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BIOGRAPHY American-born fretless guitarist Tim Donahue's colourful recording career encompasses many aspects of the recording industry. Composer, performer, orchestrator, producer, guitar innovator, clinician and teacher are just some of the hats Donahue has worn. Most notable is the range of musical genres in which Donahue has worked with - otherworldly ambient music, orchestral film score, instrumental jazz / fusion to hard driving hard rock with some of today's most talented vocalists. Born in Niagara Falls USA, Donahue's earliest musical influences were Jimi Hendrix and impressionist composer Claude Debussy. Today Donahue sites everything from jazz to heavy metal to Eastern music as having influenced his work. Donahue's talent for melody and songwriting naturally draws from these influences. In addition to virtuosic fretless guitar work, these have become Tim Donahue's musical trademarks. Having designed and built many of the instruments he uses today, Donahue's innovative guitar approach has played a major role in shaping his career. In the 1980's, after playing guitar for a number of years, Tim began imagining a guitar sound previously unheard of. Tim recalls, "I was playing blues, rock, classical and just about anything else you can imagine, but that sound was missing!" Tim was driven to build his first fretless guitar, and thus found the sound he was searching for. With a scholarship and his new instrument in hand, Donahue entered Boston's Berklee College of Music. Eventhough the main focus at Berklee was to develop his writing skills, Tim was dedicated to mastering fretless guitar, an instrument no one played exclusively. Upon graduating from Berklee, Donahue moved to Japan, and performed live non-stop while writing the ethereal fusion-based music for his first solo album The Fifth Season. This album was subsequently nominated by JAZZIZ MAGAZINE as one of the TOP 5 Jazz Albums of 1986. Two promotional videos were filmed, airing in Japan and on VH-1 in the USA. Donahue's design and construction of innovative fretless guitars caught the attention of Japan's Selva Guitar Company. Licensed from one of Tim's designs in 1986, the Selva Tim Donahue Model became the world's first production fretless guitar. Donahue also wrote FRETLESS GUITAR TECHNIQUE, the first instructional fretless guitar book. THE FIFTH SEASON After the release of The Fifth Season, Donahue's musical direction changed drastically, leading him to create the fretless electric harp guitar, a totally new instrument never seen before in the guitar world. While developing the amazing technique required to play this instrument, Donahue spent the next 3 years performing solo harp guitar concerts throughout Southern California. While in Southern California, Musician's Institute and The Grove School of Music regularly hosted Tim Donahue fretless harp guitar clinics, exposing students to the many unique guitar concepts Donahue was pioneering. During this time, Donahue recorded his second solo project Brief Departure for Rittor Music Productions. 1990 - 1994 saw Donahue furiously composing solo fretless harp guitar music for TV documentary and commercials in Japan. Time cites this period as being the most prolific and creative time in his career, having written and recorded over 200 works for fretless harp guitar alone. Some of these pieces can still be heard on the air today, as Donahue's style became widely copied throughout Japanese TV music. Other works includes promotional videos for the Fernandes Guitar Sustainer (with Eddie Van Halen, Steve Hackett and Zakk Wylde) and the World Wildlife Federation of Japan (WWFJ). In 1994 Donahue signed exclusively to Nippon Crown Records and released his third solo album Still Dreaming which features fretless harp guitar works in a variety of musical settings. The album caught the attention of Shockiku Film Productions, who commissioned Tim to score the movie soundtrack for Marks No Yama, a complicated psycho-thriller and best selling Japanese novel. Scoring the film was Tim's opportunity to compose and orchestrate for strings, brass, even bagpipes. Nippon Crown released the Marks No Yama soundtrack CD in May 1995. STILL DREAMING MARKS NO YAMA By 1997, Donahue had gravitated back to the music he loves most - hard, driving rock. Teaming up with legendary producer / engineer Eddie Kramer (of Jimi Hendrix, Led Zepplin and KISS fame) and vocal great Paul Rodgers, Nippon Crown released Tim's powerful & heavy rock album Voices In The Wind. This was an opportunity for fans to hear Tim and Paul Rodgers in totally new musical settings. The blending of Donahue's musical world with Paul Rodgers' legendary voice brought the album critical acclaim, and launched Donahue further into a heavy rock direction. VOICES IN THE WIND 1997 - 1999 saw Donahue focus on writing Into The Light, an album of furious vocal-oriented guitar-driven rock. With Kelly Hansen on vocals, the album for the first time featured Tim Donahue on all instruments, production & engineering. Into The Light was released in 2001 to even more worldwide acclaim, at times making critics' lists for best album of the year. INTO THE LIGHT This period also saw Donahue develop and patent DR. HOOK, an innovative electric guitar strapbutton, which secures the electric guitar cable while preventing the guitar strap from accidentally popping off. Tim Donahue side projects include the compilation albums Guitars For Freedom Vol. 2 (with Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page & Steve Lukather) and Fretless Guitar Masters, a unique compilation of fretless guitarists from around the world. 2003 saw Tim sign with EMI for his sixth solo album Madmen & Sinners, a new project featuring vocalist extraordinaire James LaBrie of Dream Theater and drummer Mike Mangini. Released worldwide in April 2004, Madmen & Sinners is becoming recognised as a prog / metal masterpiece. Inspired by such wonderful response, Tim is currently working on Madmen & Sinners Part 2, which carries the tentative title Edge Of Insanity and will again feature the voice of James LaBrie on a number of tracks. MADMEN & SINNERS Tim Donahue endorses
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