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Biography of Ted Carfrae
(Record Producer, Engineer, Songwriter & Publisher)

Ted Carfrae's career began in 1978 at the famous CTS Recording Studios in Wembley. Ted worked on projects with artists such as Paul McCartney & Wings, Julie Andrews, The Carpenters, Barry Manilow, Ella Fitzgerald and Deep Purple. He also worked extensively on film music including the Bond films, For Your Eyes Only and Moonraker, cult classics 10 and Victor Victoria, both starring Julie Andrews and Flash featuring an original music score by Queen. As well as sound engineering, Ted also learned audio mastering from one of the best cutting engineers in the world, the legendary Kevin Metcalf. Ted spent more than six months in Kevin's cutting room at CTS cutting every genre of music possible from original Reggae music sent in from Jamaica to Classical and pop music. Though he did not know it at the time, this training would play a major part in Ted's future career.

In 1982 Ted decided to leave CTS to freelance at other top London studios such as Abbey Road before being invited to Los Angeles in 1986 to work with renowned engineer/Producer Taavi Mote. He signed to Mote's 'Rufmix Productions' and moved out to LA full time to concentrate on songwriting and production. During this productive period, Ted worked with LA heavyweights such as jazz supremo Jeff Lorber, singers Karen White, Gladys Knight and members of the group Toto. By 1990, Ted was missing home, family and friends and made the decision to move back to London and pursue his dream of running his own production company and producing music.

After a couple of years re-establishing himself in the UK music scene, Ted spotted a gap in the market and decided to tap into the world of mastering and audio restoration taking advantage of the new digital technologies being developed. In 1993 Ted set up TCM Music Ltd with partner Paul Maddox. TCM became one of the first and most successful audio restoration companies in London with major contracts including Sky satellite music provider, Music Choice Europe and The BBC Music library restoring literally thousands of albums and master tapes to the then new CDR and DAT formats. Ted also worked with legendary record producer Gus Dudgeon re-mastering back catalogue material from Elton John's Rocket Records including Kiki Dee’s entire catalogue.

In 1999, Ted got his big break into music production when he was introduced by a mutual friend to singer Jane McDonald from the BBC’s ‘The Cruise’ documentary series which was a big hit at the time. Jane's first album had reached No1 on the charts and Ted was asked to arrange and produce all the music for her upcoming television appearances. This in turn led to Ted producing the music for her first 'In Concert' long form video which went on to become a best seller.
In 2000, Universal Records approached Ted to produce Jane's second album Inspiration. The album was a huge success selling more than 200,000 copies within the first week on sale entering the national album chart at No 6 earning Ted his first Gold Sales Award. Later that year, Ted arranged and produced music for Jane’s top rated BBC television series, ‘Star for a Night’, the show that first discovered superstar singer Joss Stone.

In 2001 Universal asked Ted to produce the comeback album for 70's superstar David Cassidy. Ted was despatched to Las Vegas to meet with Cassidy at his home to discuss and finalise the project content and schedule recording dates. The album entitled Then and Now was essentially a remake of all of Cassidy's biggest hits along with some brand new tracks. Recorded in London and at Jimi Hendrix Electric Lady Studios in New York City, the album went straight into the UK charts at No.5 and became a best seller worldwide.

Ted's next project was to produce eight songs for a new album for the legendary King of Romance; Engelbert Humperdinck entitled I Want To Wake Up With You. Ted initially flew out to a town called Dover, just outside Philadelphia to meet with Engelbert who was in concert there at the time. We met at his hotel and I went along with him to rehearsals to meet his musical director, agree the final song selection and set vocal register keys. We commenced recording in London during September 2001 and though the album was only a modest success in the album charts reaching No.40, some tracks later appeared on Engelbert's massive selling CD His Greatest Love Songs that has sold more than 300,000 units in the UK, earning a platinum disc.

In 2003, EMI asked Ted to produce a new album with sixties icon Cilla Black called Beginnings - Her Greatest Hits and New Songs. The album gave Ted the chance of working with song writing legend Burt Bacharach who wrote the title song especially for the album. Cilla was celebrating forty years in show business and EMI wanted to release an album containing all of her hits along with some new songs. Ted met with Cilla at her London home and she was very adamant that she didn't want to record the obvious covers that had been done a million times before. Together Ted and Cilla listened to literally thousands of songs and eventually made a final song selection. Initially, EMI wanted Ted to deliver just three or four new songs, but by the end of recording, Ted delivered an astonishing eleven new recordings all within budget. The resulting album is an eclectic choice of material that would stretch Cilla Black as a vocalist and deliver some of her finest work. Though the album was not a huge sales success, it received great reviews and it is a project that both Ted and Cilla are hugely proud of.

Other successes in 2004/5/6 include two albums with big selling European country music duo, Grant and Forsyth and being asked by Granada TV and Universal Records to produce the music for three television specials, Abba Mania 2, Queen Mania and Madonna Mania.
The next phase in Ted's illustrious career is the formation of a new mastering facility with the legendary John Oram. Ted says; 'This is an opportunity that only comes along once in a lifetime. Oram is a brand name that I have known and worked with all my working life in recording studios and in my earlier years, I worked many times on Trident desks that John designed. He simply makes the best sounding analogue recording equipment on the planet, it's as simple as that. The unique thing about this venture is that we will be using Oram equipment exclusively in our mastering room and we will be the only mastering facility in the world like it. John and I have some great plans for the future, so watch this space'

© 2007 TCM Music Ltd. All Rights Reserved.