If you were a long-haired adolescent in the 1970s who bore some resemblance to either of the two guys in Wayne’s World, then “Carry On Wayward Son” is probably more intimately familiar to you than your mother’s voice. No self-respecting soundtrack of the Jimmy Carter years would be complete without it.
Thanks to the long-running horror series Supernatural, the signature song of the band Kansas has attained a kind of second life. And thanks to the zombie phenomenon we know as classic rock radio, “Carry On” has never really gone away. But Supernatural adopted it as a kind of recurrent theme, most memorably in a stirring Glee-style staged musical performance that remains one of the show’s touchstone moments.
Which is why you might expect a smattering of younger folks among the aging Waynes and Garths on May 30—when the seven-piece rock band visits the City National Civic in San Jose.
“That show has brought in a whole new generation of fans who are pretty serious fans,” says Kansas violinist David Ragsdale. “They show up at shows. You can see them in their ‘Supernatural’ shirts.”
Ragsdale has been with the band for close to 30 years, and he saw firsthand the new wave of interest in the band’s material thanks to Supernatural. A couple of years ago, the band was invited to San Diego Comic Con. They climbed on stage in the dark, “where no one could see us,” Ragsdale says. “So they play a video from the show and at some point someone on the video pulls out an old copy of Leftoverture, (the album that begins with ‘Carry On Wayward Son’) plugs into an eight-track player. Then, we suddenly emerged from the shadows playing the song live. The crowd went nuts.”
Vintage Kansas fans will be quick to remind you that the band was no one-hit wonder. Leftoverture, released in 1976, was a monster hit and eventually reached quadruple-platinum status. But their follow-up in ’77, Point of Know Return was also a big bestseller and spawned the band’s other hit that everyone knows—the lovely if somewhat bleak ballad “Dust in the Wind.”
For a band called Kansas, it ranks as a bit of surprise that the group has been based in Atlanta for most of its almost 50-year history. The project did begin in Topeka in 1970 as a kind of heartland American spin on the largely British phenomenon of progressive rock—think Yes, Jethro Tull and Genesis. Today’s Kansas features only two of the band’s original members: drummer Phil Ehart and guitarist Rich Williams. At its commercial peak in the mid ’70s, Kansas was fronted by guitarist Kerry Livgren, who wrote both “Carry On Wayward Son” and “Dust in the Wind.” During the band’s high-profile days, Livgren moved more and more toward an interest in evangelical Christianity and he left the group in the early 1980s.
Georgia-born violinist Ragsdale came into the band as a fan. “We all listened to groups like Emerson, Lake & Palmer,” he says. “We were the prog-rock guys. Then here comes this Kansas stuff, and we all became immediate fans.” Fast-forward to the mid-’80s. Ragsdale is working as a fiddle player in the band of country singer Louise Mandrell. He gets to hear the latest Kansas album, Power, and notices one thing above all.
“Kansas brought in (guitarist) Steve Morse who had just left the Dixie Dregs. Now, a violin was heavily featured in the Dixie Dregs. And a violin was always heavily featured in Kansas. Yet here was a new configuration with both, and there was no violin.”
So, Ragsdale recorded some violin parts and worked to get the tapes to Kansas, not an easy proposition in the pre-internet days. Eights months later, drummer Ehart calls Ragsdale to congratulate him on the tape. “But he didn’t hire me on the spot, which is what I expected.”
That came a couple of years later, when the band invited Ragsdale to record with them. Six weeks later, he was in the band.
“Kerry Livgren wanted to make sure the violin was a featured part of the band,” said Ragsdale, “that it wasn’t just something that stepped in for an occasional solo, but was buried in the textures of the band’s sound. And it still is.”
Kansas
May 30, 8pm, $45+
City National Civic, San Jose
