artists
Gordon, Todd
Artists Website : http://www.myspace.com/toddgordon
Todd Gordon has established himself as "one of the country's most popular singers and entertainers" (The Scotsman). An avid Beatles fan until the age of eleven when he first heard Sinatra. From then, he collected every album by Ol' Blue Eyes whilst broadening his interest in other great singers, bands and jazz instrumentalists.
In 1975 he met Ella Fitzgerald prior to her show, and during the concert she invited him on stage and sang specially to him. He was also fortunate enough to meet many of his other idols, including Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Count Basie, Woody Herman and George Shearing.
Spanning a 20 year period, Todd conducted an intensive study of ‘The Great American Song Book’ resulting in a repertoire of well over 1,000 songs.
He has participated on international jazz courses and vocal workshop sessions with some of the world’s foremost singers including Mark Murphy and Sheila Jordan, and admirers include top UK jazz vocalists, Carol Kidd, Claire Martin and Jacqui Dankworth, through to New York's Sheila Jordan and Broadway legend, Elaine Stritch.
Todd has performed at some of the most prestigious venues including London's Pizza on the Park, The Plaza and Algonquin hotels in New York, as well as regularly featuring in jazz festivals and concert tours. He's also in demand for corporate events in the UK and USA. Clients include Sotheby’s, Grant Thornton, Russ Berrie Inc, Royal Bank of Scotland, The Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Escada, Standard Life and Scottish Media Group.
His audiences range from intimate jazz club settings to large-scale shows (he has twice compered and performed in 'Jazz on a Summer's Day' - the UK’s biggest jazz event with an audience of 20,000) and also opened for Dionne Warwick during her UK tour visit in 2003.
His media performances include live broadcasts on BBC Radio 2 and 3, several BBC regional programmes and many local radio stations as well as appearing on Scottish Television. His new album, LOVE'S ILLUSIONS - produced by the exceptionally talented Ian Shaw - has won considerable praise and radio play, and three ballads from the CD were immediately selected for SmoothFM's evening play list.
Right from the start, Todd surrounded himself with the best Scottish musicians. When on tour, he performs with superb players such as Alan Barnes, Alec Dankworth, Dave O' Higgins, Tom Gordon, Andy Panayi, Martin Drew, Jay Leonhart, Matt Home, Andrew Cleyndert, Joe Cohn, Ted Rosenthal and Steve Brown - not forgetting an impromptu duet in New York with the renowned actor Christopher Walken, singing "I've Got You Under My Skin"!
Quite amazing for someone who had never been on stage until 2001 - then gave up his day job in 2003! And to cap it all, he was also one of four nominees up for a national music award alongside Texas, Ilan Volkov and Annie Lennox.
A recent article by journalist and radio presenter, Alison Kerr, summed up Todd's musical history to date:
EVERYTHING HAPPENS TO HIM... IN THE END
(Scotland on Sunday, 4 December 2005)
Todd Gordon's life story would make a great Hollywood biopic. The plot would go something like this: child from broken home discovers the music of Frank Sinatra and escapes into the world of song. In his teens he meets another idol, Ella Fitzgerald, who encourages him to sing and before long he's wowing audiences at home and abroad, while attracting the attention of some of his favourite vocalists, including Jamie Cullum. The feelgood climax of the film would be Gordon staging a heartwarming Christmas show.
All of these things happened, or will happen, though not exactly in quick succession: it took Gordon more than 20 years to heed Fitzgerald's advice, and his relatively new career as a jazz and swing singer followed a successful working life with an exhibition company.
Gordon, now 46, was an avid Beatles fan until he was 11. He recalls the defining musical moment in his life. "One night my mum said to me, 'You've been listening to your music; I want to listen to some of mine for an hour.' Of course I thought this was a totally unreasonable request. She put on Sinatra's Songs for Swinging Lovers, and I didn't pay much attention until 'You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me' came on. I remember thinking, 'When does he breathe?' That was it - I got hooked, playing the same song over and over."
Abandoning The Beatles, Gordon threw himself into the world of this kind of music. "I was having a hard time at home and music was a form of escape. I often close my concerts with 'Something Good' from The Sound of Music, because it's got that line about having had a 'miserable youth'."
Gordon's newfound enthusiasm was viewed with bemusement by his classmates who quickly nicknamed him Bing - not, as Gordon points out, that he listened to Bing Crosby. "It must have been the pipe," he quips.
When Gordon returned to school after one of the numerous periods of absenteeism following his parents' split, he found a strange piece of calculus chalked up on the blackboard. He says: "The maths teacher and the class had been working out how many days I'd be off sick if I listened to all my Sinatra albums back to back."
A painfully shy youngster, it took all Gordon's nerve to seek out Ella Fitzgerald when she came to sing at the Usher Hall in 1975. Armed with flowers, he hung about the stage door hoping to see her arrive. He eventually got to meet her while she lunched at the Caledonian Hotel and, during the show, she brought him onstage to serenade him with 'You Are the Sunshine of My Life'.
"It was funny," says Gordon. "She said to the audience, 'Isn't that sweet. He spent his little bread on me instead of Elton John!' She was absolutely charming, rather maternal and incredibly shy herself. I remember saying to her that I wished I could do what she did, because it brings so much pleasure to people, and she said, 'Well, if you've got a voice, you go ahead'."
Nevertheless, Gordon didn't pursue a career in music. He didn't even fantasise about being a singer, though he enjoyed taping himself "warbling along" to the records in his fast-growing collection, which contained LPs by Peggy Lee, and the Ellington and Basie bands.
The turning point came in the late 1990s when Gordon came into contact with a karaoke machine during a work night out. The positive reaction to his performance from his colleagues left him "elated" and he signed up for one of the jazz vocal workshops organised by vocalist Fionna Duncan. The confidence he gained there inspired him to seek out jam sessions in Edinburgh - still, purely for his own enjoyment.
Things soon snowballed: a one-off charity concert led to a two-night residency at the Edinburgh Jazz Festival. The big turning point came when the jazz festival's artistic director Mike Hart asked him to open for Dionne Warwick in 2003. "I gave up my day job when I got that gig," says Gordon. "I thought, I'll give it two years. If I fall flat on my face then I'll just have to go back to a day job."
Two years on, Gordon has a loyal fanbase, high-profile supporters, and a CV which boasts appearances at New York's Algonquin and Plaza hotels as well as Pizza Express in London - not to mention an imminent seven-city Christmas tour, and a new CD: a happy ending all round.
