#423: Fallen Idol by Ken Lyon
Peak Month: June 1961
8 weeks on CKWX’s Vancouver Chart
Peak Position ~ #2
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Fallen Idol”
In 1941 Ken Lyon was born in Newport, Rhode Island. His mother was classically trained and began to give vocal lessons to Ken at age three. Ken’s father was an Episcopal priest and his family moved to East Weymouth (MA) before he entered his teens. When he turned 15 in 1956, Ken Lyon got his first guitar and taught himself to play. In 1957, Lyon teamed up with a South Weymouth high school classmate named Billy Allen to form a singing duo called The Seniors. Lyon was taken with both folk music and calypso and in 1959 started performing under the name “Calypso Ken.” In 1960 he made appearances playing calypso at Ted Hilton’s Dude Ranch in Moosup, Connecticut. The Woonsocket Call reported that Lyon also was in the United States Navy Reserves for two years, but got a medical discharge due to an asthmatic condition. After high school Ken Lyons got work as an electrician at the Ann & Hope Factory Outlet in Lower Cumberland, Rhode Island.