Oen Kennedy is an award-winning singer-songwriter who possesses the ability to mimic bird sounds with startling accuracy. Fans of the Greenfield man’s many recordings and those who’ve heard him live — including during the Coop Concert series at Greenfield’s Energy Park — are often astonished by his skills. At an outdoor performance earlier this year, concertgoers were spellbound when Kennedy finished a number in which he’d included a range of brightly whistled spot-on bird songs; suddenly, dozens of nearby birds seemed to clamor for more in a symphonic chorus that could easily be interpreted as a bevy of feathered friends calling for an encore. After a few heartbeats, the park’s human audience erupted in thunderous applause and whistles.
Kennedy’s skills stem from a keen interest in nature’s bounty, as well having lived adventurously in various parts of the world. Due to his father’s work as a foreign service officer, Kennedy’s family moved to West Africa when he was just 18 months old. In Conakry, Guinea, the toddler took in sights and heard sounds unfamiliar to most inhabitants of his birthplace of Boston. Conakry is a main port and prime natural deep water harbor and — even though he moved back to the United States by the time he was 4 years old — Kennedy’s early years in Guinea and in proximity to countries like Senegal, Mali, Liberia and Sierra Leone imbued him with deep connections to West African music, languages, and cultures. After his parents divorced, Kennedy’s mother married a Guinean man, Maountaga Sam.
After several years in Washington, D.C. and Chicago, Kennedy left the U.S. again at age 8, this time to live in another coastal spot. Madras, a city in southern India now known as Chennai, is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal.
“That’s where I really started paying attention to birds,” said Kennedy. “In India, I spent a lot of time down at the seashore, observing Hoopoes, hornbills, egrets, vultures and gulls. My father, like me, paid attention to everything.”
One example of a creature that fascinated both father and son was the nudibranch, a type of snail with no shell.
“It’s a mollusk, a sea slug, with incredibly beautiful colors,” said Kennedy. “We found them along the shore, and I loved seeing their electric dark blue contrasted with light blue. They were stunning.”
The natural world seized Kennedy’s attention, compounded by his active imagination and uncommon neurology. He related dramatic circumstances that precede his memory, “My mom described something I did when I was about two years old,” Kennedy said. “Apparently, I would climb up on a hassock and attempt to fly. The story goes that I wanted to fly across the living room.”
He was unsuccessful, of course, but that didn’t stop him from trying. “My mom said I would leap off and fall to the floor, where I then arched my back, stopped breathing and turned blue.” A doctor cited neurological explanations.
Due to a separate condition called synesthesia, Kennedy has had a number of additional unusual neurological experiences throughout his life. Synesthesia is a phenomenon which results in one sense being involuntarily triggered when a different sense is stimulated. For example, someone may see colors while hearing sounds, or they may taste words. These sensory crossovers happen involuntarily. Medical literature doesn’t label synesthesia a disorder, but rather a unique way of experiencing sensations. It often runs in families and affects around three to four percent of the population. For these folks, senses sometimes blend into rich, cross-wired perceptions. Apparently, many synesthetes enjoy their experiences.
Kennedy, who divides his time between western Mass and Maine, thoroughly enjoys being in the woods, “taking in flowers, trees, birds and squirrels.” He doesn’t remember trying to fly as a toddler, but he knows he’s always wanted to be a bird.
“When I was about 7 years old, I started becoming aware of birds as individuals and as species. I regarded them more in relational terms than scientific,” he said.
At age 16, Kennedy came across an aphorism from English poet and printmaker William Blake: “How do you know but ev’ry bird that cuts the airy way, is an immense world of delight closed by your senses five?” The passage, from Blake’s 1790 work, “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” suggests that human senses reveal a fraction of reality, while each creature holds boundless wonders.
“Reading that passage opened my mind to understanding that every living being contains the entire universe,” said Kennedy. “Everything is connected, like Thich Nhat Hanh said,” he added, referring to the Vietnamese monk, peace activist and teacher.
“I love all living things, especially birds. My dad was an amateur naturalist, and my Uncle Ben Dane was a biologist who taught at Tufts and did the most extensive longitudinal study of Common Goldeneye ducks,” he said.
Clearly, Kennedy’s love of birds and all of nature has roots in his family as well as his own fertile imagination and uncommon neurology. Tune in next week to learn how, since young adulthood, Kennedy has had a series of remarkable interactions with the natural world, and for decades has incorporated such encounters and relationships in his prolific work as a singer-songwriter.
Eveline MacDougall is the author of “Fiery Hope” and can be contacted at eveline@amandlachorus.org.