Kansas Biography

The American band known as Kansas was established by founding members Phil Ehart, Kerry Livgren, Robbie Steinhardt, Richard Williams, Steve Walsh, and Dave Hope in the early 1970’s. The group’s first two albums, Kansas (1794) and Masque (1975) were met with moderate success, but it was 1976’s Leftoverture that rocketed the group Kansas to fame.

Kansas featured the iconic hit single “Carry On Wayward Son" and exceeded sales of three million copies. Point of Know Return (1977) was an even greater hit, with the single “Dust in the Wind.” “Dust in the Wind” went on to reach into the top ten of the charts, selling over a million copies and reaching into gold status. With its now signature guitar line, the song is one of Kansas’ first acoustic pieces, and the eternal theme of mortality has made it an everlasting and enduring piece for more than thirty years.

Kansas followed up this remarkable success with Two for the Show and Monolith, released in the following year, but by the time Kansas moved into the 1980’s, personal changes in the band members had affected the lineup. Walsh quit, to be replaced by John Elefante, and the band released Vinyl Confessions in 1982. Drastic Measures came next in 1983, and then Kansas took a hiatus for three years to regroup.

Kansas resurfaced in 1986, retaining Ehart, Williams, and Walsh and adding Billy Greer and Steve Morse to the lineup. The album Power proved successful, launching the single “All I Wanted,” which hit the top twenty on the charts. In the Spirit of Things followed in 1988, but was seven years before Freaks of Nature and then Always Never the Same (1998.)

In the new millennium, Kansas continues to write, record, and tour with the current lineup of Ehart, Williams, Billy Greer, David Ragsdale, Ronnie Platt, David Manion, and Zak Rizvi. Between 2000 and 2010 the band released the albums Somewhere to Elsewhere (2000), The Other Side (2005), and Works in Progress (2006.) In 2012, Kansas joined other notable bands such as Creedence Clearwater Revisited and Blue Oyster Cult on the Rock Legends II cruise aboard Royal Caribbean. In 2016, Kansas released their first studio album in nearly a decade—The Prelude Implicit. The release kicked off an extensive 40th anniversary tour which lasted into the fall of 2017.