tedlee

Ask Ted Lee what makes a great record and you’ll get an earful.

“But, above anything else, it begins with great songs”. A veteran of the Atlanta music scene, and several bands of stature, Ted Lee returns to the fray with his 2008 debut solo release “cuckoo singing in the cuckoo berry tree”, available on iTunes.

But to tell this story, we have to return to 1997. In 1997, Ted was fronting a band called “The Darwins” that had just put out a CD entitled “Kamikaze Kama Sutra”. Despite riding an upward trajectory of fawning press and packed shows, the band imploded quickly after the release of their debut album. Not one to sit on the sidelines, Ted hooked up with alt rockers “The Flinch” and immediately recorded “Tocadisco” for Centennial Records. The next three years saw Ted Lee performing all over the southeast with The Flinch. After a three year struggle to breakout of the Atlanta music scene, The Flinch disbanded in 2000.

After a decade of gigging and playing the music industry game, Ted was completely burned out and ready to try something new.

Fast forward 10 years to 2007.

Ted had started to slowly get back in to the music scene. He started playing drums with friends from The Flinch in a new band called “Stovall“. This reignited a desire to get back on the songwriting horse and write some new material.

But before that could happen, there was a backlog of 10 songs that had been written between 1997 and 2000 that needed to be addressed. Unable to move forward without birthing these songs properly, a plan took shape.

On a shoe string budget, Ted slowly, over the course of 2006 through 2008 turned his home in to a recording studio, and began tracking demos of the ten songs that had been abandoned years earlier. By the summer of 2008, these tracks were beginning to take shape and the idea of doing a new album was born.

June 2008 saw Ted record live drums for all the tracks, giving them a human feel over the previously programmed drum tracks. Additionally, long time friend/bassist Mims Rogers contributed bass tracks to two songs – “I Can Tell” and “Shake Your Head”. By the fall of 2008, the album – “cuckoo singing in the cuckoo berry tree” was completed.

The album title comes from a line in a song from Man of La Mancha. Sung about the story’s hero, Don Quixote, the line seemed appropriate for an album of songs that arrived to the dance almost 10 years late. But arrive they did.