Carrying a tune along with a briefcase

Janelle Kendall was between songs when she heard two members of the audience talking. She looked familiar, they said, but they couldn't place where they'd seen her before. But she had no problem recognizing them. They had just spent time together in court, where she was prosecuting them.

"I heard some very interesting things from that stage," the Stearns County attorney said. On weekdays, the St. Cloud prosecutor is a tenacious bulldog who is out to make people pay for their crimes. But on weekends, she sings about love and forgiveness as the leader of River House, her family's Christian rock band.

"I don't see that as a conflict at all," she said as she took a break from a rehearsal with her husband, John (on bass), and sons Andrew, 15 (keyboard), and Alex, 13 (drums).

"A lot of people think church is about fire and brimstone and atonement, but that's not the way we approach it. We've started some very innovative programs [for felons] in Stearns County, and we're proud of them. Part of what you do in court is figure out what got you where you are and what will get you out of there. It's not just about punishment and retribution. Any prosecutor who thinks they are going to solve all the world's problems by locking people up needs to think again."

Still, there have been moments in her singing career that aren't shared by other musicians, like the time she went to buy a used set of drums, only to discover that her office had prosecuted the seller for drunken driving.

"A couple of days later, I bumped into him in the courthouse while he was on his way to report to his probation officer," she said. "He smiled and waved. Some people hold grudges; some don't."

Neither Kendall nor her husband, an English professor at St. John's University, give a second thought to balancing demanding careers. That's largely because both of them have done it most of their lives. Growing up in Blooming Prairie, Minn., Janelle, 43, started working as a church organist when she was 13.

"I've been paid to play for 30 years," she said. "I got my first job when the pastor at the United Methodist Church put a hymnal in front of me and said, 'Play this.' So I played it -- sort of. I still don't play exactly what's in the music. I like to jazz it up a bit."

John paid his way through college by working as a church music director.

"I was singing in the choir at St. Paul's United Church of Christ when the music director took another job and I got his job by default," he said. "I had no idea what I was doing. I had to learn on the fly."

They met in a choral group at Hamline University. After they married, they sang as a duet.

"We paid for our first car by singing at weddings," Janelle Kendall said.

No singing for their supper

They realized all along that full-time musical careers were not for them.

"I always wanted to be a lawyer," she said, while John comes from a family of teachers. "We toyed with the idea [of musical careers], but we always considered music more of an avocation than a vocation. We knew whatever else we did, the music would always be there."

Kendall, who spent time in the Hennepin County attorney's office and the Mille Lacs County attorney's office before being elected Stearns County attorney in the fall of 2002, was singing with another band, BLT, when it broke up last year.

After looking around for new group, she realized that she had all the makings of a band in her own family. They made their first appearance last August at the fall festival at St. John the Baptist parish. Their first appearance of the new church year will come at this year's festival's mass on Sunday. (They will perform before and after the service, with the music starting at 9:45 a.m. in the church, 14241 Fruit Farm Road, Collegeville, Minn.)

"Last summer, we rehearsed every minute we could because we really weren't sure we would be able to get to where we needed to be in time," Kendall said. "This summer, we've been more relaxed about it."

Her sons are glad about that. While they share their parents' musical passions, they also love baseball. Andrew is a second baseman who is considering a career as a choral conductor. Alex is a shortstop who would like to make a career out of being a shortstop.

The family doesn't have to go far to get to a rehearsal hall. All they have to do is walk down a flight of stairs to their basement, a room in which every corner -- save one, which holds a display of autographed baseballs -- contains some sort of musical device, from amplifiers to the electric organ from Janelle's childhood and the piano from John's.

"I can plunk out a tune, but that's all," he admitted. "I grew up wishing that I could play the piano without doing the work."

Family values

In theory, the family band is a democracy, Janelle Kendall said. "Anyone can veto a song they don't want to play, and they can vote on how the song will be played," she said.

But it's really more like a parliamentary monarchy, John Kendall said. Not only is his wife the lead singer, but she also writes many of their songs and works out the orchestrations for the other songs. "I just do what I'm told," he said with a laugh.

When they are asked to perform at a Sunday morning church service, they try to match the music to that day's Bible readings and sermon. And sometimes that means thinking outside the box of traditional religious music.

"A lot of times you can make a point better with secular music," Janelle Kendall said. "Familiar music sticks with people the best." As a result, they've performed Billy Joel's "River of Dreams" and "Constant Sorrow," which they learned off the soundtrack for the movie "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"

The Kendalls are not trying to become rich and famous. But they've achieved something through their music that can't be measured in traditional terms.

"One of the best things about this is that we do this as a family," John said.

Janelle Kendall agreed that it's "almost" perfect. The almost part? "Some of our songs could use a violin player," she said, adding with a laugh: "Maybe we quit having kids too soon."

Jeff Strickler • 612-673-7392