Featured Guest
Larry Kenney is the legendary voice actor behind the voices of Count Chocula , Sonny the Cuckoo Bird, Bluegrass in SilverHawks Dolph in TigerSharks, JB Cripps of Red Dead Redemption II and my personal favorite Lion-O in ThunderCats.
Early life and Inspiration
Born in Pekin Illinois, Larry started his radio career at 15 years old at WIRL in Peoria Illinois. When asked about his earliest influences he credits that same station as well as Chicago DJ’s Ron Reilly and Clark Webber.
Formal Education
Some people are born to perform, Kenney shares how he always had a love for voices and creating characters. He has early memories of being the class clown and later incorporating those characters into his radio show.
Make yourself available for Opportunity
Larry’s journey in radio took him to Ft Wayne, Indiana to Cleveland,Ohio Chicago, Illinois and ultimately New York, where he has resided for the past 45 years.
Strategy and Focus
Alongside Larry’s successful voice acting career, he was also part of the regular cast for the syndicated show Imus in the Morning. It is inspiring to see someone with that level of success take on new adventures while maintaining a solid foundation. Larry is also a family man, and goes into further detail in our interview.
Motion Capture
Larry has his sites set on the future and is excited about his latest challenge providing motion capture and lending his vocal talents to create JB Cripps for Red Dead Redemption II.
How does it feel to be the voice of a generation?
When Larry encounters fans at conventions busting emotions, he states it never gets old and it re enforces his feelings of knowing how lucky he is. Instead of accepting compliments he deflects and shifts the focus to his hero’s “Our brave troops, educators and law enforcement officers “.
Midwest at Heart
Larry credits his “Midwest up bringing and his family for a solid foundation and helping him mentally navigate his career”. He goes on to state that anyone who has been successful (in his industry) needs strong people in their lives, where it be a mother, father or someone he was fortunate enough to meet ask and her to marry him. He adds that’s one of the reasons why he married her.She is not afraid to offer her perspective or advice”.
The Secret to Success
Through out our conversation we learned passion, drive, a solid foundation are valuable, but Larry also added failure. He stated describes losts roles and opportunities as blessings in disguse . Kenney adds not to dwell on missed opportunities because often times something better is right around corner.
What’s Next
Our next chance to see Larry is Sunday February 14th at Galaxy Con’s Icons of Advertising Virtual Experience: February 14th at 6pm ET here’s a link to his personal invitation video.
As always,thank you for joining me on this journey. I am very excited to share this conversation with all of you.
Keep Lincoln’s Legends in your feed for updates and Be excellent to each other.
