Mark Kenneally

Mark Kenneally was in the 10th grade when he first saw a young George Thorogood perform.  It was a high school dance and Kenneally was drawn to the stage as he watched Thorogood and his band run through The Spencer Davis Group's "Gimme Some Lovin'."

The part that changed Kenneally's life was seeing Thorogood play the organ part of the song with a harmonica. Soon, Kenneally was in gym class asking Thorogood to teach him how to play like that, and began daily lessons with the future rock star. "That's how I got started," says Kenneally, now 65. "George just happened to be in my class."

That twist of fate has led Kenneally on a nearly four-decade career as his alter ego Dr. Harmonica, leading his band called Rockett 88, delivering a trademark high-energy and good-humored set of decidedly American music: jump blues, rockabilly, rock, funk, and R&B.

Rockett 88 started as a band led by former Thorogood guitarist Ron Smith. Tired of the road even before Thorogood's career exploded, Smith came back to Delaware and started Rockett 88. Eventually, the band was invited to go on the road and open a tour for Thorogood and that's when Smith stepped aside and the doctor took over.

So why didn't Kenneally end up in Thorogood's Delaware Destroyers after coming up through school with him as a fellow musician? Kenneally says Thorogood did invite him to join the band when they were young. But at the time, Kenneally was doing better than Thorgood thanks to a sweet twice-a-week gig playing a bar in New Jersey for $35 a night.

"I decided that I was not going to give this up," he says. "That was one of my better decisions." While Kenneally never toured the world like Thorogood, his legacy in the Delaware music universe is just as sturdy. After all, he's played thousands of gigs over nearly 40 years and has earned the respect of his peers spanning multiple generations.

"He's a legend in Delaware. Absolutely,'" says Gene Fontana, who first saw Dr. Harmonica and Rockett 88 in the late '70s and has since founded Delaware's Diamond State Blues Society. "And he hasn't lost it either. At his age, he still does the same crazy stuff on stage."

Kenneally had cerebral palsy as a child, leaving his left hand permanently disabled. His disability forces him to hold his harmonica uniquely -- a ball of fists up close to his mouth as he hunches, blowing his lungs out. His ailment flared up several years ago, causing spasms and cramps. He couldn't walk well for four years, he says and was on his couch for another year before having surgery to repair his foot and ankle.

He has since bounced back, losing some of the weight he had gained by walking up to 10 miles a day. "I have a lot of after-market parts, but I'm really, really strong now," he says.

It's an old-school dedication to the performance that makes Kenneally stand out. In between his burly harmonica solos, Kenneally is always quick with a joke or funny story, making his shows more of an entertainment package than just a blues band playing in a bar. He takes his job as a performer seriously. It doesn't matter if there's a crowd of six or 600 watching him, Kenneally delivers the same passionate show.

"When I tell someone we'll play, it's my name on the bill. It's not the band members. It's my name that's on the line and I don't like letting bar owners or our fans down," says Kenneally, whose most recent album, "Poultry & Adultry," was released in October on Lancaster, Pa. based Lanark Records.

The Bullets' Michael Davis, who was a member of Rockett 88 for a short time in the early '80s, says Kenneally once gave him a bit of advice: always keep a nice pair of shoes for the stage.

With Rockett 88's 40th anniversary only a couple of years away, Kenneally isn't thinking about all those long nights getting people dancing while wearing his fancy stage shoes.  Instead, he's thinking like he did back when he was a teenager just starting. There's only one focus: the next gig.

"There's a line in that Willie Nelson song -- 'The life I love is making music with my friends' -- and that's as much as I think about it," he says. "That's all I want to do."                                                           

(Dr. Harmonica at Riverfront Blues Fest, Wilmington, Delaware 2009)