Above: Mark Kenneally has some fun at the close of a song during Shine A Light 2015.
By Kevin Noonan
O&A file photos/Joe del Tufo
The local music scene flourished in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s. Bands that made the rounds in northern Delaware and beyond included favorites such as the Melton Brothers, Sin City Band, Johnny Neel and the Shapes of Soul, the Watson Brothers, The Bullets, Tommy Conwell and his Young Rumblers, Lisa Jack, The Drinkers, Larry Tucker Band, Rockett 88, and the big dog in the neighborhood, George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers.
It’s a time Mark Kenneally remembers fondly, mainly because he was one of the stars of that music scene, or at least his alter ego was — Dr. Harmonica.
Kenneally is the front man and lead singer — and harmonica virtuoso — for Rockett 88, a band that has been around since the late 1970s and was inducted into the Delaware Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019.
Dr. Harmonica is now in his mid-70s, but he’s still chugging along, albeit more slowly than he did in his prime. That physical decline really began four years ago, when he was injured while rescuing his dog from traffic. Kenneally fell and tore both of the quad muscles in his legs and he’s still unable to walk without assistance, even though the injury was repaired using transplanted muscle from a cadaver.
“I’m doing all right, but I’m really not happy with my progress,” Kenneally says. “I’m doing much better than I was after it first happened, and therapy has really helped and continues to help. But it was a devastating injury — I could hear the muscles snap when it happened.
“So, it’s been a long road and it’s still a long road. I’m just trying to do the best I can with what I have to work with.”
Also, Kenneally was born with cerebral palsy, a disability he learned to cope with a long time ago and which, indirectly, led him to the harmonica. His condition prevented him from playing most team sports when he grew up in the Brandywine Hundred neighborhood of Devon in the 1960s, although he played rugby for a while. So, he turned his focus to cars and music, and even his music choices were limited because of his cerebral palsy. He tried the trumpet and trombone, but they didn’t excite him.
A harmonica was handed to Kenneally at 13. The rest is history.
Then one day, when he was 13, a friend stopped by his house and handed him a couple of harmonicas. And from there Mark Kenneally eventually morphed into Dr. Harmonica.
It didn’t hurt that one of Kenneally’s best friends was George Thorogood, who was in his class at Brandywine High in the late 1960s. Thorogood’s star hadn’t started to rise yet. In fact, Kenneally says that when he first started playing with Thorogood he didn’t even play guitar — he was the band’s singer.
Later, Kenneally joined Rockett 88, whose lead guitarist at the time was Tommy Conwell before he became a Young Rumbler. Rockett 88 was just one of many great local bands at the time, and Kenneally says he played with just about all of those musicians at one time or another, including the late Johnny Neel, who went on to greater fame as a member of the Allman Brothers Band.
“I actually got to make a living doing it, so I got to do what I love and I never got up before noon,” Kenneally says. “I didn’t care who I was playing with or where we were playing. All I wanted to do was play music with like-minded people, and there were a lot of them around here back then. We were all into the music.”
And music has helped him deal with the many crosses he’s had to bear over the years. Because of his physical limitations, Rockett 88 only plays a couple of times a month, but even that bare-bones schedule has been great mental and emotional therapy for him, even though it can be physically demanding
“It gives me something to focus on besides my problems,” he says. “I still love it, even though I don’t enjoy it as much as I did when I could jump around and be much more animated. But playing, and practicing to get ready to play, gives me a goal, something to shoot for, something to look forward to. And we’re getting great crowds whenever we play, and that helps my outlook, too.”
Those crowds don’t see the hyperactive Dr. Harmonica of the old days, but he still gets the people on their feet and dancing.
“What I love about Mark the most is his enthusiasm, and that hasn’t changed at all,” says Paula Wolkind, who, along with her husband George Wolkind, founded the Delaware Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
“He doesn’t just play — he puts on a show, and the crowd really responds to him,” Paula Wolkind says. “Some people are natural entertainers, natural showmen, and that certainly describes Mark.”
George Wolkind certainly knows rock and roll, especially the local variety — he was the lead singer for the popular band Snakegrinder in the early 1970s. He and his wife decided that the music scene in Delaware needed to be recognized, and that led to the creation of the Delaware Rock and Roll Society (which begat the Delaware Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) in 2018, and recently the organization found a permanent home in the Smyrna Opera House.
And there was never a doubt that Dr. Harmonica and Rockett 88 would be among the first bands to be inducted.
“Mark loves music and he loves sharing that music with the crowd,” George Wolkind says. “People sense that and they send that energy back to the band. That’s the beauty of live music, and nobody brings that energy like Mark, even with all the hardships he’s had to deal with.”
Other members of the ever-evolving Rockett 88 include Alan Yandziak on tenor saxophone, Quentin Jones on guitar, Danny Bendig on drums and Patrick Redding on bass. Jeff Simon occasionally sits in on drums when he’s not touring with Thorogood. And adding something extra to the mix for Rockett 88 is new guitarist Nick Kane, who played with the Mavericks from 1993-2000 and was part of that internationally-known band when it was nominated for five Grammy Awards and won once.
Rockett 88 has cut back on its performing schedule and they rarely play in Delaware anymore. They do show up at the St. George’s Country Store on occasion — they last played there in March. Kenneally said his band mostly plays in the Lancaster, Pa., area.
“For some reason, there’s a big music scene up there,’ he says.
It’s been a long time since Dr. Harmonica wailed at the Barn Door in Wilmington or the Blue Boar Inn in Arden, or George Thorogood walked along the top of the bar while playing his guitar at the Buggy Tavern in Brandywine Hundred (none of those venues exist anymore).
Kenneally, who now lives in Milford, holds onto those memories even while crafting new ones as an elder statesman of rock and roll in Delaware. He makes the best of his current circumstances, even though he’s had to sacrifice because of them — Thorogood has played in our area just twice in recent years and both times he asked Kenneally to join him on stage, but Dr. Harmonica had to decline because of his health.
But even though the flesh is weak, the spirit continues to boogie.
“I’ve had it tough, but a lot of people have a lot tougher than me, and I always try to remember that,” Kenneally says. “And I have something most people don’t have — my music.”
