Ted Drozdowski
Ted Drozdowski is a freelance journalist and musician living in Boston, Massachusetts. He writes about popular culture, specializing in music. His work has appeared internationally in a wide variety of publications including Tracks, Rolling Stone and Musician. Before freelancing Ted was associate arts editor at the Boston Phoenix, where he remains a frequent contributor, and an editor at Musician.
Ted left the Boston Phoenix in 1997 to freelance and devote greater energy to music making. He is slide guitarist and singer for the Mississippi hill country informed blues group Scissormen, which released the EP Jinx Breakers on the Hi-N-Dry label in 2004. A full-length recording is expected in fall 2005. Ronnie Earl has recorded his songs ‘Black and White’ and ‘New Vietnam Blues’ with Kim Wilson and Irma Thomas, respectively, on vocals.
Ted’s musical resume also includes psychedelic rockers Devil Gods (Sick Little Monkey, 2001), textural experimentalists Blood Blister, John Sinclair’s Blues Scholars (Steady Rollin’ Man, 2002) and Vision Thing (Vision Thing, 1996). His wife Laurie HoffmaN is a photographer. She and Ted often collaborate on performances combining visual art and music.
List of articles in the library by artist
Aerosmith, Joe Perry: The Joe Perry Interview
Interview by Ted Drozdowski, unpublished, May 2005
TO ROCK 'N' ROLL FANS, Joe Perry's half the front line of the dynamic band Aerosmith, a position he's held since co-founding the group with ...
Jeff Beck, Stevie Ray Vaughan: Jeff Beck & Stevie Ray Vaughan: Guitar Slingers Shoot It Out
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Rolling Stone, November 1989
Jeff Beck and Stevie Ray Vaughan go head-to-head on U.S. tour ...
Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Guitar World, March 2012
His Nashville studio is full of sweet vintage gear, but Dan Auerbach isn't just a retro-obsessed guitar hound. The Black Keys guitarist gets his motor ...
Review by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, August 1999
BRITISH SINGER-SONGWRITER Kevin Coyne is a strange one. As influenced by the rough-and-tumble sounds of Mississippi blues as by his job as a counselor to ...
Retrospective by Ted Drozdowski, Guitar World, August 2012
NOTE: This is an expanded version of a piece that was in the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame's induction program in 2012: the lengthier ...
Diamanda Galás Prepares To Perform A New Defixiones
Profile and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, September 2005
DIAMANDA GALÁS has had a talent for plucking beauty from the maw of horror for more than 20 years – right from her first solo ...
Review and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, May 2006
The idea of fall and redemption is thousands of years old, and it’s laced into the new Godsmack album, where singer Sully Erna’s lyrics spin ...
Review by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, October 1997
GREEN DAY have dropped another load of Dookie upon us. By which I mean the band have made a big pile of new songs as ...
The Gun Club, Cramps, The, Kid Congo & the Pink Monkey Birds: Kid Congo Powers
Profile and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, September 2006
THE LATE 1970s were a time of ignition. Punk rock set a fuse that burned through every aspect of the arts, and the lives of ...
Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Guitar World Acoustic, June 2003
"WHEN I FIRST heard of the electric guitar, I thought somebody was bullshittin' me," says George "Buddy" Guy. "We lived so far in the country ...
Merle Haggard: Branded Man: Merle Haggard Brings The Bakersfield Sounds East With Dylan
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, April 2005
WHEN BOB DYLAN CALLS, other musicians listen. Even when they're icons and gifted songwriters in their own right. ...
Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Guitar World Acoustic, June 2003
BEN HARPER'S NEW Diamonds on the Inside (Virgin) is a fireworks display of guitar. Colorful melodies played on an array of acoustics and electrics burst ...
Dale Hawkins: Rockabilly Hipster Dale Hawkins Returns
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, October 1998
DALE HAWKINS'S FIRST HIT launched two of the greatest careers in rootsy American rock. But not without a left-field nudge from famed record producer Jerry ...
Jeff Healey Band: Jeff Healey: Have Guitar, Will Sit
Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Musician, March 1989
JEFF HEALEY is the most unorthodox guitarist since Stanley Jordan. He plays seated, most of the time, with his guitar flat on his lap. As ...
Honeyboy Edwards: Delta Delight: Honeyboy Edwards, Country Bluesman
Profile and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, May 1998
THE BLUESMAN Honeyboy Edwards got arrested in Greenwood, Mississippi, in 1936. His crime was being a black man. ...
John Lee Hooker: The Sound of Teardrops: John Lee Hooker
Profile and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, January 1998
HOW DEEP IS John Lee Hooker's blues? "You can't go no deeper than me and my guitar," he says. "I open my mouth, and it's ...
Jimmy Bowen and Jim Jerome: Rough Mix (Simon & Schuster)
Book Review by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, January 1998
JIMMY BOWEN is the music-biz sharpie who made Nashville's country industry what it is today -- a multi-billion-dollar-generating machine. For that, he's both loved and ...
Kelly Joe Phelps: Zen Guitar: Kelly Joe Phelps Heads East
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, July 1999
KELLY JOE PHELPS is a traveler. With a pair of acoustic guitars in his car's trunk and notepads scattered about its seats, he drives across ...
Last Exit: Johnny D's Uptown Lounge, Sommerville MA
Live Review by Ted Drozdowski, Musician, April 1990
Love at First Sight ...
Review by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, April 2000
LIKE THE ALEWIFE and the manatee, Lou Reed has enjoyed a sort of protected status in the wake of punk rock. The truth is, he's ...
Marilyn Manson with Neil Strauss: The Long Hard Road Out Of Hell
Book Review by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, March 1998
MARILYN MANSON might be a cultural liberator, but he's certainly a shameless asshole. Well, not utterly shameless. In this autobiography penned with help from Rolling ...
Metallica: Metal Memories: Ten years of close encounters with Metallica
Retrospective by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, November 1997
THE MONSTERS OF ROCK Tour in '87 was my wake-up call. Even if waking up in Akron is like rising with a hangover. ...
Michael Gira, Swans: Black Saint: Michael Gira Goes Solo
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, May 1999
FIRST IMPRESSIONS do last, so I'll always remember Michael Gira as the "revenant black saint" he goes on to describe himself as in the lyrics ...
Mission of Burma: Burmese Days
Retrospective and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, January 2002
MEMORIES OF THE MISSION: Roger and Clint back in the days when ‘Academy Fight Song’ and ‘That's When I Reach for My Revolver’ blared out ...
Obituary by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, February 1998
CATS ARE SUPPOSED to have nine lives. Rockabilly cat Carl Perkins had at least three. The first got spent in '56. As Perkins was driving to ...
Wilson Pickett: Still Wicked: Wilson Pickett's Raw Return
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, October 1999
THE HOWL is unmistakable. Raw as fresh meat, gritty and powerful as sandblasting. That's Wilson Pickett shouting thunder over the fatback grooves of a new ...
Pixies, The: The Pixies: Death to the Pixies
Review by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, November 1997
THE DOUBLE BILL looked great on paper: the Pixies and Throwing Muses at Avalon. Actually the Lansdowne Street club was called Metro then, back in ...
Kim Richey: Her Country: Kim Richey's Nashville fusion
Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, August 1999
THERE SEEM TO BE four kinds of country music these days. There's the pop stuff, a mix of up-tempo numbers and sugary ballads plied by ...
Ruth Brown Keeps Deep R&B's Fire Blazing
Profile and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, October 1997
MISS RHYTHM is on stage working the blues, and she's got the audience on a string. Sashaying up to the microphone in the ballroom of ...
Joe Satriani, Mick Jagger: The Devil And Joe Satriani
Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Musician, April 1989
A Guitar Hero Strikes a Different Kind of Bargain ...
Review by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, July 1992
IF THERE'S ANYTHING all great rock-and-roll bands – from Muddy Waters' early-'50s Chicago electric outfits to Chuck Berry's Chess session players to the Rolling Stones ...
Ali Farka Toure: Connections: Ali Farka Touré's Cross-Cultural Blues
Profile by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, July 2000
THE BLUES CAME to America in chains, contained within the hearts of the enslaved people of Africa. Two hundred odd years later it went back, ...
Stevie Ray Vaughan: Repackaging Stevie Ray Vaughan
Review by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, April 1999
YEAH, HE NEVER played alternative rock, and to him hip-hop was something the Easter bunny did. He also wore his influences like a neon suit. ...
Mike Watt: HMS Watt: Contemplating the Engine Room
Review by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, October 1997
WHAT BECOMES a punk-rock legend most? In the case of Mike Watt, it's love. His new Contemplating the Engine Room (Columbia) brims with the stuff. ...
Lucinda Williams: Lucinda's World
Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Guitar World Acoustic, August 2003
"I KIND OF MISS the days when I wasn't well known," says Lucinda Williams, "Then, I was an 'undiscovered genius' when people heard my albums. ...
ZZ Top, Black Keys, The: Billy Gibbons and Dan Auerbach
Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Guitar World, October 2012
MISSISSIPPI FRED McDowell's haunted, woody voice sails through the air as the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach nurses a cup of coffee and flips through a ...
List of genre pieces
Deep River: The Bounty of Alan Lomax
Retrospective by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, June 1999
THE CD STARTS with a banjo picker burning on a hoedown called 'Cripple Creek,' progresses along a chain of mountain songs to 'Arkansas Traveler,' and ...
Down-home delights: The soulful blues of Malaco Records
Report by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, June 1998
THIRTY OR 40 YEARS AGO, the Jackson-based Malaco Records would have been called a "race" label. That was the tag for outfits like Specialty, King, ...
Newport Notes: How the Jazz and Folk Festivals made history
Retrospective and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, August 1999
"WELL, THIS IS real bullshit!" yelled Eddie Condon. ...
Producer in Paradise: Joel Dorn Revisits a Golden Age of Jazz
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, April 1998
JOEL DORN describes himself as "a stand-up guy. I grew up on the street corners and in the playgrounds, and I was raised to believe ...
Obituary by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, December 1997
POPULAR MUSIC has never had a better friend than Robert Palmer, the critic and musician who died l POPULAR MUSIC has never had a better friend ...
Absolute Kristal: CBGB's new punk rock label
Report and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, July 1998
HILLY KRISTAL'S MAD AS HELL and he's not gonna take it anymore. Okay, that's a slight exaggeration. But the 66-year-old hipster who owns the New ...
Hall-of-Fame Hitter: Drummer Earl Palmer gets his due
Retrospective and Interview by Ted Drozdowski, Boston Phoenix, January 2000
LIKE ANY GOOD GRANDFATHER, Earl Palmer has tried to find interests to share with his grandkids. So far, coin collecting has been a favorite. It's ...
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