Hi, I'm Teddy.
From Detroit to Naples via the Rock and Roll Capital
Teddy Wallingford is a Naples-FL based songwriter and musical performer who has performed everywhere from Nashville on Broadway stages to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame party stage. Today, he creates rustic progressive rock music that some have called "campfire prog" or "progressive folk".
The product of a rustbelt upbringing, Teddy began his musical studies at the age of six taking piano lessons on his grandmother's old console piano - which he still has in his dining room at home.
Education-wise, Teddy is a product of Cass Tech in Detroit, whose alumni include the likes of business titan John Delorean, Motown singer Diana Ross, post-rock guitar performer Jack White, rapper Big Sean, and comedic actress Lily Tomlin, among others.
As a teen, Teddy wasn't all that interested in piano-playing , and by the time he came out of high school, he was listening to bands like Rush and Living Colour while having success behind the drum kit in his own band called Eden Rock, which he co-founded with Rob Gross, Mike Gusway and Nick Klaver, the latter two of which would go on to form the experimental rock band 4 Block Empire.
Eden Rock worked for a few years on the vibrant Detroit scene before Teddy moved his young family to rock capital of the world - Cleveland, Ohio - where he planted his roots as a supporting role behind the drums or on the bass guitar for artists like Jay Guererro and Dan Robertson. Eventually he joined a country band called North of Texas after being recruited by guitarist Rick Lowe. Even with the success of that project's busy live schedule, Teddy wanted to take it the next level.
So Teddy decided to begin utilizing acoustic guitar as his full-time writing tool, and switched to focusing on funk-pop music at a time when contemporaries like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Spindoctors were proving that the mainstream still had a hungry yearning for funky, upbeat, danceable music.
The result of those changes in focus was an introduction to Cleveland-based singer Michelle Romary, who together with Teddy founded the funk-pop band Pout to great success. Two studio albums were produced and the band played all over Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania for about five years, sometimes as often as 20 full-length shows in a month.
From Dance Pop to Black Knight Satellite
With Pout, Teddy was fortunate to work with exceptional studio producers like Tony Koussa Jr. (solo, the Element) and Michael Seifert (engineered sessions for Tori Amos, Bone Thugs 'n Harmony, Lifehouse, among others).
Teddy executive-produced two full-length albums for his Rock City Project, a charitable organization whose mission was to provide free music education for teens who could not afford private instruction. To advance this mission, Teddy produced the annual Rock City Festival, a multi-stage rock music festival that entertained Clevelanders while uniting them around the mission of one-on-one music mentorship for youth. Teddy also worked as a worship leader at several Christian churches during this time frame.
After leaving Cleveland, Teddy began formulating the demo material that would eventually become the basis of his concept-heavy solo debut album Black Knight Satellite.
The record is an exploration of Teddy's recent experiences with loss, faith, redemption, and determination, all wrapped inside a musical thru-line of acoustic rock guitar, and a conceptual focus on free thinking.
Guest performers on Black Knight Satellite include longtime friend and drummer Efrain Hernandez, daughter Madelyn Wallingford on vocals, Naples-based rapper 32MDDX, aforementioned lifelong friend and bandmate Mike Gusway (also of Reggie Smith & the Afterparty and the Dirty Elizabeths) on bass, as well as guitarists Alex Porter of the Florida Rhythm Kings, JP Soars of JP Soars and the Red Hots, and Slim Gambill formerly of Lady Antebellum. Everglades harmonica master Griff Griffin also appears on the album.
Primarily recorded at Teddy's studio, Everglades Sound in Naples, with special sessions recorded at studios in Nashville, Detroit, Cleveland, and Ft. Lauderdale, the album has a cosmopolitan appeal while staying firmly "around the campfire" as Teddy intended: Futuristic and rustic at the same. If southern rock and British prog had a baby, that baby would certainly be named Black Knight Satelite.
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