I, Ced

Who am I?

I, CED

Where you come from?

St. Louis, MO native all day, every day. Don’t know what else to say.

How long have you been doing music and how?

Well, I have been playing instruments since the age of six. I felt that it was always in me but officially, six is the age I started. I played in school the clarinet but my brother told me that I was going to play the piano/keyboard like George Duke and he would be the bass man like Stanley Clarke. My Aunt Ernestine (RIP) taught me chords and basic note readings. For the most part, I was playing by ear with my left hand. Since then, that is where it started. I didn’t want to do anything else but play music. That is the reason why I am sportly challenged. LOL. My love for music grew and grew. I have directed music in the school choir, thanks to my teach, Ms. Linda Roby(RIP). She used to let me stay after school and play on the keyboard so I could create since I didn’t have that kind of keyboard that I could sequence. Then it grew to me recording in different studios. I have been in love with music ever since.

Who have you worked with that we might be familiar with?

Black Spade, Coultrain, Hidden Beach Recordings, and some others that I can’t remember off the top of my head but I will get back to you on that. I have been in this game since I interned at a few record labels.

Who are your influences?

Man… Too many to name. I will start with Donny Hathaway and Stevie Wonder. My father has a lot of records and him, my mother, my aunt, and my brother would play. So, it comes from Jerry Butler, The Coasters, Gene Chandler to Eddie Kendricks, LaBelle, Shirley Casaer, Mahalia Jackson, Rev. James Cleveland to Ronnie Milsap, Kenny Rogers, Lee Greenwood to Journey, Yes, The Grand Funk Band, Chicago, EW&F. I mean I can go on and on so let me stop there. I am still a music geek.

Tell me how you’ve come about with this project.

Basically, I just wanted to have the feeling that is missing in a lot of music today. Maybe I am speaking about the commercial music. You know when you used to feel a certain energy and emotion in music? That was my attempt with this particular project and giving it my own interpretation. I wanted to feel like I was in the studio with some of the artists back in the day. The warmth of everything back then. Basically, I want to share that with everybody. I think we need that right now.