Musicmen
Our area is poorer today, because in the last week we’ve lost two local musicians who brought worlds of pleasure to so many of us for many years: Harold Kinman and Don “Duck” Youngblood.
Say “Madison, Indiana” and “music” and two of the first faces you would picture are those of Harold and The Duck, legends in their own time. Growing up in the 1950s (Duck was slightly older) both men cut their musical teeth on the early rock ‘n’ roll, rockabilly and classic country that made that era one of the most revolutionary in American musical history. Harold took up the guitar as a child, learning to play it “a chord at a time” from a great uncle. Duck listened to his older brother, Bob Youngblood, play skillfully on the piano before going to work in the morning, then would sneak over and learn to tickle the ivories on his own after Bob’s departure.
Harold was a Kentucky native whose family moved to Madison while he was in grade school. He was one of my classmates, and was known as we entered high school for two things: Being a skilled rock ‘n’ roll musician who formed his own band, the Madisonians, while a teenager; and as one of the best-liked guys in our class. 
Don grew up on Walnut Street in one of Old Madison’s most colorful working-class neighborhoods. At a very early age he would sing eagerly for anyone who would listen — such as my grandmother, Elizabeth Wingham, who received several serenades from a 6-year-old Duck while sitting on her porch on Walnut.
“The King,” Elvis Presley; and Conway Twitty were the big individual influences for Harold, who eventually mastered the voices of both stars and sang many of their big hits in the Kinman Family musical group he later formed with his four children, Kim Kinman Hoagland, David Kinman, Jeff Kinman and Jamie Kinman.
While Duck covered songs by many artists, his model and idol was “The Killer,” Jerry Lee Lewis, whose pounding piano style Duck emulated. With his groups, the Aladdins which he formed in high school, and the Hoosier Beats, his back-up group in his adult years, Don could manage to sing in a number of different styles and sound like the original artist in all of them.
Harold and Duck didn’t limit their musical activities to performing. Both wrote songs themselves; one of Harold’s reached No. 37 on the charts; a song of Duck’s charted nationally, another one regionally.
What were these two musicians like as people?
“If I had one word for Dad, it would be ‘integrity,’ ” said Harold’s oldest child, Kim Hoagland. “He always tried to do what was right. He instilled that in his kids.” She said that Harold also passed on his religious faith to his children. “He taught us to pray, and sing,” she said. And she also alluded to the Kinman sense of humor, well known to the family’s fans. “What you see on stage is what we really are — the jokes, the goofiness. We do that all the time when we’re together — always have.”
While Harold Kinman’s humor was laconic and dry, often spoken almost in passing, Duck was famous for his up-tempo, loud patter on stage. He was a born showman. But he was more than just that.
Don Youngblood seemingly knew almost everyone, and was always hail-fellow-well-met.
“He just loved everybody,” said one of his sisters during Duck’s visitation at a local funeral home today. “He did a lot of benefits (free performances) that he never talked about.”
I was privileged to do two extended interviews with Don for feature stories that appeared in The Madison Courier over a course of several years, and he was openly, demonstratively delighted with the results.
Ironically, both men were fighting terminal cancer at the same time the last few months. Harold Kinman died at his home early last Sunday morning, with his family by his side.
“We all sang a hymn to him, and then we all knelt in family prayer just like Dad taught us,” Kim recalled. “Then 10 minutes later Dad passed on. But look what he’s passed on to us.”
Don Youngblood was brought home from Jewish Hospital in Louisville recently, but then had to be transferred to King’s Daughters’ Hospital when his condition worsened.
“We all took turns sitting with him the last few days,” his sister said at the funeral home. “It was bad.”
Duck passed on Thursday night, just four days after his fellow musician Harold.
——
Although these local legends are now gone from our midst, their music lives on in multitudes of CDs and older audio tapes. And who knows what young musicians, yet unknown, they may have inspired, as they were themselves inspired by Elvis and Conway, Jerry Lee and George Jones.
And meanwhile I like to think of Harold and The Duck up there, playing some duets now, chuckling at one of Harold’s dry one-liners or Duck’s Jerry Lee moves. Maybe Harold is singing “Hello Darlin’,” strumming his own accompaniment, with Duck plinking back-up on the ivories. Or Duck is doing “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” on all cylinders, hammering out the beat while Harold sings harmony. I bet they’re having fun.
Harold and The Duck, jammin’ in Heaven. Helluva band.
Old Corporal <corporalko@yahoo.com>
Harold and The Duck, – Saturday, November 22, 2008 at 19:07:10 (EST)
