NIPPON CROWN RECORDS RECORDING ARTIST
Information and photo provided by Tim Donahue
Nippon Crown Records is proud to present American virtuoso guitarist/composer Tim Donahue. Signed to Nippon Crown in 1994, Tim's childhood musical influences include composer Claude Debussy and guitarist Jimi Hendrix. Rock music maintains a special place in his heart, along with jazz, classical and Eastern music, and his recorded works have spanned these genres. But this extraordinary guitarist's music is also a result of years of guitar innovation. His past reveals a fascinating story.
Donahue
had been playing guitar for a number of years when in 1980, the search for a sound in his
head led him to construct one without frets. In a recent GUITAR magazine interview, he
states, "I had been playing blues, rock and just about anything else you can imagine,
but there was something missing--the sound!" Jazz was tugging at him, so armed with
his new fretless love, Tim entered Boston's Berklee College of Music. His approach turned
some heads. "Some people thought I was crazy!" he says, but credits his teachers
with giving him support and encouragement to keep developing his sound. Tim certainly knew
that his music was dependent on his unique approach. While in Boston, Eastern music also
caught his ear and he met his wife Kumiko.
After graduating from Berklee, Japan was the next stop. Living at the bottom of picturesque Mt Fuji, Tim frantically composed and performed music that would be on his first solo record. Released in 1986, the album was nominated by JAZZIZ Magazine as one of the Best Jazz Albums of that year . But in the years that followed, Tim's musical needs would change drastically, and he built new instruments to meet those needs. His most stunning creations are his fretless electric harp guitars, instruments that afford him a huge palatte of sounds. Now, most certainly the world's only master of these instruments, Tim's unmistakable sound has graced 4 solo albums, a movie soundtrack, 2 solo videos aired on VH-1 in the US, as well as countless television commercials in Japan.
Tim's first album for Nippon Crown, "STILL DREAMING", was released in 1994 and is a compilation of undescribably beautiful music done solo, and with his band. The album caught the attention of Shochiku Movie Productions, who then enlisted Tim to compose the soundtrack for "MARKS NO YAMA", a complicated psycho-thriller and best selling Japanese novel. Released in 1995, this was Tim's opportunity to compose, orchestrate and arrange for a wide variety of instruments such as strings, brass, and even bagpipes.
Tim's music has come full circle, back to what he loves most...high energy rock.
For 1997, he returns to his hard rock roots and teams up with legendary producer Eddie Kramer (Jimi Hendrix, Kiss, Led Zepplin) and vocal great Paul Rodgers (Free, Bad Co.) to give us "VOICES IN THE WIND", a powerful, melodic rock album that fans around the world are sure to enjoy.
Tohru Shinoda
NIPPON CROWN RECORDS
TOKYO