ED Denson

Eugene "ED" Denson (the capitalization of both letters in his "first name" is his own spelling that evolved from constantly using his initials) is an American music group manager, producer, record label owner, and - later - lawyer, who has made notable contributions to folk, blues, and early San Francisco rock.

Around 1963, in the wake of Fahey's location of Bukka White, ED Denson, John Fahey set up Takoma Records with Norman Pierce as their first distributor. Denson produced some of Fahey's albums. In the early 1960s he was road manager for Mississippi John Hurt, helped manage Bukka White, and produced recordings by Skip James, after John located Bukka, and Skip James was found by a folklorist in Mississippi. He sold his interest in the label to Fahey in the mid-60s. In the mid-1960s Denson expanded his management activities into rock, and - together with Country Joe McDonald - put out a magazine, "Rag Baby". From around 1965-1970 he managed Country Joe & the Fish as well as Joy of Cooking. In 1972 Denson and Stefan Grossman founded and managed Kicking Mule Records, which released acoustic guitar instrumentals with tablature at the onset, and branched out to include artists such as John Renbourn, Michael Bloomfield, and Charlie Musselwhite. Since 1983, he has hosted folk and blues radio shows first on Redway, California Station KERG, then briefly on KHSU, and since shortly after it went on-air, KMUD, Garberville. His show is being streamed on kmud.org Saturday mornings 9:30-11:30 am, California time.

He and his wife, Mary Alice, moved to Humboldt County in 1980 and for 15 years operated Kicking Mule records from the barn on their ranch. In 1995 he sold the label to Fantasy Records. In the mid-1980s ED became involved in the civil rights movement occasioned by the government's Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP) and the marijuana eradication raids in Southern Humboldt county. He was president of the Civil Liberties Monitoring Project (CLMP) for many years, and became a non-violence preparer for the Citizens Observation Group (COG). In that capacity he travelled extensively in the Southern Humboldt county area, training well over 200 people in non-violence techniques to use while monitoring police activity during marijuana raids. In 1990 after extensive litigation by CLMP, the government signed a consent decree to alter their raiding techniques, thanks in large part to the lawyering of Ron Sinoway and Mel Pearlston. It was this which inspired ED to start studying law in 1995.

In 1992 he ran for county supervisor, but came in 4th in a field of 8. He received an inheritance in 1994. In 1995 he enrolled in William Howard Taft University, a mail-order law school, graduating in January, 1999. He passed the California Bar Exam that month and in August 1999 was sworn in as an attorney. He focuses his practice on defense of people charged with marijuana crimes, and DUI, adding quite a bit of pro-bono work for activists arrested during protests of logging practices in the old growth redwoods. He has given a number of public lectures on California's medical marijuana law to patients and their caregivers, and hosts a once-monthly, one-hour, talk show on the topic, on KMUD. In 2006 he went to China as part of a Global Volunteers program, and gave lectures on the American legal system to University students in Xi'an. As of 2008 his practice takes him into California courts in most Northern California counties,(with one case in Los Angeles), and he estimates that he drives over 30,000 miles a year. In his free time he and his wife, Mary Alice, travel, mostly on cruises.

An avid and lifelong (with intervals) stamp collector, ED became interested in the philately of the Falkland Islands when he visited there in 2005, and his collecting now focuses primarily on stamps from that area. He has collected Swedish stamps, and US Plate Number Coils (PNC), and published a catalog of PNC First Day Covers. He has written for several philatelic publications and won the Luff award for his philatelic writing on US First Day Covers. A nit picker, he has gotten the editors of Scott's Standard Catalog of Postage Stamps, and West's Annotated California Codes to make minor but important corrections to their publications.

ED Denson's stepson is Bruce Loose, singer for the San Francisco punk band Flipper. [http://www.asis.com/~edenson/edhome.html] [http://www.marijuanadefenselawyer.com]

External links

* [http://www.asis.com/~edenson/edhome.html ED Denson homepage]
* [http://www.well.com/~cjfish/begin.htm ED Denson: Country Joe & The Fish - How the Band Got Started]
* [http://www.wirz.de/music/kickmule.htm Illustrated Kicking Mule Records discography]
* [http://www.wirz.de/music/takoma.htm Illustrated Takoma Records discography]