Kenneth Bruce Gorelick was born on June 5, 1956, in Seattle, Washington. In high school, he was turned down by the jazz band following his first tryout. He had to wait until the next year to audition before getting approved and earning his first chair. Robert Damper, who still performs in his band now, was one of his fellow musicians/classmates in high school (piano and keyboards).
Kenny’s first professional engagement was as a sideman for Barry White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra when he was 17 years old. Kenny G recorded with the Seattle funk band Cold, Bold & Together before becoming an acknowledged member of The Jeff Lorber Fusion, in addition to recording with White.
From 1980 until 1987, Kenny was married to Janice DeLeon. From 1992 through 2012, he was married to Lyndie Benson. They have two children.
Career
Following his time with Lorber, Kenny G launched his solo career. He quickly got the attention of Clive Davis, who signed Kenny to an Arista Records contract in 1982. On August 1, 1982, Kenny G’s debut album was released. It was certified as gold. His following two albums, “G Force” (1983) and “Gravity” (1985), both went platinum, but it was his fourth album, “Duotones,” released in 1986, that propelled the saxophone to international renown. That album went 5X Platinum, owing partly to the hit “Songbird,” which remains one of only two instrumentals to reach the top 5 of the Billboard Hot 100 to this day (the other being the Miami Vice Theme by Jan Hammer in 1985).
Kenny’s career took off from that point on. His following album sold 4 million copies. “Breathless,” his 1992 album, sold 12 million copies. As of this writing, that record is still his best-selling effort. His second album, “Miracles: The Holiday Album,” sold 8 million copies and peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1994.
Kenny has worked with many of the world’s most famous musicians, including Andrea Bocelli, Whitney Houston, Toni Braxton, Steve Miller, Michael Bolton, Celine Dion, Frank Sinatra, Smokey Robinson, Aretha Franklin, Katy Perry, and Kanye West.
Kenny G is one of the most popular and best-selling musicians of all time, with over 75 million records sold worldwide.
Investments
Kenny majored in accounting while attending the University of Washington. He did not study music on purpose since he wanted a strong degree to fall back on if the need arose. He allegedly possesses an incredibly wealthy stock portfolio since he followed the ideas taught in those business seminars throughout his career.
In the early 1980s, for example, Kenny was introduced to an up-and-coming Seattle entrepreneur called Howard Schultz. Howard had recently purchased a local coffee chain named Starbucks, and Kenny’s uncle was an early investor. Kenny invested some of his early music income in the coffee firm.
It’s hard to determine how much this investment is worth now, but $1000 invested when the business went public in 1992 would be worth more than $300,000 today. If Kenny invested before to the IPO, his investment may be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He eventually revealed the following regarding his Starbucks investment:
“I’d say I’m more fortunate than intelligent. Not because Starbucks became successful, but because I wanted to invest.”
In 2015, Kenny informed CNBC that he still has stock in Apple, Microsoft, and United Airlines.
Kenny has owned several houses around the country over the years. Kenny paid $8.8 million on a three-acre estate in Hunts Point, Washington, across three transactions in 1990. On the land, he erected a 12,200-square-foot home in 1995. In 1998, he listed the property for $26.5 million. Craig McCaw, a cellular phone entrepreneur, purchased the house in 1999 for an unknown sum.
Kenny has lived in a spectacular bluff-top mansion/compound in Malibu since 1998. In 1997, he paid $12.5 million for his initial part of the land. He paid $3 million for the house next door in 2000, then tore it down and built a fresh new mansion from the ground up. The second home allegedly cost more than $3.5 million to build. The new second house boasts two bedrooms, four bathrooms, a nine-foot piano, a tennis court, and a 1,500-square-foot recording studio. The main property includes offices, a screening room, and a guest home with beach views.
Net Worth
Kenny G is a $100 million net-worth American adult contemporary and smooth jazz saxophonist. Kenny G is the most successful instrumentalist of all time, having sold 75 million records worldwide. This also places him in the top 100 best-selling musicians of all time.
Kenny is an extremely successful financial and real estate investor outside of music. It has been alleged that Kenny G made more money from an early pre-IPO Starbucks investment than he did from his music career, yet there is no verifiable proof of that assertion or a record of Kenny himself saying so. It is undeniable that Kenny was a Starbucks pre-IPO investment. Because the interest was obtained so early, it’s unclear how valuable it is today. More on this later in the essay, but $1,000 invested in Starbucks on the day it went public would be worth $300,000 now.
Facts
| Net Worth: | $100 Million |
| Date of Birth: | Jun 5, 1956 (66 years old) |
| Place of Birth: | Seattle |
| Gender: | Male |
| Height: | 5 ft 7 in (1.71 m) |
| Profession: | Composer, Musician, Record producer, Songwriter, Saxophonist |
| Nationality: | United States of America |
