Introduction

Biography

Ken was the son of Cal­vin and Mar­ilyn Tur­ley.

He was raised in Belle­vue, Wash­ing­ton. At age nine, he be­gan play­ing the vio­lin in school, and though he con­tin­ued to play, mov­ing to cel­lo and then string bass, he was far more in­ter­est­ed in foot­ball and bas­ket­ball.

In 1967, he left home to at­tend Ce­ntral Wash­ing­ton State Col­lege, where dis­covered the gui­tar and Rock ’n’ Roll. A year and half lat­er, he trans­ferred to Se­at­tle Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege.

After be­ing grant­ed Con­sci­en­tious Ob­ject­or sta­tus to the Vi­et­nam War, he left school and head­ed for San Fran­cis­co. There he ful­filled two years of al­ter­nate ser­vice, work­ing for a year and a half at a day care cen­ter for phy­sic­al­ly and men­tal­ly han­di­capped, and then for an­oth­er three years with Mo­ther Goose, Inc. a non-profit so­cial ser­vice or­ga­ni­za­tion that per­formed and taught mu­sic, art, dance and dra­ma to child­ren con­fined in va­ri­ous in­sti­tu­tions, in­clud­ing hos­pi­tals, re­form schools, drug half­way hous­es, homes for un­wed mo­thers, and schools for au­tis­tic, emo­tion­al­ly and phy­sic­al­ly han­di­capped child­ren. Dur­ing this time he took in the flour­ish­ing lo­cal mu­sic scene and per­formed in lo­cal cof­fee hous­es with a ser­ies of his own folk and rock groups.

In 1973, Ken, three friends, a dog and all their in­stru­ments set off across coun­try in a Volks­wa­gen van, play­ing at cof­fee hous­es and bars and stay­ing with new made friends. They made it to No­va Sco­tia, where the van broke down and Ken learned car me­chan­ics first hand.

The group broke up, and Ken and a friend made their way back through the South, re­turn­ing to San Fran­cis­co, then back to Se­at­tle. There he at­tend­ed Se­at­tle Pa­ci­fic Uni­ver­si­ty, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton, and earn­ing his de­gree in mu­sic from Ev­er­green State Col­lege in Olym­pia.

For se­ver­al years he taught gui­tar and bass, ar­ranged mu­sic for and per­formed class­ic­al gui­tar so­lo and with a flaut­ist. Lat­er, he played elec­tric gui­tar in a jazz and rhy­thm and blues band in the Se­at­tle ar­ea.

Tiring of the bar scene, and hav­ing played in two pro­duct­ions of God­spell, he saw the pos­si­bil­ities for and the need of mo­dern mu­sic with a sac­red mes­sage. So he tra­veled to Bos­ton, Mas­sa­chu­setts, to stu­dy mu­sic and theo­lo­gy.

He gra­du­at­ed from the Swe­den­borg School of Re­li­gion in 1985, and was or­dained a Swe­den­bor­gi­an min­is­ter. His first po­si­tion, in Mas­sa­chu­setts, was split be­tween Di­rect­or of the Blair­ha­ven Spir­it­ual Re­treat Cen­ter in Dux­bu­ry, and serv­ing as pas­tor of the Elm­wood New Church in East Bridge­wa­ter.

During this time he com­posed, per­formed and re­cord­ed A Time for Birth, mu­sic for new par­ents and a rock ora­to­rio based on the book of Re­ve­la­tion.

In 1989, he ac­cept­ed a call to the Swe­den­borg­ian Church in Port­land, Maine, where he served se­ven years. As of 2002, he was full time pas­tor of the Church of the New Je­ru­sa­lem in Frye­burg, Maine.

He and Laur­ie have pro­duced a to­tal of eight CDs. His mu­sic can be ac­cessed at https://www.turleymusic.com.