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User:Britboy1976/Ted Carfrae

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Ted Carfrae
Birth nameEdward Carfrae
Born (1956-10-28) 28 October 1956 (age 68)
OriginLyneham, Wiltshire, England, United Kingdom
GenresPop, Soft Rock, Adult contemporary
Occupation(s)record producer, Songwriter, Audio engineer, Mastering Engineer
Years active1978 - present
LabelsEMI, Sony, Universal Records, Granada TV, TCM Music Group
WebsiteOfficial Website

Ted Carfrae is an English audio engineer, mastering engineer, songwriter and multi-platinum-selling record producer. He was born in Lyneham, Wiltshire, England and is best known for his production work with Jane McDonald, David Cassidy and Engelbert Humperdinck.[1]

Early Career

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Ted Carfrae began his music career as an assistant engineer at CTS Studios, Wembley in 1978. As an engineer he worked on numerous projects including the scores for movies such as 10, S.O.B., Victor Victoria, Moonraker (soundtrack) and For Your Eyes Only (soundtrack), Flash Gordon (album) and Wings Over America. He also worked with many other artists and bands of the day such as The Carpenters, Ella Fitzgerald, Barry Manilow, Cilla Black, Lulu, The Shadows and UB40 as well as music for TV variety shows such as The Two Ronnies, The Morcombe and Wise Show and The Russ Abbott Show.

In 1982, Carfrae left CTS Studios to freelance as a sound engineer and held down a variety of jobs at SVC Television and Molinare studios in London’s Soho where he worked on promotional videos for Blondie’s ‘Heart of Glass’ and Wham’s ‘Careless Whisper', 'Everything She Wants' and 'Last Christmas'.

In 1985, Carfrae signed his first song publishing contract with Neon Music Ltd (owned by Bruce Welch of The Shadows).

In 1986, Carfrae moved to Los Angeles and signed to a production company owned by legendary LA producer and re-mixer Taavi Mote. While in LA, Carfrae worked with jazz heavyweight Jeff Lorberand toured with Gladys Knight.

Music Mastering & Audio Restoration

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In 1992, Carfrae returned to the UK. He spotted a gap in the music market where he noticed that more and more people had home studios but not the service of putting their music onto the then new medium of Compact Disc. Until this time, CD’s were only released by major record companies but with the invention of the CD-R it enabled the same possibilities to the masses.

In March 1993, Carfrae with his partner, Paul Maddox launched TCM Music which specialised in audio mastering and audio restoration for the average musician at home. It also offered digital restoration services and mastering to the professional industry. TCM was notably one of the first companies to buy the brand new Studer D740 CD recorder (only three studios in the world had this machine at the time: Abbey Road Studios, Evergreen Studios in Los Angeles and TCM). When Studer were developing the next generation D741 recorder, they chose TCM to road test the machine due to the huge volume of work TCM was turning out.

In 1995, Carfrae's company scored a major contract with Sky Digital (UK & Ireland) radio and music provider Music Choice Europe to restore and re-master the BBC Record library for their multi-station digital radio output. This restoration work took a little over four years.

In 2008, Carfrae launched his new On-Line Mastering facility TCM Mastering offering professional mastering to musicians world-wide.[2]

Production Work

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In 1999, Carfrae returned to making music full-time after he was asked by K-tel International to produce his first album for eighties soul singer Jaki Graham. He was then introduced to Jane McDonald, the star of the BBC reality show, ‘The Cruise’ and was asked to produced new backing tracks for her various television appearances. This led to producing Jane’s first ‘In Concert’ video for Video Collection International which to date has been certified double-platinum by the BPI having sold over 100,000 units.

In 2000, Carfrae was commissioned by Universal Records to produce Jane McDonald’s second album, ‘Inspiration’. The album proved a massive success on the UK Albums Chart as it peaked at #6[3] and earned Carfrae his first silver and gold record awards from the BPI for sales of over 100,000 units.

In 2001, Carfrae produced the comeback album for seventies icon David Cassidy entitled ‘Then and Now’ which consisted of re-recordings of his biggest hits along with brand new songs. The album was a huge worldwide hit and gave Carfrae his second consecutive Top 5 smash[4]. The album was also certified platinum by the BPI for sales of over 300,000 units. Also that same year, Carfrae was approached to produce brand new songs for Engelbert Humperdinck’s ‘I Wanna Wake Up With You’ album (these were later featured on the singer's ‘Greatest Love Songs’ compilation which peaked at #4[5] and was certified platinum by the BPI having sold over 400,000 units).

In 2003, EMI Records asked Carfrae to produce a new album with sixties icon Cilla Black. This project more than any other, proved that Carfrae had come full circle as his very first session ever as an assistant engineer was on a Cilla's album "Modern Priscilla". Entitled ‘Beginnings’, the new project consisted of newly recorded songs. Cliff Richard and members of the boy band ‘Blue’ came in to add backing vocals.

Other notable career highlights include: producing a duet with Petula Clark which used an existing and rare vocal by the late Dusty Springfield - the duet entitled ‘Corner Of The Sky’[6] notably featured on the Top 20 Universal compilation; Petula Clark ‘Then and Now’; ‘Jazz At The Theatre’ for Bonnie Langford; two big selling Dutch albums for country music duo Grant and Forsyth (formely of Guys n' Dolls); recording a new version of Madonna's ‘Frozen’ with opera star Katherine Jenkins for ITV tribute show Madonna Mania; producing the latest album ‘Trentquility’ for the legendary songwriter Jackie Trent. In 2008, Ted worked with EMI to secure the re-mastering and first ever CD release of Kiki Dee's entire Rocket Records catalogue. Included was an unreleased album entitled 'Cage The Songbird' recorded in the US in the mid seventies. Ted was also asked to produce the audio for a new Kiki Dee In Concert DVD. 'Under The Night Sky' performed with her music partner, Carmello Luggeri was released to rave reviews. In 2009, Ted was asked to produce a new album with screen and recording legend, Doris Day. The album entitled 'My Heart' was released in the UK by Sony in September 2010 and went on to become Doris Day's biggest selling album reaching the UK and US top ten charts. Beach Boys legend Bruce Johnston wrote a number of the songs for the album with Doris's son Terry Melcher and when Bruce arrived in the UK to promote the album, he asked Ted to join him for radio interviews. On April 14th 2014, a new album to commemorate Doris Day's 90th Birthday celebrations will be released. The album entitled 'Music, Movies & Memories' contains a selection of rarities including five previously unreleased recordings produced by Ted Carfrae that were not included on her best selling 'My Heart' album. Carfrae says; "when we were recording the album there were a few songs that originated from her 1980's TV series 'Best Friends'. The songs were specific to the programme and therefore were not suitable for inclusion on the album. Doris's performances are, as always brilliant and I am so pleased that these great songs will be included on this very special release".

Selected discography

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Albums:[7]

DVDs:

List of some artists that Ted Carfrae has worked with

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List of some artists that Ted Carfrae has produced

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TV Specials: Ted Carfrae Audio Producer/Musical Director.

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References

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  1. ^ "CillaBlack.com: Ted Carfrae Biography". Retrieved 14 May 2009 (2009-05-14). {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  2. ^ "Sound on Sound: TCM Mastering goes on-line". Retrieved 15 May 2009 (2009-05-15). {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  3. ^ "Chart Stats: Jane McDonald's "Inspiration"". Retrieved 15 May 2009 (2009-05-15). {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  4. ^ "Chart Stats: David Cassidy's "Then & Now"". Retrieved 15 May 2009 (2009-05-15). {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  5. ^ "Chart Stats: Engelbert Humperdinck's "Then & Now"". Retrieved 15 May 2009 (2009-05-15). {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  6. ^ "A Girl Called Dusty: "New" Dusty and Petula Duet". Retrieved 15 May 2009 (2009-05-15). {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  7. ^ "MSN Music: Ted Carfrae: Credits". Retrieved 15 May 2009 (2009-05-15). {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
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