Duo: Doug Sedgwick - guitar, bass and vox; Steve "Snake" Smith - guitar, bass, harp and vox
Quartet: Doug Sedgwick - guitar and vox; Dan Hall - bass; Willard Morris - violin; Ron Goad - drums
Tribute (Beatles): Doug Sedgwick - bass, guitar and vox; Ben Hamblin - guitar, bass and vox; Adam Terio - guitar and vox; Henry Collins - drums
Influences
Beatles, Yes, Steely Dan, Who, Tom Waits, Led Zeppelin, Genesis, Miles Davis, David Bowie, Temptations, Pink Floyd, Elvis Costello, Jimi Hendrix, King Crimson, Mark Boardman, Daniel (DiEL) Lee, Van Morrison, Bobby Darin, Django Reinhardt, Herb Alpert, Bruce Springsteen, Clash, John Mellencamp, Jeff Buckley, Beck, Larry Coryell, Tom Petty, Nick Drake, Police, Pretenders, Larry Carlton, Charles Mingus, Bob Marley, Monte Montgomery, Robert Johnson, Wilco, Radiohead, Dwight Yoakum, CCR, REM, Blind Melon, John Mayer, Kinks, Bare Naked Ladies, Alan Hall, Tom Faver, Vic Cook, Andrew McKnight, Primitive Mind, Faulkner, Tolkein, Vonnegut, Heinlein, Bradbury, Daniel Levitin, Vermeer, Monet, More…
Sounds Like
Acoustic acid-blues-rock-folk-reggae-jazz from a widely traveled poet and military veteran who wants to wield music to decrease the distance between us all. Love emanates from this energetic man. Electric intensity, acoustic instruments.
What are people saying about Doug Sedgwick and his new album?
"Committed is a dazzling display of songwriting talent and chameleon-like performance acumen. Sedgwick has a homey, comfortable voice that slips over a song like a favorite sweater. His guitar-work is amazing... There are no weak points here, just the usual highs and lows that are the trademark of a running conversation with an old friend." - Wildy Haskell, Wildy's World
Reviewer Wildy Haskell later rated Committed number 23 on his list of the top 25 albums of 2008.
“Excellent stuff” – DJ Durzle Darkstone (Second Life)
“Was favouring Committed, also playing Disappoint You and Junk All the Talk (from the disk). But I've really fallen for Vonnegut...” - Stephen Lomas, DJ Radio Upper Murray, New South Wales, Australia
“Committed is an inspired album...with many moments of musical genius evident.” – Jean Bayou (President, Songwriter’s Association of Washington)
“It is a joyful and inspiring thing. Doug, I think you have a winner here...” – Daniel “DiEL” Lee (multiple WAMA and MASC award winner.)
“...it's all totally original and in that combination of styles and influences definitely unique. Great stuff” – Andre Seifert (Songwriter, Germany)
“You got a great voice, nice and smoky and all fulla character.” – Bob Sima (Multiple award-winning songwriter)
“You’re a great guitarist” – Vic Cook (2003 MASC winner)
The Musical Resume:
When Appalachia - the best band in central PA - needed lyrics for some original songs in 1978, someone referred them to a Carlisle high school student named Doug Sedgwick. Himself a huge Lennon/McCartney fan and already a respected bass player who had spent some time picking up knowledge (and actually recording with) Berklee grad and neighbor guitarist Mike Childs, Doug left Carlisle for college in FL that same year. From 1976 until summer of 1978, Doug was a subscriber to Guitar Player magazine and devoured every issue cover-to-cover. Fast forward one year and one academic dismissal later and Doug’s next major musical experience finds him playing bass for progressive new wave singer/songwriter Dave Molnar in the suburbs of Detroit. Despite some interest from a small Warner Bros. label affiliate and some white-knuckle studio adventures though, Doug and Dave parted ways. Before and after playing with Dave Molnar as part of “The Hurt”, there were 2 stints in bands with Keyboardist Mike Wolfe: The first being an ELP-style (no guitar) instrumental 3 piece and the second being a larger “show band” that briefly toured the FL club circuit covering Donna Summer and ELO. These bands broke up as well. Doug enlisted in the Army in 1981 and while stationed on Ft. Lewis WA about a year later, bought his first reel-to-reel from a pawnshop and began writing and recording his own acoustic-guitar-based songs. All this time, Doug would seek out open mikes and other musicians, attempting to accumulate as much musical knowledge and experience as he could gather. After being transferred to the VA area in 1983, Doug played his first paid acoustic solo gig at Gerald’s on King Street (now called the Laughing Lizard) in Old Town Alexandria. After leaving the Army with the skills and experience to work as a software engineer, Doug took work in the Dallas / Ft. Worth area where he began collaborating on songs with guitarist and industrial video music composer Mark Boardman. One Doug composition graced a video made for U-Haul, and the upgraded recording equipment he purchased allowed Doug to produce some music Boardman wrote for a soft-core adult film. Around this same time, Mark, Doug and guitar teacher / trumpet player Tom Faver began writing and recording what would amount to 3 albums worth of dense, intricate material made primarily for their own gratification on weekends as Doug began refining and developing his studio engineering skills. Leaving TX to take a different day job, Doug later briefly played lead acoustic guitar for a husband/wife folk duo in DE. (All through this time frame across Texas, Delaware and eventually South Carolina, Doug subscribed to Home and Studio Recording magazine and fortified his hands-on experience with its pages.) Next relocated to Columbia SC, Doug produced a demo recording for legendary local blues outfit Mojo Blue and while shocked at the invite following an impromptu jam – proudly accepted an offer from leader Tony Scarano to play second electric guitar and share the lead vocal chores. Doug also formed his first all-acoustic trio with Tony and Mojo Blue fretless bass player Jim Scott around the same time. For six grueling months, these 2 bands put Doug in front of audiences as many as 4 times a week, occasionally in the same venues where contemporary local Columbia band Hootie and the Blowfish played. Another quest for better day gig work brought Doug back to the Northern VA area in 1992 where he has since enjoyed success as a gigging solo musician and leader of the acoustic duo (once a trio) – BugSnakeWilly – with multi-instrumentalist Steve “Snake” Smith. BugSnakeWilly played the Horizon Dairy festival in 2003 – along with Doc Watson, Junior Brown and Bill Kirchen. In 2005 Doug won his first Honorable Mention in the Jazz/Blues category of the Mid-Atlantic Song Contest for his tune Cable TV. In 2006, Doug won a second Honorable Mention in the World category for his song Peace in Our Hearts. For a brief time, Doug returned to his initial loves - the bass and Lennon/McCartney/Harrison compositions as the leader of an informal Beatles tribute band that played 3 gigs Doug will treasure for the remainder of his days. Furiously gigging and recording since these successes while still continuing to sling code as a full-time software engineer, Doug put out his album: Committed in May 2008 to some very well received reviews. Songs from the album have been receiving Internet radio airplay as well as being played on Loyola College radio, CHES 101.5 FM in Erin, Ontario and Radio Upper Murray in New South Wales, Australia. More recently, Doug has begun recording tracks for a second album – to include at least ONE finished number (Words) that is a gospel/rap duet sung with first-class multiple-award winning indie songwriter hero Daniel “DiEL” Lee. Doug is also preparing to add some guitar tracks to the new album from multiple-award winning indie songwriter Vic Cook. At the same time as perfecting his 3rd person prose composition skills, Doug has ALSO assembled a band up to the task of covering the material from the Committed album live and have already played one AMAZING gig. These players would be: bassist Dan Hall (Lawrence Welk); violinist Willard Morris (Joanne Juskus); and drummer Ron Goad (Everybody in the DC area).
Having not learned much about his Sedgwick family roots owing to a grandfather who ran away from home at 16 (hear Grandfather’s Mother), Doug now also has NO qualms about pointing out that he is related to Kyra Sedgwick, Edie Sedgwick, Holly Sedgwick, Mike Stern (changed his name!) and 5th Speaker of the House of Representatives – judge Theodore Sedgwick.
Hi Doug, Thanks for the shout out....Tryin' to play catch up 'round here.......you know the thing. Hope all's cool in your world, Man. Best Regards to you / your music scene. Demetrios
Yep, that's me singing all tracks. I used a Tascam DP01 on "CM".
I"m really diggin MySpace! I've already invited Chris amazington.
I finally got a camera! It's a Samsung SL202 10.2 megapixel on sale for $89.00. Another $8.00 for a table-top tripod. I'm working on a new video now to upload on YT AND MySPace. I'm going to snap a boatload of pics to put on MySpace too! This is the refreshing change I needed. I've been suffering from YouTube burnout.
Hope your fingers are better now? You're a killer musician! Stay in touch bro! latter..
Oh, thanks! I must learn how to extend my "top friends" area, because I don't want to move anyone down either! Ecology - well, it's the air we breathe and the water we're supposed to drink!
I just sent a letter to a net magazine about them allowing a company advertise for nuclear power plants, so I at least try to be a little active yet. When I was younger I was at it much more often!
Did you ever see the film "Water"? I thin k George Harrison made music for it. This was in the 80's when few understood that (drinkable) water was going to be as attractive as gold (or, ahem... uranium?).
Hello Doug, thanks for moving me to your top friends list!
What's a "good" song is ultimately a matter of taste! Whether Dance tonight is "better" or "worse" than All together now is certainly a matter of taste, and also depends much of the mood you were in when you first heard them, and in which context.
Personally I like Dance tonight for its simplicity and the "skiffle" aesthetics it somehow shows. We (the ukulele band Dur-rackarna) use kazzoos for the second interlude (where there's some kind of a synth on the record) to emphasize this, and maybe lso because we don't use synths at all.
I must admit I haven't followed Steely Dan very much - we analyzed one or two of their tunes at a course about "20 years ago today". Might like them if I did.
My Brave Face, and, btw the whole Flowers in the dirt album is among me favorites too!
Thanks For coming out last night Doug...And it was a pleasure to hand over my precious Taylor see you do some magic on her... Sounded good. I'm liking your CD...Time for another big marketing push... People need to help the struggling musician survive...or else it will only be boy bands and Brittany...
john oates did it too with his moustache, you're not alone there.
Your should grow your beard out at christmas so you can be Father Christmas.
That would be cool.
You're kids are probably a bit old for that now, but you could walk around in the red suit to piss people off, that's always fun.
Start growing it at thanksgiving so the christmas buzz is starting, that means it'll be really impressive by december, then walk around the house in the suit.
You'll lose respect and dignity, but you'll always have the memories
I'm always late with my advice, but i suppose it's still nice having some not-quite-child-not-quite-man who doesn't have a bloody clue what he's talking about giving you advice about things....
Gary's video was great, and it'll be good to see anything that your channel does soon.
I have been working on a piano piece today, got most of the drum track done too. going to add a guitar part and stuff, bass, the usual.
Hopefully it'll be up on monday, but we'll have to see.
I'm doing a blogtv tomorrow, if any cool recordings go up i'll let you know and link you
Hey YOU! I got your gig letter and I thought to myself, "I've never received as interesting a gig letter, as the ones Doug writes!" The stories, the humor, the epiphanies; All great stuff!!! Anyway, all the best at your gig today! I was hoping you would be playing the one in Herndon as I will be out that way today around lunch time. I will be with you in spirit!
...i'd come back with an interesting comment, but all i've been doing is videogaming and fucking around on the computer, punctuated by vlogging.
...weird question, but you know how you go to church?
well...have you ever been tempted to go dressed in a devil costume just to piss people off, 'cause that would be so ammusing to me - or am I just immature?
Be honest, now.
but all joking aside, thanks for the comment, i'm always happy to hear how things are, anytime you wanna message or something, for any reason, go ahead.
I have cool music based plans at the moment, but you'll see about that soon :~)
Thank you for your comment, Doug!! I've been thinking of you, your last comment post, about 9-5 life...I feel what you are going through. Too much to write in a comment. :) I'll be sending you a message sometime btwn. now and tomorrow AM. Glad to see you are still at Potbelly's!! j.
