Kenny memorial amps up

A decade after Kenny the busker was dealt his final hand, hopes of memorialising him have surfaced again.

Kenny – real name John D’Estaing Adams – died on June 8, 2011. It marked the end of a tempestuous relationship with Wellington City Council, which regularly confiscated his amplifier for excessive noise after complaints from residents of Courtenay Pl, where he would ply his trade.

That trade largely consisted of singing Kenny Rogers’ song The Gambler, a sound that became synonymous with Courtenay Place nightlife through the 1990s.

A memorial at Courteney Pl was suggested at his funeral, but the idea soon petered out.

But councillor Fleur Fitzsimons this week planned to contact council staff to see if it could be reconsidered.

‘‘I drunkenly sung with him, definitely did,’’ Fitzsimons said.

‘‘It felt like peak Wellington at the time. He was a legend.’’

Council spokesman Richard MacLean remembered having Kenny’s amp sitting under his desk for months due to one of the many confiscations. It had since been moved to the council’s archives.

‘‘Our archives staff are fully trained at knowing what to throw away and knowing what to keep – which is why it’s still there,’’ MacLean said.

Fitzsimons hoped it could be given to Wellington Museum.

Wellington mayor Andy Foster, who also remembered Kenny and went to his funeral, supported a memorial.

‘‘I think telling the stories of colourful characters is a nice idea,’’ Foster said.

Councillor Jill Day described him as a Wellington icon who should be memorialised.

Mark Blumsky was Wellington’s

mayor for much of Kenny’s longrunning stoush with the council and, at the time, sided with apartment owners. But he attended the funeral and said the pair had ended up on good terms.

Speaking from Niue, where he now lives, Blumsky said he offered to donate to some sort of memorial in 2011 and the offer remained on the table.

He previously said he got so sick of people demanding Kenny’s amplifier be returned that he once handed the busker a personal cheque to pay for its release.

‘‘He was making more from the ‘give me my amp back’ sign than he ever did from singing.’’

During the scrap with former Wellington mayor Mark Blumsky, Kenny distributed material encouraging his supporters to ring Blumsky to get his amp back; left, the often-confiscated amplifier in Wellington City Council archives.

John Adams, aka Kenny the busker, with his seized sign on Courtenay Pl, in 2001.