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 Yes, Ladies and Gents, it's Maury's son, Ted, who became a country singer and composer without ever setting foot in Nashville. |
How an editor found his
voice in country music
of TheColumnists.com
There are sounds
that one experiences these days at weddings and bar mitzvahs,
at birthday parties and anniversaries, at business conventions
and elevator rides.
The events are not catered by programmers. They are administered
by audiologists.
The noise level, as offered up by disc jockeys, is overwhelming.
At a couple of recent, pleasant family events, Janet and I had
to communicate by sign language. Her voice grew weary as she
motioned for me to pass the salt and mine grew raspy as I asked
her for the pepper.
Then, in the mail, came the first copy of a new CD from Tedallenmusic.com
with sweet sounds of country music on the album “Nothing
To See Here.”
It was produced and engineered by Jackie Cook of Song Cellar
Productions in Nashville, the historic home of country music,
and it offered up 14 songs with lyrics and music composed by
Ted Allen of Montclair, New Jersey.
The professional Nashville musicians took Allen’s words
and music, sang and played with heart, and created an album that
can be listened to for its melody, its poetry and its classic
country story telling.
The title track, “Nothing To See Here,” likens a broken
heart to a car crash that we feel compelled to look at as observers
on the road.
The other numbers, including “Don’t Touch My Heart,”
“Hell or High Water,” and “Everybody Is A Cowboy,”
capture that sense of personal conflict and torment, pleasure
and pain, joy and sadness so typical of country music nights
at the old barn.
With full disclosure necessary on TheColumnists.com I must confess
I happen to be the father of the composer. Not to say that influences
my recommending his music.
I grew up in the 1940s and 1950s with the sweet sounds of Glenn
Miller and Benny Goodman, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Tex Beneke
and Charlie Barnett filling the air time on my radio when Brooklyn
Dodger games were over.
On Saturday mornings, before hustling off to Ebbets Field, I
listened to Sinatra with William B. Williams explaining why this
note was better than that.
Ted is an editor at a publishing house by day and a musician/composer
by night. He and wife Sheryl, a credit card company executive,
are the parents of Benjamin Harry Allen, 8 ½, and Nina
Kathryn Allen, 4 ½. Music is a constant in their home.
“I’ve been writing pop music for more than twenty
years,” Allen revealed in an exclusive interview with
TheColumnists.com over his mother Janet’s roasted chicken
dinner.
“I felt what I was writing, mostly classic rock and pop,
didn’t sound like what I was hearing on the radio. Tastes
change so quickly. Many people say if the Beatles came out today
they couldn’t get a record contract. Paul McCartney is still
recording but he never has the big hits and sales the Beatles
did in their day,” Ted says.
Ted soon turned his attention to country music without actually
setting foot in Nashville.
“As a kid I listened to everything-- the Beatles, Billy
Joel, Elvis Costello, Kenny Rogers, Steely Dan, Ronnie Milsap,
the Eagles. I started writing at seventeen and as I got more
into country I discovered artists such as Kenny Chesney, Keith
Urban, Rascal Flatts and Toby Keith,” he says.
He plays keyboard and guitar and sings many of his own numbers,
having performed at CBGBs, the C-Note and the Apocalypse Lounge
in New York City and O’Donahue’s and Liberty Café
in New Jersey. His primary focus remains songwriting.
“Over my lifetime (a young 40) country music hasn’t
changed much, and the quality of the songwriting has really endured.
It isn’t as trendy as pop or rock,” he says.
Not nearly as loud, sez I.
His love of music has always been there from his earliest days
when he played and sang his own tunes at home while growing up
in Westchester County, New York, starring on the Ardsley High
School track team, preparing for a couple of experiences with
the Boston and New York marathons, building his day career and
caring for his family.
“Even though I don’t have a country music background
I feel connected to it through all my musical experiences,”
he says. “I think the great thing about music is that
it has this visceral power, bridging the gap between people and
cultures. I’ve got fans now in Texas and Nashville, but
also Finland, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Kenya.... It’s an
amazing feeling to know that people all over the world are connecting
with a song you wrote.”
Whether or not this debut album leads to the Country Music Hall
of Fame is hardly the point. Following your heart is what counts
in music. And in life.
YOU CAN HEAR TED ALLEN'S MUSIC AT: www.Tedallenmusic.com
©2010 by Maury Allen. The Maury Allen caricature is ©2001 by Jim Hummel. This column first posted March 29, 2010.
TO ACCESS MAURY ALLEN'S ARCHIVE OF COLUMNS ON THIS SITE, CLICK HERE: ALLEN ARCHIVE
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