We are sad to hear about the passing of Ken Keppler who with partner Jeannie McClearie were the founders and core of the band Bayou Seco. The duo attained national stature playing traditional music. They often collaborated with other New Mexico treasures like Antonia Appodaca, Cleofis Ortiz and Tohono O’Odham people.

Ken was a veteran, master fiddle maker, accordionist and folk archivist and one of only a handful of luthiers who made 5 string violins. The duo were 2017 New Mexico Governor’s Arts Award recipients for music and were instrumental in helping to spark a revival of traditional Spanish music of New Mexico. Ken was a fourth-generation Southwesterner and grew up with the music of the region. A professional musician since 1972 and performed with the Hogwood String Band and with Bo Lpari and Jim Wimmer in Europe in the mid ‘70s before joining Jeanie in Louisiana. Ken completed a survey of cowboy music and dance for the Smithsonian Institute and had a degree from the University of New Mexico in American Studies

Both Keppeler and McLerie apprenticed with master musicians including Cajun fiddler Dennis McGee, Cajun accordion masters Maurice Berzas and Alphonse ‘Bois Sec’ Ardoin and traditional New Mexican violinist Cleofes Ortiz. Ken also played with the jazz/folk ensemble the Bubbadinos. Jeanie McLerie passed away in 2024.

Tom Lee shared this poem by Jeanie:

When I die, please don’t bury me,
Cremate my body and set me free.
No unquiet grave shall hold me down,
I’ll not be moldering in the ground.
A box of ashes that used to be me,
Now here’s what I want you to do with these:
One quarter of them shall be cast to the winds,
Up to the clouds where I can fly and sing.
The second lot shall be tossed in the fire
And some sea salt so the flames can dance brighter.
The third part shall flow down to the sea, via Gila, Mimbres, or the Grande Rio.
I’ll swim with the fishes, crawdads and eels, all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.
The last little bit belongs to the earth,
Save some for the compost and some for the dirt.
The peas can taste sweeter, the flowers so fine,
Delicious tomatoes plucked off the vine.
Under the apricot tree, my favorite fruit.
I’ll dance with the red worms, in and out of the roots.
Now I can polka with nary a wheeze,
Play my fiddle whene’er I please.
Don’t mourn for me, just sing Shi-naa-sha

 

Adopted from New Mexico Arts