Kensington Hillbillys

The Kensington Hillbillys began in the Winter of 1996 when the father & son duo of Steve Ketchen & Mikey McCallum started a weekly residency under the heading, "Honky Tonk Tuesdays" at Grafittis Bar & Grill in Toronto's historic Kensington Market. Steve as lead singer and guitarist and Mikey as lead guitarist and backing singer.

Their repetoire consisted mainly of Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Merle Haggard & Ernest Tubb cover songs as well as a handful of original songs written by Steve Ketchen.

On their debut album, the self-titled "Steve Ketchen & The Kensington Hillbillys", the band's instrumentation had grown to include drums, upright bass, violin & pedal steel guitar; all hallmarks of the classic Country & Western sound. All of the songs on the album were written by Steve Ketchen. The album was entered into a competition on Canada's national radio network, CBC. It placed 4th out of nearly 200 entries for the "Big Break" program.

Steve had been writing songs since he was a teenager and was mainly influenced then by artists like Bob Dylan, Neil Young & The Clash. After the untimely death of Clash frontman & lyricist, Joe Strummer, in December 2002, the Kensington Hillbillys were asked to perform three songs at a Strummer tribute night at Toronto's legendary Horseshoe Tavern. The Clash's "Straight To Hell" was included as one of those three songs and was considered by many in the audience as the highlight of the night. Shortly after this event, the song was recorded and has been part of the band's repetoire since then.

The recording caught the ear of Canadian ex-pat artist Gordon McHarg, living in London, England, who used it as part of the soundtrack to his Joe Strummer tribute exhibition, Past, Present & Future, both in London and Tokyo. The show exhibited some of Strummer's personal items such as lyrics, drawings and pictures.

At the London opening, "Straight To Hell" caught the ear of English record label Loose Music's owner,Tom Bridgewater and it was arranged for the track to be released on one of Loose Music's annual compilations, "Loose 4: Start Your Own Country.'

In 2005, The Kensington Hillbillys released their second self-produced album, "Bones In The Backyard" which included their version of "Straight To Hell". All other songs were again written by Steve Ketchen.

Since the 50th anniversary of legendary Country & Western singer, Hank William's death in 2002, the Kensington Hillbillys have been performing a tribute show called "Hank Williams On The Lost Highway". It features Steve Ketchen as Hank, playing two sets of the artist's greatest hits and interspersed with stories about his life. The rest of the Hillbillys faithfully recreate the look and sound of Hank's backing band, the Drifting Cowboys.

2008 saw the release of the band's third & most recent album, "Tecumseh", produced by Stew Crookes. This set of recordings were also written by Steve Ketchen.

In 2010, one of the tracks from the latest album, "Tiny Mine" was included in the soundtrack of the feature film, "Trigger", directed by Canadian Bruce McDonald. The film premiered at the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival.

In the near future, the Kensington Hillbillys are planning on putting together a tribute to the Clash called Clash Billy Rockers and working on their fourth album.