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Ken Sutherland Composer new article content ...

Born in New York City, moved out to Westchester county after father returned home from world war 2. Father – born in Canada – became a naturalized US citizen before he enlisted in the Marine Corps. Went on to become Head of National Advertising for Life Magazine, then Compton Advertising Agency and then a fund raiser for his alma mater, Yale University. While at Yale he sang in double quartet called ‘The Eight Sons of Eli”, who had a radio show on CBS while they were students in New Haven.

Mom was always a stay at home mother. But his Dad was continually ensconced in music one way or another. He took the two older boys to every Broadway show or Gilbert and Sullivan concert or music event when ever it could be arranged. And Ken, who now had been playing the piano when he wasn’t playing football, could be counted on to accompany his father (and friends) at all hours of the night

Advertising and music have been strong factors in all of the Sutherland offspring.

Ken graduated with an Industrial Design degree from Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) and took his education background to the NASA facility in Cleveland Ohio. He moved into advertising at Fuller, Smith and Ross (as an account executive) then on to the Baker Division of Otis Elevator as the Assistant Director of Advertising and finally to Cleveland’s largest home grown ad agency, Griswold-Eshleman. When the opportunity to move back to New York arose Ken took the leap and went to work with what he calls “the hippest agency in the business”, Ogilvy & Mather, Inc. There, he had the good fortune to work with the grand master himself, David Ogilvy. Several years later he moved to Houston, Texas to work on the Esso/Enco name change challenge at McCann-Erickson. While at McCann, he discovered there was another voice calling and he segued out of the account service side of advertising to the creative. While at McCann he wrote the first commercial jingle for the newly named Exxon Oil Company. That encouraged him to make the shift to music where he left the security of a corporate job to build the largest independent commercial music production company in the Southwest. And, along side of his commercial music business, he started writing songs for various LA publishers/producers/artists. He also wrote the 1972 Richard Nixon Campaign song, “Nixon Now More Than Ever, Nixon Now” performed by, among others, The Mike Curb Congregation” That same year Ken wrote the United Way’s official theme, “Thanks To You”, recorded by various artists including The Mike Curb Congregation. Over the years Ken had the good fortune to work with such artist as Red Steagall, Lee Greenwood, Mickey Gilley and David Loggins, to name a few.

Through a chance meeting on a flight to Houston from LA, Ken met actor/writer Mark Miller who was trying to get an original screenplay funded and produced. Ken offered to write the title song for that film and when the it was finally financed in 1982, Mark hired Ken to write the songs and the score for the film, Savannah Smiles. This motion picture went on to become the family film of the year in 1983 by the MPAA and continues to sell both dvds and soundtracks today. The title song, “When Savannah Smiles”, performed by Brian Champion and “Pretty Girl’, performed by country recording artist Red Steagall, remain popular bride and groom first dance numbers today while “Another Dusty Road” remains the signature song for the Oklahoma band, Mountain Smoke. Other film scoring opportunities were presented and Sutherland moved to Los Angeles to continue his career. Films scored by Ken include “Papa Was A Preacher” for legendary producer Martin Jurow. Grammy Winner Sandy Patti performed the closing credits song “The Door Is Open, The Light Is On”. “Shadows on the Wall” (with Wilford Brimley), “Dark Before Dawn” (with Doug McClure) and “Big Bad John” (with Ned Beatty, Jack Elam and Jimmy Dean) are some of the films scored by Ken Sutherland.

In 1984 Ken and co/writer Phil Kelly wrote the words and music to a one performance only musical in Las Vegas for the Southland Corporation. Additional writing assignments came from across the country and even from the Middle East where he wrote the musical score for a television project for the Saudi Arabian government. In 1985 Sutherland wrote and produced the song, “Here Is My Love, Pass It Along” and recorded it with a number of Texas born or bred recording artists including Steven Stills, Billy Preston, Jerry Jeff Walker, B.J. Thomas, Shelly Duval, Alex Harvey, Charley Pride, Mary Wilson, the Gatlin Brothers and Sami Jo Cole to name just a few. The project raised money for The North Dallas Food Bank

Back in Dallas with encouragement from writer/producer, Sidsel Alpert, Ken began what is now a 7 year voyage into the creation, development and production of a new musical based on the life of unconventional early Renaissance master, Fra Filippo Lippi. The show has enjoyed encouraging reviews at staged readings in both Dallas and New York. Now, fully staffed, the producers are raising capital to produce an ambitious work shop in late fall of 2011 with the hope of going on to Broadway for the 2012/2013 Tony Season. He has also recently written the score for a feature length documentary called “Dancing With Torah” for producer/director Robert O. Curry and with the support of the Simon Wiesenthal Holocaust Museum.

Ken says that the great Broadway composers and lyricists – Lerner and Lowe, Rogers and Hammerstein, Jerome Kern, Sondheim and Bernstein, and Lionel Bart and Frank Loesser – are some of his personal influences. “Their music was constantly playing around our house when we were kids. Then seeing the shows and hearing how the music advanced the story was transformational, magical”. Of course,I was a rock and roll piano player in the late fifties and early sixties so Lord knows who I was listening to at any given moment.”

When not working on a music project Ken enjoys the opportunity too create and install murals for both commercial businesses and residences. His work can be seen in Dallas and Ft. Worth, where he and his team painted the largest piece of public art in North Texas.