RIP Kenvin Lyman - The Utah Kid

[Bob Palin]

I never met Kenvin in person but we had chatted on Facebook several times over the last few months and he and his wife Sofia invited Janet and I up to SLC for dinner. The Lyman family was one of the early settlers of this part of Utah, the town of Lyman is 10 miles west of Torrey and some of the family still live here.

 

Kenvin was taken off life support today where he had been in a coma for several weeks after falling down the stairs in his house. In the fall he badly cracked his skull, there is some thought that a stroke led to the fall.

 

I suspect that few of you will recognize his name but the majority of us over 40 will have seen his work. He was the driving force behind the light shows at Grateful Dead, Santana, Jethro Tull, Ike & Tina etc concerts in the 60s and 70s, he designed the hardware and software that made the shows possible. He also designed many concert posters including some of the iconic style Led Zeppelin posters.

 

Kenvin's contributions to life are far too large to enumerate here, he was a writer, painter, photographer, chef, musician among other things and a great, friendly, outgoing man too. He was just about to publish a cookbook with 60 paintings he did of the dishes, in fact he was carrying some artwork to photograph for the cover when he fell, I'm sure it will still be published and will be amazing.

 

I'm truly sorry that I never met him in person but glad we had the brief contact on Facebook. My thoughts go out to Sofia and I hope she will visit us in Torrey.

 

If you search for him online don't be confused by Kevin Lyman who is unrelated but strangely does similar things.

 

http://arts.utah.gov/things_to_do/collections/public_art/orem/acuity.html

 

http://saltlakeconcertposters.blogspot.com/2010/09/poster-artist-kenvin-lyman.html

 

http://www.ledzeppelinposters.net/Led_Zeppelin_Posters/Home.html

 

He posted many pictures to his Facebook account which I think is available to all

 

http://www.facebook.com/utahkid

[yabadabapal]

Im sure he would have liked to have met you to Bob. What an amazing guy he was/is as I am discovering. Thanks for this valuable share.

RIP!

 

[chrisd]

Great writeup of a very interesting guy. Thanks, Bob.

[Bob Palin]

There was a short write up about Kenvin in the SLC paper yesterday

 

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/51214294-76/lyman-art-kenvin-taylor.html.csp?page=1

 

I hope someone writes his biography.

[chrisd]

Some really good music from the Utah Kid (Kenvin) and The The UK2Band

 

From the bio on the site- in addition to creating visual art for, among others, Zeppelin, Stevie Wonder, Elton John and Earth, Wind and Fire, Kenvin performed with The Grateful Dead, Carlos Santana, CSNY, and many others.

 

What a life.