Jan Kuehnemund was born on November 18, 1953, in St. Paul, Minnesota. She founded Vixen and played lead guitar on the band’s 1988 self-titled debut, including “Edge of a Broken Heart.” That breakthrough came after years of building the group, replacing departing members and trying to secure a record deal.
The band began with friends she knew in Minnesota. In a 2009 interview with FREE! Magazine, she recalled an early roller-rink gig where the young musicians signed autographs, packed their equipment and called her father for a ride home. He was their first roadie and had built a trailer to carry their gear. Kuehnemund pushed back against the idea that success had arrived quickly: “we worked very hard for quite a long time.”
By the time Vixen arrived, the recording lineup paired Kuehnemund with singer Janet Gardner, bassist Share Pedersen, later known as Share Ross, and drummer Roxy Petrucci. The group’s move to Los Angeles had brought personnel changes, but Kuehnemund remained the connection to its Minnesota beginnings. Those years of work didn’t shield the musicians from sexist assumptions. Kuehnemund recalled in the FREE! interview that people had asked whether men hidden behind a stage curtain were actually playing their parts.
“Edge of a Broken Heart” was a late addition. Kuehnemund told Legendary Rock Interviews in 2012 that the album had seemed finished when the label asked for a hit single. Their manager approached Richard Marx, who wrote the song with Fee Waybill. The band learned it within days and returned to the studio, with Marx helping guide the recording. For Kuehnemund, it already suited Vixen; she didn’t remember needing to substantially change the arrangement.
Recording the debut itself had been less comfortable. In the same interview, she described feeling hurried through guitar solos and receiving little feedback from the control room. The second album, Rev It Up, released in 1990, gave the band a different experience: they worked with their producer from the outset and felt more at home in the studio. Her songwriting was part of that record, too: she co-wrote “How Much Love.”
Her determination to keep the band going resurfaced during its 2001 return to touring. As she explained to FREE! Magazine, that reunion fell apart partway through the trip, leaving her to decide whether to stop or find replacements. She chose to continue, recruiting singer Jenna Sanz-Agero, bassist Lynn Louise Lowrey and drummer Kathrin Kraft. They completed the tour.
That lineup made Live & Learn, released in Europe in 2006 and the United States in 2007. It was Kuehnemund’s first Vixen studio album since Rev It Up. The decision to finish a difficult tour had led to another chapter of recording, with a different group of musicians carrying the band forward.
Kuehnemund died on October 10, 2013. Her history with Vixen also became part of Minnesota’s public record: in January 2016, the Minnesota Historical Society announced the addition of band materials she had kept to its manuscript collections. Posters, photographs, press kits, contracts and tickets preserved the practical traces of that long journey from local gigs to a recording career.
