About Ted DeMaine

I was born in Manchester UK in the year world war two ended in to a family that was very much in to music. My Grand father George DeMaine played fiddle, piano, squeeze box, & ukulele. Fabled uncle Nathan DeMaine played piano on the Music Hall & for the Silent Movies. My Mother was a trained concert singer, & Aunt Mary played piano & was awarded a doctorate of music. Together they gave small concerts around Manchester. My Mother also sang in the Manchester Cathedral choir, with the Halle Orchestra & on the BBC. Every one in the family had their own couple of songs and at family parties, as the booze flowed, so did the songs. Paul Robeson was a big number with my mother and I was introduced to his version of Joe Hill at a very early age. I was also very aware of Gracie Fields and George Formby who were the local singing stars & Ewan MacColl from his BBC radio Folk music documentaries.

In the middle fifties Rock and Roll happened, but in the UK media (BBC) it was sanitized. I was lucky my older brothers who were into Jazz and the Platters, listened to radio Luxembourg, so I did know what was going on.  But it was Lonnie Donnigan & Skiffle that captured my imagination and at thirteen I was fronting a skiffle band.  By 1959 Buddy Holly was dead and Rock & Roll with him.  It had become corporatized and boring Pop music & uninteresting so I furthered my interest in Skiffle that led me to Leadbelly who’s songs Donnigan played.  In turn this opened my mind to American Folk music & the link back to English, Scot’s & Irish music through Ewen MacColl.

In 1961 I came to Australia & in Brisbane there was not much going on.  The Alternative music scene in Brisbane was very small & centred around the Art community of which my brother John, as an artist, was part.  Even by 1966 when Bob Dylan toured with “The Paul Butterworth Blues Band” only about two hundred people turned up at the six thousand seat Festival Hall, whereas it was packed to the rafters for the Pop bands.  I had got into the Liverpool sound and the Beatles very early and was as impressed as every one else but maintained my interest in folk music and looked for the alternative.

I went to Gladstone the same year & over the next seven years performed at dances in the halls of the small country towns in the surrounding area.  In these years we (Johanna & I) had an open house on this section of the Hippie Trail that had developed up the east coast of Australia.  During this time we conceived the idea of setting up a pottery & decided to go to the UK to further our knowledge.   So in 1973 we hit the Hippie trail ourselves.  We returned in 1975 and set up DeMaine Pottery and that has been our direction ever since.

Over the years I continued to write poems & songs until I was fortunate to meet Marc Monetti who produced and played on this CD for me.  This preamble is to give an insight in to my songs.  For the way the music is played you should visit Marc Monetti’s web site.