About Ken Masden
KG Masden was formally trained on classical guitar, piano, and harp. While obtaining a degree in architecture he was also a student of music theory. He started his first band in Louisville Kentucky, where he played professionally throughout the tri-state region for six years. He left his first group to go on the road with a new band that performed throughout the United States. During this period, he was asked by ABC Dunhill Records to write songs for up-and-coming new artists in Nashville.
Unfortunately, for personal reasons he was unable to accept the offer. With the passing of his father in 1991, his music came to a halt. It would be 20 years before he found inspiration to return to music, in the writing of his father’s song, “My Turn - to Carry You.”
In 2010, KG moved to Hawaii, where he began recording at Rendezvous Studios on Oahu. In 2017, he started collaborating with, and writing songs for, the Los Angeles band Prima Donna Rising (primadonnarising.com). He has continued his collaboration with PDR, and has been actively writing and recording for the last 10 years.
His songs are about his own life experiences, and those of people he has known. He considers himself a storyteller with a poetic soul. He believes there is something more to life than what we see in our everyday existence. For him, music opens the door to that something more!
KG is currently in the studio working on a full album of his best work. Over the course of the next two years, he will release songs as they are completed. Once he has finished the songs that best represent his life‘s journey, those songs will be compiled into an album. The purpose of the album is simply to leave something of himself to his friends and family. The expected release date for the album is 2025.
My Father's Love of Music
My earliest memories of my father is the sound of his trumpet as he played along with “A Taste of Honey” by Herb Albert. As soon as he would get home from work he would turn on the stereo, and the music he loved would fill the house. And from time to time he would take out his trumpet and play.
Given the special presence of music in my childhood home, at a very young age I began to write songs. Unlike other fathers, who played ball with their sons, my dad helped me in every way he could with my music. As meager as my first songs were, my dad treated them with great regard. He would type out each song and have his friends sign and date them. I still have those signed copies.
In the years that followed I continued to write, but with the passing of my father I felt as if I had lost my audience. He was the one person who gave true value to my work, simply by listening. For well over two decades there seemed to be no good reason to write anymore. Then one day an image came to mind, it was the vision of my father lifting me up as a child to carry me. That memory made me stop to think about all the times, throughout my life, where my father carried me.
From a host of such memories a song took form and I found myself back in the studio, recording what I initially referred to as simply “my father’s song.”
But while recording his song, there was one profound and deeply personal moment when I realized that the man who brought music into my life, all those years ago, had brought me back to music in the writing of “My Turn to Carry You.”
For that reason, and so many more, I have chosen to present my work under my father’s moniker, “KG Masden”
Dad, I hope you’re still listening!
Buddy/KGMII