – and I worked on one of Julie’s tunes a bit, but that one never went very far and we fell out of touch. 

I recent years I found them on Facebook and we had a couple of interactions, not much beyond “Happy Birthday.”

He passed away over the weekend. I regret not having made an effort to have stayed more connected.