Dixon is Ted House's middle name. Ted grew up in Victoria and played in bands like the "Hidden Fifth" and then his own trio. The first gig I played with Ted was with the Ted House Trio at the Red Lion with Barry Cassons on drums. One week we backed up Bill Kenny of the "Inkspots" there. John Demers replaced Barry on Drums and we played continually in clubs around Victoria
Nanaimo, Vancouver and Abbotsford and even two summers on the BC Ferries. Sometimes Robert Hollingsworth and Dave Vidal would be added on guitar. These were the days before disco and bands would have contracts for months at a time playing six nights a week. Ted was a good songwriter and caught the interest of Mike Flicker (Heart's producer) who gave him some demo time at Mushroom in Vancouver. He called his publishing company "Hot House
Music" and his act "The Dixon House Band" I did sessions there with Ted with Rolf Hennemen as engineer. Rolf was also the engineer for Chilliwach, Prism, Heart etc etc. Sometimes Kat Hendricks or Durace Maxwell was on drums. Ted's single "Face the Music" I believe had Victorian's Gary Sawin on drums and Dave Vidal on guitar. Shelly Siegel was the excellent promoter and brains behind Mushroom Records. Heart was just taking off when Shelly died suddenly just before Ted's song was to be released.. Shelly's death threw Mushroom in turmoil. CBS stepped in and offered Heart a superstar contract amid all kinds of legal wrangling and Heart guitarist Roger Fisher was left out and Mushroom studio guitarist/arranger Howard Leese took over all guitar duties as the band left for Seattle. (The Wilson sisters were from Bremerton) Mike Flicker also left Mushroom for Seattle to produce Heart but he was still interested in Ted so Ted also went to Seattle, wrote songs, put a new band together and got a contract with Infinity Records. "The Dixon House Band" was finally on the air waves. He toured to promote his first album and on one of his early tours he was the warm-up act for Rick Springfield where he asked me to play keyboards and saxophone. Howard Leese played guitar for Ted's concert appearances at that time. Ted's second album had a different band again with Chrissy Shefts on guitar.
Infinity Records went bankrupt and Ted went down to Hollywood and did some songwriting with Randy Misner of the Eagles. He also appeared on the Merv Griffen show. Ted eventually went back to Vancouver and started writing
scripts and plays along with his piano/vocal gigs. The last I heard he was in Japan and doing well. He's a great talent and in my opinion one of Victoria's best ever singers.
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