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Ted
Draper
Rhythm Guitar, Shaker, Vocals  I
was born in 1950. So I’ve listened to a wide variety of music over the years.
My first memory of music that reached out & grabbed me came from Elvis Presley &
Conway Twitty in the middle to late fifties. My family moved to Germany during
the early 60’s. A British band, The Shadows, was sweeping Europe with its instrumental
guitar music, with The Ventures from the USA close behind. Two friends & I formed
our first combo called The Mystics - lead guitar, rhythm guitar (me), & drums.
My
parents ordered a black metal flake Silvertone electric guitar & Nomad amplifier
from the Sears catalog. We played what is now called instrumental surf music & wore
black suits with white shirts, skinny black ties, black loafers & white sox.
The following year we expanded to a four piece band with the addition of a bass
player.
Our first two vocal tunes were “Twist & Shout”, and “I Saw Her Standing There”,
by The Beatles. “Satisfaction” by the Stones & numerous other British Invasion
tunes
soon followed. We had a blast, played lots of teen club parties, & functioned
as the “house” band
for the Junior High talent show. I returned to the States for my freshman year in high school. I had upgraded my gear to a red leather Hofner guitar with waver bar & a Fender Princeton Reverb amp. I played for one year with an older group of musicians. “Wooly Bully” by Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs was our big song. I played my first bar gig when I was fifteen. My dad had to accompany me so I could get in. I can’t even remember the band’s name, which I guess reflected my waning enthusiasm. I had been a jock since first grade & sports were now calling me full time. I sold my gear.
With my band days over, I dabbled with an acoustic guitar during my twenties, writing lots of self absorbed original folk rock music. I call this my “music as therapy” phase. I did, however, continue to listen to lots of great music – the British Invasion bands, Motown, The Moody Blues, Neil Young, Elton John, Van Morrison, Hendrix, Cream, Dylan, The Doors, Stevie Wonder, etc. At some point along the way I began listening to jazz influenced rock. I remember stacking the same three albums on my turntable before going to bed each night – Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express, Herbie Mann’s Push Push, & Mark-Almond’s self titled debut album. A few years ago I met a married couple putting together a band. They were looking for a rhythm player. I said, what the heck, & with a pawn shop guitar & amp, joined a band after more than a 30 year hiatus. We played together for a few years, first as “Tone Deaf” & then as “The Rhythm Doctors”. Mostly classic rock & blues covers. We were a good bar band, & towards the end of our run, we put out a pretty decent CD of original tunes, written mostly by yours truly. But like many bands, we disintegrated under the pressure of deteriorating personal relationships. Luckily for me, the flameout of that band turned out to be the best thing that ever happened for me musically, because a new band eventually rose from the ashes. After a short stint at playing the same tired cover tunes with a patched together group of musicians, a few of us decided to wipe the slate clean, & move in a completely different direction. Seems these four remaining players had lots of creative original music bottled up inside. We gave each other the permission to play whatever we felt. And it turned out we all felt pretty much the same funky musical grooves. Retroglyph was born & we are having more fun than I ever imagined music could be. I now play a Guild Bluesbird electric guitar with a wah effects pedal through a Rivera or Rogue amp. And I think I’m the only guitar player on the planet who still prefers to play rhythm as opposed to lead. Could be a reflection of my lack of talent, but my brain hears music in chords & progressions, not in individual notes. Luckily for me, it works great with this band. I paint a neutral pallet of chord progressions over which the other players splash on their colorful leads. For an old rhythm player like me, it doesn’t get any better than this. |
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Here are some links to Ted's other Projects:
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