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I’m writing this as my eyes moisten and will surely start to flow with tears. I just got the news that my friend and onetime PR client, rock’n’roll singer, guitarist and songwriter Scott Kempner, died on November 29 due to complications from early-onset dementia. As I approach my 70th birthday, I’m at the age where the death of friends I love plus the many really cool and fine people I’ve known and met in a life blessed by such is an all-too-regular occurrence. But this one really hurts like hell.

Scott was born 29 days after I was on February 6, 1954. We both were, as I like to say, the same age as rock’n’roll. Our birth year was when Elvis Presley first entered Sun Studio and the raucous guitar-bass-drums youth music went large, which was no doubt part of our initial bond.

He grew up in the Bronx, and would later fondly recall while both onstage and off hearing fellow Bronx Bombers Dion and The Belmonts sing doo-wop songs on the street through the open window of his family’s apartment. Years later he enjoyed a musical association and friendship with DiMucci, his original rock music inspiration.

In 1972, he cofounded The Dictators with Andy Shernoff and Ross “The Boss” Friedman (alas, now a fervent tRumper and Wrong Wing maniac). The band were a bridge between early hard-rock and glam and the punk movement to follow, which made them somewhat outsiders in the downtown New York City music scene of outsiders centered around CBGB. Early on in the band’s run he was nicknamed Top Ten, no doubt in part for how he knew every hit song that ever really mattered.

They recorded three major label albums that earned the band much critical acclaim but not the airplay and sales they deserved before breaking up in 1979. I came to really love the group on seeing two of their later occasional reunions in the 1980s at The Ritz in New York City (now known as Webster Hall). They remain one of the most potent and spirited as well as often cheekily humorous rock’n’roll bands I’ve ever enjoyed among the likely thousands I’ve seen in my life. Or as AllMusic puts it, “one of the finest and most influential proto-punk bands to walk the earth." Kempner would later rejoin the revived group from 1995 to 2008.

Scott formed The Del-Lords in 1982 with guitarist Eric Ambel, bassist Manny Caiati and drummer Frank Funaro, taking their name from the director of some early Three Stooges movies. Aptly described in their Wikipedia profile as urban roots-rock, I became deeply enamored with them on seeing the band play a homecoming gig after touring in support of their second album, Johnny Comes Marching Home, at New York’s Cat Club.

As tight as a fist while at the same time as warm as a loving hug, they had songs that were taut, smart, full of heart and often informed by populist and Leftist politics alongside numbers that eloquently explored both the glories of romantic love and its travails and heartbreaks. As the group’s main singer and songwriter, Scott was the band’s titular leader. Yet it was at the same time a democratic collective in which the three others also took turns at the mike – the quartet’s harmonies were all-but-genetically brotherly in a Beach Boys fashion – and contributed songs. Again, one of the finest rock’n’roll bands I’ve ever been lucky enough to hear plus work with and know as friends.

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I was thrilled to get hired to do publicity for their third album, Based on a True Story, which many around the band hoped would be their breakthrough. Alas, it was not to be. But I got a huge bonus in the friendship of Scott. After one more album they called it a day, but reunited in 2013 for one last long player followed by some US gigs and a tour of Spain.

Our mutual friend Rich Nesin, who had road managed The Del-Lords and managed Scott’s solo career, summed up his musical gifts eloquently in a press release/obit he wrote: “His songwriting was always heartfelt, direct and powered by his overwhelming passion for rock’n’roll and the three-minute song. It was as much a defining element of his career as his steady, forceful rhythm guitar playing was its signature.”

Scott followed The Del-Lords with three solo albums and various other musical activities, eventually moving to Los Angeles. Even when not making music, he stayed immersed in it through his side gig working at one of the greatest record stores on the planet, Amoeba Music.

A few years ago, I became obsessed with the live album he recorded at Manhattan’s Mercury Lounge with Little Kings, his band with Dion, Funaro and bassist Mike Mesaros from The Smithereens. It’s a rip-snorting near-hour of one of my best-loved singers belting out superb songs with a smoking hot combo. The set included one of Scott’s songs, “You Move Me,” and throughout he steps out from the high art of his rhythm guitar playing – also a near lost art in today’s music – and spun out stunning and crackling electric lead six-string fireworks. For a good six weeks I played it almost daily at home and in my car. As I listened I could feel Scott’s joy in playing in a band with his first musical icon.

“Scott Kempner was the quintessential rocker,” says Dion, ”a free abandoned guitar player, a superb arranger, A prolific songwriter, with the great sense of rhythm. I had the adventure of a lifetime playing with him in our band Little Kings. But most of all he is a dear friend and brother whom I love and will truly miss. Eternal rest my friend.”

His Dictators bandmate Shernoff also notes how “Scott was one of the greats, the best buddy a boy could ever want. We bonded over rock‘n’roll and we laughed about everything. His songs and music will speak for themselves. His glorious memory will remain with me forever and I will cherish it.” And so will it also be with me, Andy.

He retuned to the East Coast and enjoyed one last recorded reunion with his Dictators blood brothers Andy and Ross before dementia forced him out of the game. His final years were spent in Connecticut under the loving care of his sister.

To quote Jackson Browne, “I don’t know what happens when people die.” I do believe in some kind of higher power and afterlife. And if there is a rock’n’roll heaven, I know that Scott Kempner is now there, guitar strapped on and plugged into his amp, ready to rock.

I have a fantasy of arriving at the mythical pearly gates to be welcomed by St. Peter, saying, “Come on in. All the people you love are here.” I will then soon seek out Scott, wrap my arms around him and shed tears of joy to see him again rather than the salty drops of sadness now steaming down my cheeks.

Scott didn’t just love rock’n’roll; he lived it. It was his lifeblood, his soul, the nutrition for his very being. With his pompadour hair and leather biker jacket, he may have looked like a street tough. But Top Ten brimmed with warmth, soulfulness, smarts, humor, modesty, humanity and a firm belief that the world can be a better place. And also believed that rock’n’roll could be a powerful force for positive social, political and personal change. As it had been in his life.

The murderous Henry Kissinger died at age 100 on the same day as Scott. If there was any justice in this this sometimes wonderful world that’s too often also mightily fucked up, Henry the K would have shuffled off this mortal coil at 69 and Scott would have lived a full century from his birth and the first rise of the rock’n’roll he adored as much as life itself. Because for all the many Kissinger accomplishments being listed in near-countless words in the media, he also contributed mightily to screwing up our global village, My friend Scott gave the world love from a heart as big as all outdoors, songs that stuck to not just your ribs but heart, mind and soul, and abundantly rocking grooves galore.

Using words much the same as mine in the graf above, Variety said in 2008: "If the world were a just and fair place, Scott Kempner would be stopped regularly by musicians and music fans thanking him for the effect the records he made with The Del-Lords and The Dictators had on their lives. Kempner's music is impossible to not like: He's the rare master at making three-chord rock'n'roll – inspired by the 1950s and ’60s – sound fresh and vital, simultaneously urban and twangy, heartfelt, political and personal." Heartily agreed! He not only coulda been a contender but was one. But for the feckless finger of fate and the vagaries of the music business, Scott might have ascended to the rock pantheon alongside his kindred musical soul Bruce Springsteen.

But even if Top Ten never made it to the top of the pop charts, as long as his music can still be heard and his memory is cherished by those of us who knew and loved him and his fans worldwide, Scott Kempner is still gonna be around.

When love has vanished from the Earth And nothing’s left of any worth Faithfully, I’ll stand my ground I’m gonna be around I’m gonna be around When all the honest men have come and gone Down the roads that leads to Babylon And the last fair deal has gone down I’m gonna be around I’m gonna be around I’m gonna be around And, I’m gonna do The thing that I set out to do I’m gonna be around When the country is one big shopping mall And some slimy corporate cartel owns it all And every song that you hear on the radio Has the same sound I’m gonna be around Don’t no one try and mess with me I’m twisted up and ready I’m nervous and I’m dangerous I’m gonna be around A man can be his own worst enemy When he just won’t accept the things he sees The things that just won’t let me sleep I’m gonna be around I’m gonna be around I’m gonna be around I’m gonna be around 

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