Ted Cooper has written over 200 songs. Here he presents eleven of his best. The songs feature Ted's rumbling baritone voice accompanied by guitars, acoustic and electric, blues harp and on some cuts, drums and keyboard. Each song takes you on a journey and introduces you to fascinating people and places you would otherwise never get to see. Ted's gift as a songwriter is his ability to use humour to invite you into his into world. You'll find yourself smiling despite the seriousness of some of the lyrics. At the age of 13, Ted met blues great John Lee Hooker and spent the day hanging out with him. Ted had the audacity to say, "You know, John Lee, I'm a blues singer too and am even in a band." John Lee just laughed and said, "O yeah? Well I got a song maybe your band will want to do. It's called the Want Ad Blues. " True story...as are the stories behind the songs on "MARBLES". So sit back, close your eyes and listen... Featuring Ted Cooper: guitars, harmonica, bass and lead vocals Yaakov Gruzman: keyboards, percussion and backing vocals Jeff "Lucky" Hale: backing vocals Alec Biderman: drums Charlie Rosenberg: 2nd guitar solo on "Louise" Recorded at Pinball Studios, Toronto Engineer: Yaakov Gruzman Mixed and Mastered by Yaakov Gruzman Assisted by Tuvie Gruzman Audio Consultant: John Lee Cooper All songs written by Ted Cooper Thanks to Donna Margles for the marbles..... Ted reveals how the songs came to be.... "Louise" The music to Louise was developed during lessons to give my students a song that was easy to play. To keep from getting bored while they hacked away, I came up with the bass line then a couple of melodic riffs that sounded good while being played simultaneously. I had begun to sing the words to "House of the Rising Sun" just to make it a song but the night before the recording session I realized it needed it's own words. I thumbed through my old notebooks trying out different lyrics until I came across "Louise", a torchy love song about a girl who refused to depart from my concsiousness even though she had dumped me suddenly months before. her name wasn't Louise but it could have been. Curiously, the tune that "Louise" had first been written to sounded a lot like the Dylan/Animals version of "House of the Rising Sun". "Henry" I wrote "Henry" lying on my back on the floor. I was in a tiny hotel room in Eilat, Israel. I had just taken a five-hour bus ride from Jerusalem and had thrown my back out as I retrieved my luggage. I was in great pain every time I moved. Luckily, I could play my guitar to keep from going insane. I started playing the three chords of the song right off the bat, finger-picking away like I was the illegitimate grandson of Mississippi John Hurt. I played it over and over again making little changes until it felt complete. I thought about the people you see in passing and how you imagine what they're like. Sometimes you even give them names. Often you see the same strangers repeatedly and wonder about the signifigance of that. I'd already ear-marked the name Henry as one I'd love to write a song about. Unfortunately, it's a name that seems to have gone out if style. Most of the Henry's I've had the priveledge to have known are now deceased. I admit the real reason I wrote the song was so I could say the word Henry so many times in a row without getting locked up.