We recently connected with Ted Levin and have shared our conversation below.
Ted, appreciate you joining us today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?
In a nutshell, I’d describe myself as a former Rock Star wannabe who got close but never quite made it, currently enjoying his days as a pseudo Lounge Singer/Elvis Impersonator. And I’m totally okay with that!!
I’d always wanted to make a living as a musician. After my almost decade long time with my band, Space Cadet, I ended up sadly bartending and waiting tables to make ends meet. I did gigs where I could find them, but it was never enough to live off of. It wasn’t until I got hired on to perform every weekend at The Omni Hotel that I was able to take the leap of faith into solely just doing music. Soon after that, I began playing with an upright bass player and focusing on ’50’s and early ’60’s era music. This gave us a niche that set us apart. I taught myself how to solo on harmonica while playing guitar, as well as playing tambourines with my feet and use a vocal harmonizer to pretty up our renditions of such a classic era in music. My bass player taught himself how play a kick drum with his feet while playing the upright bass at the same time. All of the sudden, for two guys, we had the sound of a quartet and you could dance to it. People took notice and we began to get more work. We became ‘Sweet Crooner’ a tribute to the golden age and the birth of Rock ‘n Roll. In the last couple years we have added another guitar player and it has made our sound even more authentic to that classic sound. It wasn’t long before that we teamed up with the 13th Floor Booking Agency and have been with them for over six years now. I’m also still at The Omni every weekend nine years running.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
I knew I wanted to be a musician since I was seven. I remember singing Hound Dog with a hair brush in front of the mirror and doing my best Elvis. I grew up in NY and went to The University of North Texas in 1988 and graduated in 1994. It had a great music program and shaped me in many ways. Afterwards I started my band, Space Cadet, in 2000. After a label showcase at The Viper Room in Hollywood we signed a record deal in 2003 with Trauma/Satellite Records and then later with Kirtland Records. We received substantial airplay on The EDGE and other stations in 2005 with our cover of ‘Bette Davis Eyes’. We played dates at two Warp tours, opened up for Ashley Simpson at what was then the Starplex/Smirnoff Ampitheatre in front of 8,000 people, and did some touring with Bowling For Soup, who had become good friends. We put out three national releases and I was really glad for all we had achieved, but by 2009 I was ready to do something else. I had written and co-produced all our music and am extremely proud of the records we left behind. I try and bring the swagger of those days into what I do now with Sweet Crooner. I think we have a unique edge in the Dallas music market in that we have no drummer, yet with the use of ‘foot percussion’ and the slap of the standup bass, we are able to create the feeling of a beat and a groove. We are able to fill a void for venues and clients that want a high energy, danceable sound, but don’t want the crack of a snare drum and the smash of a cymbal that sometimes make it too loud for people to have a conversation over. To see people dancing to Elvis and Buddy Holly songs in 2022 is an amazing feeling, I have to say. I do my best to also step into a chameleons role of being an amalgamated persona of The King, Johnny Cash and Chuck Berry all wrapped up into one. It’s often a little like being a time traveler.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
For me the most exciting and rewarding part of making music has always been the songwriting. With Sweet Crooner we are simply providing a form of live entertainment with our take on the classics of early Rock ‘n Roll, Rockabilly, Delta Blues, and Country. And I love that, the rush of performing and getting a reaction from people. But what has always given me one of the greatest joys in life is writing my own songs. I wrote a good 50 or so songs in my time with Space Cadet and I feel that body of work still stands the test of time today in its originality and emotion. After that band ended I didn’t really write for a decade. I had lost my vehicle to express my songs and the process felt out of whack for me. I’d lost my muses and my mojo perhaps, or maybe I’d just lost the hope that my music would ever find its way to people. It wasn’t until the initial hit of Covid where I didn’t perform for over 3 months that I reconnected with my love of crafting songs. That magical act of forging words, melody, and emotion. To me its one of the greatest feeling there is. I thank my wife for rekindling that part of me. She is a fantastic and published writer in her own right, and being in a relationship with someone so wildly creative and talented is the absolute best part of my life. She urged me during my pandemic induced down time/deep depression to start writing and recording again, and more importantly she was the spark and inspiration that let me tap back into the art of making songs from nothing. Leaving behind a legacy of my life’s experiences through recorded music is something I hope that will live on long after I’m gone.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
One lesson I had to ‘unlearn’ I think is how to NOT take care of yourself as an artist, and a touring musician. Traveling around playing shows from state to state can be dangerous with late hours, little sleep, and someone always at the ready offering you a drink or something else for that matter. When I was young I wanted all the perks that went with playing music and I did damage to my mind and body. I have the worst of all that in check these days I’m thankful to say. But in the last few years I have been diagnosed with hearing loss and a condition called ‘Temporary Threshold Shift’, basically a period of muffled hearing due to excessive volumes. I always wore earplugs when I played in loud rock bands, but when I started Sweet Crooner I didn’t think I would need them. After all, there was no barrage of drums or blaring electric guitars, we were an acoustic act. I stopped wearing ear plugs and I spent nearly the next ten years doing 150 shows a year on average. I was dead wrong. I did substantial damage and after lots of guessing as to what was happening to me, a vocal coach I’d been working with explained to me what TTS is and how the ‘temporary’ part can easily become permanent over time. I use high quality ear plugs every performance now and although it has taken some getting used to, I believe I have saved my hearing. Nothing could be more important and I am so grateful. I have made it a personal mission to shout this advice from the mountain tops, especially to younger musicians I meet just getting started in the business.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sweetcrooner
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sweetcrooner
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK0VM5Oof070zDPBCnLdOZQ
Image Credits
Cal Quinn, Tommy Moore, Warren Harris, Cynthia St. Aubin,