journey through the past – holding & stafford

I’ve now completed the 1975 mixes of ted holding and dave stafford in the studio, and the ted holding band live at helix high school, and latterly, some 1977 ted holding band/holding and stafford mixes as well.  being already mixed; being from cassette; being 38-year old recordings; they posed some real challenges, and it took quite some time just to deal with these three quite short pop songs.

the first one, from the 1975 tape, is a cover of a song by the band chicago (before they disintegrated into one of the crappiest am radio one-hit wonder bands later on – ugh), a track called “questions 67 & 68” that ted and I both really liked, we played it often, and one day, we decided to record it properly.   this is probably the first multi track recording we ever made together, and given the very limited technology available to us, it’s really quite mature and well thought out – for two 17 year old musicians.

the track features:

part 1:

ted holding: lead vocal and upright piano – live take

dave stafford: rhythm guitar – live take

that was the standard live arrangement, so that would have been the first part recorded

part 2:

ted holding: double-tracked lead vocal and farfisa organ – overdub

part 3:

ted holding: double-speed piano solo

part 4:

ted holding: double-speed farfisa organ solo

so this quickly became more of a fun experiment, because of course we had hit on the same trick george martin used of the dual piano solo in “in my life” – playing the backing track at half-speed, playing the solo at normal speed, and then when you speed up the tape, the solo plays back at double speed – and is an octave higher.

I assume what happened here is that parts 1 and 2 were bounced to one stereo pair; resulting in a basic stereo track of piano, farfisa, rhythm guitar, and double-tracked vocal, and then onto that, on two separate channels, first the piano solo, and then amazingly, doubling the same solo on the farfisa on the one remaining empty track.

because double-speed piano was on one channel and double-speed organ on another, ted was also then able to mess about with the stereo imaging, creating a fantastical sound – a piano and organ racing along at impossible speed – a great solo, completely invented by ted (it certainly doesn’t feature on the chicago version!) – all I could do is sit back and admire the creativity, the talent, that allowed ted to envision, record and double-speed that solo – a hugely creative and successful idea.  it’s a shame that the track is otherwise so simple, but we only had the instruments we had, and clearly, this track was recorded some months before “we’ll shine” and “you’ve gone away” were – the presence of the hammond on “we’ll shine” gives that away, the presence of the farfisa on the chicago track clearly indicates it’s an older piece – possibly even recorded the year before, in 1974, but there is no way to tell, so I’ve included it with the other 1975 in studio session piece –  “we’ll shine”.

the 1977 tape (blessedly) adds to the somewhat meagre offering on the 1975 tape, adding in a third song and a remade version of “we’ll shine”, so we at least have a fairly decent representation of the three ted holding original songs currently available.

the main trick in dealing with these pre-mixed cassette versions of the tracks is removing the hiss without damaging the music.  the hum is easily enough targeted and removed, but hiss is a problem – not so much during the pieces, but at the end, during the natural fade out of the instruments.

one track in particular, a ted holding original called “we’ll shine”, gave me a lot of grief, I could make the track sound good, but the fade out was just so, so noisy – the cassette is, of course, a mix down from a reel to reel, where there were three sets of two live instrument/voice combinations, so: a lot of hiss on the source reel because of the bouncing. this meant that by the time it reached the cassette, the noise build up was pretty extreme.

yet, if I hiss reduced the whole track, it just killed it – the crisp quality of ted’s voice, the bright piano just sounded too dull, too lifeless – so I had to find another way to target just the fade out section of the song, while preserving the amazingly bright, trebly sound from the tape (I can’t believe how bright this track is after 38 years on a cassette!).

I eventually hit on a technique that worked – I’ve used a similar technique to add reverb to just the end of a song – I split the last part of the track into 11 very short sections – perhaps 3 or 4 seconds long each (well after the vocals are finished, so posing no threat to their good sound), covering perhaps 30 odd seconds of music, and then added a separate graphic equaliser to each section – and then gave each one a progressively stronger amount of reduction of the frequencies in question (4400, 4800, and 5200 Hz), so starting with a 2 db cut, then 4 db, then 6 db…eventually ending up, during the last few seconds of the song where the hiss is most severe, at minus 18 db.

this is the same process as with the reverb-adder, where you add a tiny bit, then a bit more, then a bit more, until at the very end, there is enough reverb to give the ending something to “drop” into – works great.  once you have the pieces eq’d (or reverbed) to your satisfaction, you just bounce all the split clips back into one, and you are finished!

the effect this has is quite decent; the whole track remains bright, then, as it nears the end, that brightness fades quite gradually (not suddenly as it does if you just split it into two), the track getting imperceptibly duller and duller until at the end, the hiss reduction is severe – but it makes a huge, huge difference, it’s not perfect, there is still noise, but it’s much, much better than the version without the “staggered hiss reduction” I applied.  (I’m calling this “shr” my new staggered hiss reduction technique!) – by using the staggered or gradual technique, you don’t “notice” a “sudden” change from bright to dull, it just happens pretty organically – and it works!

in listening back though to these ancient recordings, these three tracks have come out really, really well – in particular considering the age of the tapes – they sound like they were made last week. of the three tracks, “we’ll shine” is the most fully produced – and it demonstrates just how good holding & stafford could be, given time in a studio situation.

“we’ll shine” features:

part 1

ted holding: lead vocals and fender rhodes electric piano – live take

dave stafford: rhythm and lead guitar – live take

that’s probably what the first pass was, because of course this is recorded in a series of three stereo passes.

part 2

ted holding: harmony vocal 1 and hammond organ – overdub

dave stafford: facsimile bass – overdub

I am extrapolating this from the way I believe we would have done this, in conjunction with my failing memory of the session – it’s a long, long time ago now!

part 3

ted holding: harmony vocal 2 – high harmony – arp omni string synthesizer – overdub

dave stafford: harmony vocal 1 – low harmony

we both worked on the arrangement, and in particular, the vocal harmonies which were expertly mixed in stereo by ted – I love the stereo separation in this mix, and the backing vocals just sound so, so good – we worked on that for ages and ages, and then when you add in the stereo placement – you get pop vocal heaven.  ted’s one-take lead vocal is perfectly framed by three harmony vocals done as overdubs – ted doing all but one of them himself.  I am honoured to have been allowed to sing on this track, I really am, since my voice is no match for ted’s!

the first time the background vocals come in, every time I hear it, it just sends a shiver down my spine, it’s so perfect, so beautiful – probably the best single vocal harmony I’ve ever been involved in.  of course, that is mostly down to the fact that it’s 80 percent ted’s voice and you can barely hear my two low notes of harmony !!

it’s possible that there are four rather than three harmony vocals, depending if I possibly “sang as I played” on part 1 or part 2, but I can’t tell – there are certainly three at a minimum, but even so, it sounds incredibly full and rich – really stunning background vocals, that take this song to a whole new level.

the third and final track from this rather disjointed collection of tracks from 1975 is a live track, and of course, that made it much, much easier to master, because the crowd is so noisy that any noise at the beginning or end is totally masked anyway – so it was just a case of trying to optimise the sound of the band and the vocals.

this one has an expanded line up, the ted holding band, which included ted on piano and lead vocal, myself on rhythm and lead guitar (including slightly nervous solo), our friend jeff slater on bass and harmony vocal, a drummer whose name I do not recall, and strangely, the helix high school choir director on extra harmony vocal – and he adds in some very strange and wonderful harmonies during the end part of the song – and, in the special “surprise” additional coda that we played on this occasion only – we arranged this just before the show, that we would count in the track again and play just the chorus one last time – and, we didn’t tell the choir director, so he was taken completely off guard – but, he just jumped straight in and did a beautiful job of rounding out the piece.

we played this piece either two nights running or three, I don’t remember, and on the earlier nights, we just played the song “straight” – but on the third night, since the piece was going down really well with the audience (based on the first two nights’ experience) we made the decision to have this secret, surprise extra ending – and I am so, so glad that the one recording of this song happens to be the one with the extra coda – that’s a real stroke of luck.  I’m slightly hopeful that somewhere, on a reel to reel tape, that there might be other versions of “you’ve gone away” – but if that hope is in vain, then I am quite, quite happy with this one lone version – it’s a heartbreaker, it really is.

of course, if I **am** able to adapt my old TEAC 3340s to 50 hz operation – which I don’t yet know, and if the multi track masters still have sound on them, I may be able to improve on these mixes – if there are multi track versions of any of these songs – which I would happily do, this music is a huge part of my teenage years, despite it being “pop music” it means a lot to me, so I am glad to have spent the time making these mix downs presentable, and by the same token, I would happily spend more time doing the same to any multi track masters that may exist – which would give us even better versions of these songs.  so – stay tuned – an upgrade could be in the works.

I am also secretly hopeful that I can expand the number of ted holding-related tracks I have by gaining access to the reels, I believe that somewhere, there are recordings of holding and stafford playing and singing a cover of the beatles “no reply”, and I would love to present that along with the rest of the ted holding related material.  we shall see…

that would give us two covers – one by chicago, one by the beatles – and three ted holding originals – a mini album if you will

right now, the tracks featuring ted, complete tracks discounting fragments, look like this:

from 1974

froggy’s holiday (stafford / holding) – three takes

from 1975

questions 67 & 68 (lamm) – cover of a chicago song, multi track

we’ll shine (holding) – official studio version, multi track

you’ve gone away (holding) – live at helix high school with the ted holding band

from 1977

ted holding band

we’ll shine (remake) (holding) – recorded live in the studio

a variation of the ted holding band – the core band – ted & dave;  jeff slater on bass, plus special guests jim whitaker on guitar and rick corriere on congas – this is a completely different version to the original studio version recorded in 1975 – and I had no memory of this session until I heard this tape! – I had no idea that we’d remade this song with a live band!!!  this provides a really interesting glimpse into ted’s compositional thought processes – various improvements have been made to the song’s structure, even up to including an almost todd rundgren-style philadelphia whoop during the take – I think right at the end of jim’s solo.  making use of the presence of two guitarists, too, ted expanded the solo section to allow a solo from both myself and jim; the whole song has undergone a makeover.

holding & stafford

love and I can hide (three takes) – live studio run-through

the third and last of the ted holding original songs to be presented here, when I listen to the potential in these songs, I just wonder what else ted might have gone on to write…there is no mastered, mixed version of this track (at least,  not that we’ve found yet) but these live run-throughs feature some startlingly mature playing – we are 19 now, after all – and I am playing a real bass (no idea whose – I did not own a bass until I was in my late 20s or early 30s), and some of the endings especially are absolutely amazing, where ted found something amazing on the piano, while I was doing my best to be a very melodic chris squire in the high registers of the bass – and we’d reach the end, and you could feel us holding our breath, a pin-drop ending I call them, where you don’t want to make a sound lest you spoil that perfect, ringing combination of notes.  a shiver and a sigh…

 

still to come:

from 1977-1978

holding, stafford & corriere – live in the studio, instrumental prog rock improvisations – approx. 30 minutes worth

holding, stafford, corriere & morgan – live in the studio,  instrumental prog rock improvisations – approx 30 minutes worth

these are probably the first recordings that demonstrate my interest in prog rock, where I am playing lead guitar now with some degree of confidence (although with quite underpowered equipment and effects) and in conjunction with two drummers and the remarkable keyboard skill of ted holding, these recordings are a good indicator of what was to come – my brief journey into the world of progressive rock began right here.

I can’t wait to process these tapes – these sessions were enormously enjoyable, and they capture a fantastic moment in time – 19 years old, really starting to be able to play…it’s finally really happening! and the facility that ted displays on the keyboards on these prog improvs is just amazing – no matter how well I do, he is light-years ahead of me.

given how much time has passed, and the fragility of the medium of tape, I think it’s an absolute miracle that so much material from this era has survived.  I am also deeply, deeply grateful that they did survive, since my friend ted passed away in 1975, if they had not survived, his music would not have ever, ever been heard by anyone.  and after a thirty eight year silence, I am so, so happy that this beautiful music can be shared with and experienced by his surviving family and his brother and sisters.

so by chance, because I saved a bunch of old tapes that I made when I was a teenager, this music does exist – and in particular, those three ted holding original compositions – songs from the heart, all three of them love songs or songs of unrequited love – are still here with us now.  even better – in multiple versions – two different versions of “we’ll shine” – one studio, one live; one version of “you’ve gone away” – live, and three wonderful, rough versions of “love and I can hide” – live in the studio.

at the time – this is just what we did, we were musicians – ted had these songs, I was his friend and his main guitarist up until about 1978 (when ted moved on to playing with a much better guitarist than I was, joe norwood), – we had the songs, so we recorded them.  I had forgotten just how much time and effort we put in to these songs, but it’s clear from the tapes: we absolutely did; we worked really hard on these songs, we cared about them; the arrangements, the playing, the singing – we were proud of them, and ted’s skill as singer, writer, musician, producer and engineer cannot be overstated – I learned so, so much from him, he made me a better pianist, a better engineer, a better singer, a better producer – he had more talent in his little finger than I do in my whole body.

I was the guitarist, the bassist, the occasional harmony singer – the second keyboard player – and I was happy to support my friend, because even though I later went off and got heavily into progressive rock, and then ambient, and then guitar craft, looping and so on – at the time, those serious, heavy pop songs meant the world to me – and I’m so, so proud to have been such a significant part of their creation – ted accepted my contributions and assistance, we worked on the arrangements together, and I did everything in my power to make the songs succeed.

a few nights ago now, I heard both the remake of “we’ll shine” and the three live in the studio takes of “love and I can hide” for the first time since we recorded them back in 1977.

and it seemed particularly poignant, the takes of “love and I can hide” are a bit rough, ted’s voice maybe not at it’s angelic best, a little cracked, but – once the take starts, we both play as if our lives depended on it – and I am very surprised too, because I am playing a real bass, and I sound like I really mean it, I’m trying very hard to play a perfect and complimentary part to ted’s almost automatic piano playing.

I should say a word about that playing – during all these takes, on his own songs – I am constantly amazed at how mature, complex and beautiful ted’s piano (and organ, and string…) parts truly are – these do not sound like piano parts composed by a 17 or 19 year old boy, and the playing (and the songs) belie ted’s young age – this was, clearly, an old soul in the body of a teenage boy. I felt a real sympathy with ted, I could feel the real emotion in the songs (and you can absolutely hear ted’s emotion in the sound of his voice) as we played them – for that moment, we both were living the pain of unrequited love or love gone wrong – and these three fantastic ted holding original pop songs are amongst my proudest moments as a young musician.

the only song we ever truly co-wrote was our very early instrumental “froggy’s holiday” – which was really mostly my song, I had these chords, and then together, we worked out an arrangement, so it became a collaboration.  even though I did work on the details, on the arrangements and parts of the three ted holding originals, in my mind, those three songs will always be “ted’s songs” and I wouldn’t dream of taking a writing credit for any of them – they are his, his alone, and as such, I am so happy and proud to present these three beautiful, beautiful pop songs from the genius mind of a wonderful young musician, mr. ted holding.  I hope you can hear these buddy, you should be so, so incredibly proud!

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holding & stafford – a remarkable institution!

happy birthday to my business partner and good, good friend, ken mistove (who shares a birthday, by sheer coincidence, with my best friend from when I was a teenager, ted holding – who is featured in today’s blog).  ted would have been 54 today.

 

so: continuing on with the cassette restoration project, last weekend, I mastered ten new tracks from a 1974 session featuring myself and pianist/vocalist ted holding, playing live in the studio.  this is, so far, the earliest “holding & stafford” session I’ve been able to locate (at least, within the cassette archives – the reels, which we are going to look at next year, are a completely different story – there could be earlier sessions there).

I am considering now, too, re-publishing some of the earliest episodes of the “journey through the past” – now that the actual music they talk about is finally becoming available – either that, or “start the story over” – probably the latter, so re-tell the story but this time, being able to link to the audio evidence, as well as any other visual media I might have from each session. this post then is new, but also a part re-telling of earlier blog entries from the “journey through the past” series.

 

here then is today’s “journey through the past”:

 

going back to this 1974 holding & stafford session, it’s a real corker, it is live to cassette – no overdubs, and it’s a very interesting glimpse into a long-forgotten time – 1974 – when prog ruled the earth, and enormous amounts of very creative bands were around – and you even can hear,  a little bit,  how they influenced us on this tape.

for equipment for this tape, what we had was so, so simple: clean guitar played through a carvin bass amp and homemade speaker cabinet (courtesy of ted) and clean, upright piano – just the basics. at age 16 there wasn’t really any money for things like guitar effects, although I did have an old arbiter fuzz face, and a used echoplex – that was it. I didn’t even own a guitar amp, I was still in my phase of playing through whatever was around, and, while ted had lots of awesome p.a. equipment, the only choice for me was the carvin bass head, through a homemade speaker cabinet, one of many, many cabinets that ted built himself!

ted had the best homemade p.a. system I’d ever seen, he had a massive power amp that got really, really loud, and he built all his own crossovers and cabinets of a bewildering variety, always, bigger speakers, better speakers – better sound.  but the tired old Carvin, which didn’t even have reverb (because it was, after all, a bass amp) was all I had – I can remember using it for years, at gigs, and so on – someone had left it at ted’s, so we just adopted it and used it – that was that!  it wasn’t until years later that I ever owned a real guitar amp. it was incredibly kind of ted to let me use it for so long, but ted was endlessly patient and generous.

anyway, this earliest-so-far holding & stafford tape starts out as a session to capture a new composition of ours, a tune that I came up with, that we both contributed to, and we do three proper takes of the track.  since it is a new tune, we barely know it, and, none of the takes capture the track properly – sadly, though, because I am not aware of any other versions of this song anywhere – these three live, early takes is probably all that there is of this song, which has the charming title “froggy’s holiday” – a piano and electric guitar instrumental by dave stafford and ted holding.

those takes are quite serious; we are both trying very hard to nail this piece (which has a very, very tricky “continuous” run at the end – which we nearly get right sometimes!). but, after take 3 is finished, we just start to “play” – and it’s very random, it was never meant to be published – it’s imperfect, we both make “mistakes” – but I went through and tried to pull out some excerpts that would make sense now, as history, not as perfect recordings, but two good friends having fun, just jamming on piano and guitar.

so we run through songs that we don’t really know; we play fragments of songs that we don’t know at all, and it’s very free, very casual jamming – the “set list” such that it is, looks like this:

froggy’s holiday – take 1

froggy’s holiday – take 2

froggy’s holiday – take 3

call it stormy monday (but tuesday’s just as bad) – excerpt 1

call it stormy monday (but tuesday’s just as bad) – excerpt 2

while my guitar gently weeps – excerpt 1

while my guitar gently weeps – excerpt 1

piano improvisation / bennie & the jets – fragment

the wall street shuffle – fragment

rikki don’t lose that number – fragment

it’s quite an emotional experience for me, hearing ted and I run through these songs, hearing ted laughing and joking and knowing that he won’t ever get to hear this tape, which is such a shame – but it’s just one of those things, the timing was wrong, it wasn’t to be…

so this unruly set of songs, none of which were ever meant to be released, have just been uploaded to the audio companion page, which is finally beginning to resemble what it is intended to be – a history of the music of dave stafford, from the earliest days up to the present.

hearing music from 1974, it really is a bit like a message from another planet – and this set is curious indeed, – ted is the accomplished vocalist, yet I sing lead vocals on the majority of the songs we play – ted only finally making an appearance, part time, as lead vocalist on “rikki don’t lose that number”.  hearing us attempting some harmony (remember, these are very rough, off the cuff renditions, not rehearsed, not planned, so some spontaneous harmony singing has mixed results – some brilliant, some not so good) warms my heart, and I do remember singing a lot with ted – I mean, my voice is no match for his, he was a million times the singer I was, but, we were not shy about singing, or self-conscious – it was part of making music, and that was what we did – made music.

it’s amazing to me too, the simplicity of our set up – for example, I had exactly two effects devices, used very sparingly indeed – the red arbiter fuzz face (which you can hear on the three takes of “froggy’s holiday”) and – I’d forgotten I even owned this until I heard these recordings – an echoplex!!! yes, the tape kind.  you can hear a little bit of echoplex during the somewhat disorganised takes of t-bone walker’s “call it stormy monday” – which we play as an instrumental for some reason.

the reason we both played this particular song, is that it was one we both knew – joe norwood, who was a big, big fan of the allman brothers – still is, in fact – taught me how to play it (and of course, I learned some good chords as a result – a great chord progression, a classic blue progression with that great G A Bm Bbm bit) and ted knew it from playing it in the band with joe – so it was something we could both play.  and it is interesting to me to hear myself playing lead guitar in earnest, just jumping in and playing solos, quite furiously sometimes – on both “while my guitar…” and “stormy monday” I take quite a few solos – and, for someone who is just 16, with less than 3 years of playing experience – I am actually quite, quite surprised by the levels of proficiency I am demonstrating on these tapes.  the guitar solos – are decent.  not, of course, to the standard of later recordings, particularly, recordings made when I was 18, 20, 22 and so on, but for age 16 – not bad at all.

for whatever reason – because he had to look at the music possibly (I am fairly certain we had books open for the beatles and the steely dan songs, in any case, as well as for our original), more than I did – I sang the most of lead vocals – on the george harrison song (and these performances in particular are remarkable – me, at age 16, singing this harrison classic confidently if imperfectly, and then ripping into quite good guitar solos – it’s strange to hear, it’s like getting to meet my 16 year-old self).  I did have to remove the recording of the bridge section of the harrison track – the vocal part defeated my limited range – but I do well with the verses and solos that remain in these excerpts.

I also sing lead vocal on the fragment of “the wall street shuffle” – but I was very glad when ted jumped in to take the lead vocal – or share lead vocal duties with me actually – on “rikki don’t lose that number” – his piano parts on this are impeccable, but his voice on the first verse is really beautiful – he loved the music of steely dan, and you can hear this even in this unrehearsed impromptu take – unfortunately, the tape runs out as I take over for the second verse, and as I sing “we could go driving on slow hand road…” that’s it, the tape ends, the session ends, and this fascinating glimpse of an impromptu improvisation session, recorded in ted’s studio 38 years ago – thirty-eight years! – is over.

I really enjoy everything on this tape, even the fragment of “bennie & the jets” – ted, being a pianist, and, it being 1974, was a huge elton john fan, and while I was not, I had no problem playing the material – we used to do the opening suite from his 1974 album “goodbye yellow brick road” live (“love lies bleeding”, including the entire opening piano piece – ted knew it, note for note – it was absolutely remarkable), we even played it at gigs – the opening piano solo then followed by “love lies bleeding” – I am not aware of any recordings of that existing unfortunately – but they may do – we have so many more tapes to sort through so I don’t rule out the existence of anything at this point. I actually enjoyed playing “love lies bleeding” – because it had a decent rhythm and lead guitar part.  it was fun – and, it’s probably elton john’s best song anyway – possibly.

and strangely, without knowing how it went, I managed to play, by ear, the odd guitar riff from “bennie” (I just pulled it out of the air in response to ted playing a fragment of the piano solo from the song) – ted could play the whole song – I didn’t know it – I remember he could play the entire piano solo note for note – which was no mean feat, because that was when elton was at his best on piano – the highest point of his career – I’m not a fan, but I do not mind the album “goodbye yellow brick road” – in fact, like almost every teenager in 1974 did – I owned the album, although I do not own it now.

my tastes ran more towards prog, or towards unusual pop bands like 10cc, and right after we play our little bit of “bennie & the jets”, I respond by playing, and singing rather badly, a very short fragment of “the wall street shuffle” – I song I had just heard on the radio, liked the riff from, and I’d learned a few of the parts – so that was my contribution to “what we were listening to” 1974-style.  I did not yet own the album, I taught myself the basic chords of the song just from hearing it on the radio – I liked it a lot, so I figured it out.  later, I bought the album – and all the 10cc albums, and then, godley & creme – but at that point, both 10cc and “the wall street shuffle” were absolutely brand new experiences to me – and yet, there I am, 16 years old, playing it like I really, really know it.  sigh.

I think it’s interesting; it is sort of like a microcosm of our styles – ted was pop, he was brilliant at pop, he could have been the next daryl hall if anyone had heard how good he was.  so the music of elton john – that was perfect for him, and he could play and imitate elton’s style with amazing accuracy.  on the other hand, I went for quirkier material, I was into 10cc, todd rundgren and todd rundgren’s utopia – slightly off the middle of the road pop leaning towards prog.  so in these two fragments (ted’s improvised solo, and fragment of “bennie and the jets” – my fragment of “the wall street shuffle”), we demonstrate our personalities – ted, the pop guy, me, the proggy guy – it’s quite revealing. it is also so strange to think that in 1974, those two songs were brand new – which is now 38 years ago.

and over the following years, ted and I went down increasingly divergent paths – he stayed more in the pop/rock arena, he played in many top 40 bands (I was only in a few comparatively) and I ended up going heavily prog, then guitar craft, then ambient – a career that could not have been more different.  despite ever-growing differences in musical taste – we remained friends.  I used to go along to watch and listen to ted play in bands with his then-brother-in-law, joe norwood.  I can remember going to many, many gigs, when ted was in different bands – always what we would call “top 40” bands, bands that played the music of the day – I remember one of his bands played “green earrings” by steely dan, which is not an easy piece to cover.  I also, occasionally, was allowed up on stage as guest guitarist, which I very much enjoyed – my own top 40 band, “slipstream” only existed for a couple of years but I followed ted’s bands for many years, even after he and I stopped working together regularly.

in fact, the infamous musical entity known originally as “ted, rick and dave” or “trd” (which I have now re-dubbed more sensibly as “holding, stafford and corriere” – we got our band variant by “borrowing” a second drummer, the drummer from ted’s then-top forty band, jennings morgan, who would join us for friday night jam sessions at ted’s house.  and those sessions literally rocked the house – two drummers, ted with his arsenal of keyboards, and myself playing electric guitar through my tape recorder (to get tape delay) – fantastic sound, fantastic fun. “holding, stafford, corriere and morgan” was even more fun than the original trio.

so it was handy that ted was in a band, I could get into clubs without paying the cover charge (I was notoriously poor in my early 20s and teen years) by “being with the band” and we had the services of jennings as second drummer, too for our “prog rock jam sessions” (which I cannot wait to master and post here) – such an amazing time to be a musician – the mid 70s, and I learned so, so much from my friend ted, and also from joe norwood (still the best unknown slide guitarist in the west), and all the other brilliant musicians I went on to work with: jim whitaker, mike & elen packard, michael dawson, and many, many others – too many to name individually.

I am very much looking forward to the next few releases on the audio companion page, this casual, live in the studio session is very interesting, but it’s not rehearsed, planned or carefully recorded – we just popped in a cassette and roughly captured what we played.  the next recordings, which include properly overdubbed recordings made using a teac 4-track reel to reel recorder, show the true brilliance of ted holding as singer, songwriter and pianist – songs of pop genius, songs that should have been hits – but, we were struggling unknowns, and it’s my great pleasure now to at least share this music with the world now, so we can hear a remarkable artist emerging, and perhaps reflect on what “might have been”.

also featuring in the upcoming recordings are not only the aforementioned trio and quartet “prog jam session” tracks, but also, an amazing live performance of one of ted holding’s most poignant, most intensely beautiful love songs – absolutely a piece of pop genius – a track called “you’ve gone away”.

this section, right now, of the audio companion is really all about my friend ted.  currently we are in the year 1974, but the work with ted will continue on through the end of the 70s and beyond.  sure, I am “the guitarist” and sometimes co-arranger of this music, or I was there to engineer and mix, but it’s really about this amazing talent, and I am so lucky that I am the guy who got to be there and hear it all, and play guitar along with ted as he did the performances of his life – and the one live track in existence will indeed demonstrate this enormous talent beyond any doubt – I was working with someone who could have been huge, had the world only listened to his amazing talent.

so while this is ostensibly a history of the music of dave stafford, there were times when dave stafford just stepped back and played a supporting role, and played that 20 second long guitar solo, so he could experience and enjoy the most remarkable pop music I’ve ever had the honour of working on in my entire life – what an experience!

hold on to your seat, holding and stafford are one thing, but ted holding live at the helix high school choir concert, with electric full band (including myself on lead guitar) – is another. studio tapes of two holding originals show a remarkably developed compositional and performance sense, far beyond our 16 years of age…following that, in an improvisational context, we will then hear ted ripping it up on the hammond organ, and the arp omni string synthesizer, playing with the speed, chops and musical skill equal to any of the prog greats – ted’s organ playing on the “holding, stafford and corriere/morgan” recordings is truly out of this world…

I can’t wait! I am really excited about these recordings… the first ones are up now if you are curious.

~~~~~ happy birthday ted (and ken!) – you are on the internet at last; and the rest of your music will be heard… ~~~~~