Back Pocket Records

Ken Stephenson from Melbourne, Australia, is a multi-instrumentalist, recording engineer and software developer.

Amongst numerous other recent recording projects, Ken co-produced an award winning album with his daughter JO KELLY STEPHENSON.  'I See Flowers, You See Cars' won Alt-Country - Album of the Year in the USA for the popular vote and Album Finalist - Judges Vote in the 7th Independent Music Awards (IMA) reflecting both the production quality of the album and the strength of the songs. Ken and Jo Kelly have continued to work together producing award winning songs both nationally and internationally. The latest being 2009 second place win in the 16th Annual Billboard Song Contest for an R&B Blues track.

Ken recently recorded the song 'Queensland' with ROSS RYAN for his 'Difficult Third Compilation'.

Other recent recordings include DIANA WOLFE, and MEN WITH DAY JOBS.

Ken is currently playing live dates with ROSS RYAN and DIANA WOLFE.

a bit of history...

Ken started out playing guitar, keyboards and writing in bands on Sydney's Northern Beaches in the 1970s. After periods in Queensland with 'Kuta' and 'Banshee', and another Sydney stint with 'Winter' (now 'active' as MEN WITH DAY JOBS), he arrived in Melbourne in 1979, working for a couple of years as recording engineer at 'Crystal Clear Studio', and playing in bands such as 'The Name', 'Exploding Cats' and 'Moose Malone'. The mid 80s saw a change of direction with the decision to stop playing live gigs and concentrate on writing and setting up a project recording studio. With a growing interest in electronics and the purchase of a Commodore 64 computer in 1984, Ken found that a career as a software developer beckoned, which continues to the present. Meanwhile the studio quietly ticks along producing 1 or 2 albums per year, with the focus on recording original material from Ken and a number of other local songwriters including GRAEME 'Alf' DAVIES - The Kellaways and CHRIS MORGAN - Flat Planet.

necessity is the mother of...

An interest in all sorts of instruments has led to teaming with long time friend Neil Howell to build the Neilson Lap Steel Guitars. In 1995, Ken wrote the Alesis SR-16 Drum Machine Editor - a program that allows SR16 users to easily make changes to drum sets for use with sequencing programs. (He is pleasantly surprised that this 1991 drum machine is still being manufactured. This may be a record in a world of 2 year technology life spans). For anyone who would like to know what chords and note patterns look like on various stringed instruments with various tunings, try the Stringed Instrument Note and Chord Finder