When Bobby Kendall starts something, he puts his heart into it.

Kendall is a 21-year-old business student, musician, hunting guide, and landlord. He is hoping to make a career playing music.
Kendall has been around music his whole life, he said. His father, Bob Kendall, played guitar for Billy Montana and the Longshots – a band based in Voorheesville that had a contract with Warner Brothers. The group disbanded 16 years ago. Billy Montana lives in Nashville now and is a well-known songwriter, with hits like "Bring on the Rain," and "Suds in the Bucket."

When Kendall was a kid, he and his family toured around the country with Billy Montana and the Longshots. His mother, Sharon Kendall, managed the band’s fan club.

Kendall is heading to Nashville at the end of May to stay with Montana. The two will visit studios, bring demo recordings to various record labels, and, Kendall said, he has scheduled appointments with a few management companies.
It will be a "behind-the-scenes tour of Nashville," Kendall told The Enterprise. "I’d like to get hooked up with the right people," he said.
Music is a "very important" aspect of Kendall’s life, he said, "considering I’m choosing it over continuing with school." He will graduate with an associate’s degree in business from Adirondack Community College in May.
Kendall decided that he wanted to play music when he was in the eighth grade; his English teacher brought in a guitar and played and sang the Semisonic song, "Closing Time" to the class. That sparked Kendall’s interest. His father gave him a guitar and began teaching him how to play.

Kendall remembers his frustration and his blisters as he struggled with notes and chords. Now, he is a one-man band, playing guitar, creating bass with a pedal board, and looping sounds.
Playing solo has made Kendall a better musician, and has boosted his confidence, he said. "It’s gotten me a great foundation, and now I’ll be able to work with other musicians better," he said.

When playing in a band, Kendall said, you don’t concentrate on yourself. When you play solo, you can hear everything, including mistakes.
"I like to solo because there’s no hiding," Kendall said. "You can hear your voice a lot better."

Kendall has been spending a lot of time at DMS Studio in Clarksville, recording a CD that he hopes will be released by mid-summer.

Music roots

Kendall was born on a farm in Guilderland, and his family moved to Delmar, then North Carolina, and finally, six years ago, he moved with his mother, and sister, Rebecca, to Lake George.
After graduating from high school, Kendall enrolled at Albany College of Pharmacy. "I don’t know why I was there," he told The Enterprise.
His grades weren’t so great, he remembered, so he decided to stop attending his classes. "I’d go out in the woods, sit in my tree stand, and read there," he said. "I brought my grades up by not going to class."

He said that he would read his textbooks, but, when that became dull, he started reading real-estate books. He figured out how to buy property with no down payment and no credit, he said.

He went home to Lake George in December, ending his time at Albany College of Pharmacy, he said. In January, he bought his first piece of property, a building with three apartments. He was 18.
Soon after, he bought 92 acres of land, subdivided it, and has "sold some lots," he said. He plans to "keep rolling with the real estate," he said, and then "cash out when things start to happen" with his music.

Kendall’s connection to music extends further than his father and Billy Montana. His great uncle, George Kendall, who lives in New Scotland, taught Kendall’s father how to play, he said.
His Uncle George still plays out sometimes, Kendall said with pride. "Now all three of us get together and play sometimes," he said of the three generations of Kendalls.

Doing what he loves
"You’ve got to get out and do things," Kendall said about the motivation behind his song, "Close to You." The song will be featured in a one-minute-and-20-second music video at the beginning and end of a hunting television show, Driven 24/7, which is broadcast on the Men’s Channel to 33 million viewers, he said.

Kendall has been bow-hunting since he was 11 or 12, he said. Last fall, he went to Spike County in western Illinois, home to the biggest deer in the country, Kendall said, to work as a hunting guide.

A camera crew from Driven 24/7 was filming a hunting trip there, Kendall said. The show is videotaped all over the country. Most nights, as the crew members all sat around the campfire, Kendall would play guitar and sing.

On the day that the crew got a deer, the host of the show, Pat Reeves, was in the area, and stopped by to see the deer, Kendall recalled. When Reeves arrived, Kendall was just starting to play.
"I’d been watching his shows since I was a kid," Kendall said of Reeves. "When I met him, it was really cool; and, when he wanted to use my song, it was even cooler," he said.
"It fit perfectly," Kendall said of the match between the music and the program. Reeves called the video "one of the most powerful openings to any hunting show he’s ever seen," Kendall said proudly.

The show airs for 26 weeks, with two episodes per week, Kendall said. The episode with the Spike County hunt will feature Kendall as one of the guides for the team, he said.

With the exception of a week spent in Nashville, Kendall will be busy playing music all summer. He has shows lined up from Lake George, to Albany, to J.J. Maddens in New Scotland.
He is also "booking all over the place" in Spike County, where he will resume working as a hunting guide in the fall.
Though Kendall prefers bow hunting because "you’ve got to get closer" right on top of the animals," his song, "Close to You," isn’t specifically about getting close to the deer, he said. "It’s more about people who you are close to," he said.
"Sometimes you have to get away for a while to make something happen in your life," Kendall said. "Little sacrifices now, for big rewards later," he said.
"What matters most to me is doing what I love," Kendall sang in a deep voice at a bar in downtown Albany on a sunny April afternoon. The song, "Man on the Stage" was one that Kendall had written only days earlier for "his reporter friend" he announced with a shy smile before he played.
"He’s a very determined kid," his mother, Sharon, told The Enterprise. "I’m very proud of him."