Kusudo & Worth — “The Gull”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — February 27, 2024

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,127) Kusudo & Worth — “The Gull”

I give you a song from a gorgeous, ethereal ’68 folk LP self-produced and recorded over a three hour span by two California high schoolers: Ken Kusudo and Jeff Worth. “This is about as good as stark acoustic folk gets, with evocative songs, beautiful and versatile singing, [and] unexpected acoustic rave-ups”. (Aaron Milenski, The Acid Archives 2nd ed.) Two hundred copies were pressed.

Richard Krieb, their compatriot and sometimes lyricist, writes:

“The Gull” is splendid in every way – beautiful melody, superb dynamics and musicianship/ vocals, with excellent lyrics. Plus, it was a wonderful and memorable collaborative experience for Ken and Jeff.  On a trip to the Bay Area, which included an informal gig at UC Berkeley, the three of us got to spend a little time in Mill Valley/Muir Woods. The vibe was so happy and harmonious, it was a joy to memorialize in song.

https://kusudoandworth.com/our-story/

Ken Kusudo recalls:

[Jeff and I] composed [“The Gull”] together one morning while visiting Jeff’s brother in Los Angeles.  It happened rather quickly, in one sitting, I think. We were inspired by a short film called “A Dream of Wild Horses” we had seen the night before.

https://kusudoandworth.com/our-story/

Of the album, Jason Smith writes:

[The LP] OF SUN AND RAIN stands shoulder to shoulder alongside the known folk classics of the late 60s and early 70s, including Simon & Garfunkel, Tim Hardin, Tim Buckley, and Donovan, amongst others.  The music of Kusudo & Worth shares the same aching romanticism and heartfelt personal intensity of these classics and yet mirrors none of them – their sound and voice is unique. Like the best of that era, this 1968 Kusudo & Worth album features extraordinarily strong material and works as a seamless, artistic whole.  That this was the work of sixteen and seventeen year old amateur musicians with no professional production, and recorded, edited, mixed, and mastered in just under three hours is utterly staggering. I do not believe I am alone in heralding OF SUN AND RAIN as a lost classic.  

https://kusudoandworth.com/our-story/

Their story is an enchanting one, recalled on their delightful website — https://kusudoandworth.com/our-story/. Let me offer some snippets:

Ken explains the birth of his partnership with Jeff Worth:

It wasn’t until we were both in junior high school that we would strike up a lifelong friendship. . . . Jeff and I were asked by a mutual friend to be part of a quartet – four junior high school kids playing three acoustic guitars and a gut-bucket bass – strumming and plucking what few tunes we all knew.  It didn’t last more than two or three practice sessions, but at least now Jeff and I knew the other played guitar pretty well – each with an older sibling who also played guitar and listened to the revitalized American folk music of Peter, Paul & Mary, The Kingston Trio, and others.  Within the next year (1966) I ran into Jeff at an arts workshop sponsored by the City of Riverside.  To this day, he remembers that I played “Elizabeth”, a song that I had written when I was 14 or 15. . . . Jeff and I were still not a duo, just casual acquaintances.  However, Jeff was so drawn to “Elizabeth” that he wanted to make his own contribution to the song.  It was at that point, according to Jeff, that we became “Kusudo & Worth”. . . . About this time we were developing a Peter, Paul & Mary thing with a girl, a classmate of mine in 1967. I must have been in the ninth grade, and Jeff, one year older and in high school . . . .  The girl didn’t last too long because her father didn’t want his daughter hanging out with two lowlifes like ourselves. So we became a duo, performing at a few school assemblies and for a few church youth groups. Then Richard Krieb entered the picture.  That’s when original songs started to happen in fairly rapid succession . . . . Richard had been a high school classmate of my sister Kathy, and he was an older brother of a good friend of mine.  Richard . . . was in his third year of university studies on the fast-track to becoming a scientist, mathematician, or engineer. . . . Because his youngest brother and I were so close, I was at the Krieb house often.

https://kusudoandworth.com/our-story/

Richard recalls:

I was nearing the end of my junior year at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) majoring in math – with my goals firmly set on becoming an aerospace engineer.  However, this all changed one improbable, fateful afternoon … I was sitting in my bedroom at my family’s home, dutifully doing my homework (as usual) when I heard the beguiling strains of an acoustic guitar coming from my youngest brother’s bedroom . . . .  There was Ken Kusudo, one of my brother’s good friends, playing . . . . Ken explained that he was getting together with another pal (Jeff Worth) to write and play folk songs.  Ken went on to say that they were composing some melodies that did not yet have lyrics. From out of nowhere, I offered to write lyrics for them. I had absolutely no related experience whatsoever – no creative writing nor playing any sort of instrument.  I was a straight-arrow math-scientist. But there I was, volunteering to write lyrics for folk songs. . . . [F]rom that moment on, I found myself flowering day by day into a child of the Sixties. My meticulous class notebooks . . . now showed scribblings of poetry – fantasies of love and protestations of latent angst. I began spending more and more time with Ken and Jeff. I would often sit in on their practice sessions . . . and accompany them to their ever more frequent weekend gigs. All the while, I was fashioning pages and pages of proposed lyrics.  My hair was getting longer, my clothes were getting scruffier, and I was getting less and less interested in my math and physics studies. I moved out of my family’s house, petitioned for a one-year leave of absence from the university (to the shock and dismay of my dear disbelieving parents) and earnestly and enthusiastically became the full-time “&” in Kusudo & Worth.   

https://kusudoandworth.com/our-story/

Ken:

Richard, Jeff, and I began collaborating on songs.  Usually Jeff or I would devise a chord progression and melody to Richard’s lyrics.  He’d come to either of us at any time of the day or night. I had always thought he simply came to whomever was available or awake at the time.  Later I learned that he shared his more “Dylanesque” lyrics with me – those with an edge or some tension – while softer, gentler words and themes – more “Donovanesque” – were given to Jeff.  

https://kusudoandworth.com/our-story/

And then . . .

Ken:

Jeff, a month after graduating from high school, eloped with Michele, his high school sweetheart, in July 1969.  From that point, I planned on becoming a teacher, Richard was off to San Francisco to start a rock band, and Jeff, with Michele, had decided to tend his grandparent’s orange grove in California’s Central Valley.

https://kusudoandworth.com/our-story/

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