Longtime Modesto fixture Kid Guitar, a prolific public performer in the Central Valley for decades, has died.
The street musician whose real name was Kevin Miranda, and who was known for his distinctive look and ever-present guitar, died Tuesday evening, according to a post on his public Facebook page. The post called the 70-year-old a “Modesto icon” and reminisced about his days playing corners up and down McHenry Avenue and elsewhere across the city.“Today, you became an angel to watch over the rest of us. Thank you for giving Modesto music. We all know you are already playing your guitar and singing in the heavens. You will be missed. RIP,” reads the Facebook tribute, in part.
The Kid busked for six decades in the city and was instantly recognizable with his thick beard and his guitar case labeled “Kid Guitar.” In a 2015 article in The Modesto Bee by former columnist Jeff Jardine, he called himself “the most famous person in Modesto.”
Still, for all his fame, the musician survived largely off his tips and the kindness of fellow Modestans. He also lived on-and-off in his white van, which was plastered with eclectic fliers, until it was destroyed by fire in 1993.“I’m a Modesto legend but I’ve still lived in poverty over half my life,” he told a newspaper in 2015.While he was known throughout the city, few people knew much about the man himself. Born on Christmas Eve 1952 in Ceres, he was the only child of Anthony and Natalie Miranda. He graduated from Modesto High in 1971. A photo of him in the senior yearbook shows a clean-cut Miranda and lists “English” and “Band” under his activities.A year after graduating, he was playing Modesto coffee shops under his given name, according to archives.
By 1979, he had adopted the moniker “Kid Guitar” full time and was giving free concerts at the Modesto Library.“I don’t know anyone in town who so many people know, but know almost nothing about,” said Chris Murphy, the co-founder of the Modesto Area Music Association Awards and publisher of Modestoview magazine. Murphy said Kid Guitar will be honored at this year’s MAMA Awards.
In the 1990s, Miranda self-published “The Legend of Kid Guitar” magazine, which offered tips on how to start a band and how to book shows, among other topics. In the same pamphlet, which he made copies of for sale and added to through the years, was his frequent requests for “bikini-fox female musicians.”In recent years, Miranda had slowed his street shows. He told The Bee he was tired of being hassled by police for being a panhandler.
According to his Facebook fan page, his last public sighting was at the Texas Roadhouse in June 2022.“He was a unique person,” Murphy said. “My interactions with him were always interesting. There are musicians who have come and gone in this town. But there were very few who so many people had some sort of sighting or story about like Kid Guitar.”
