Martha Lidd Publishing Co. - The Music of Jeff Bove

Jeff’s musical career was initially shaped at a young age by his Uncle Charlie Briggs, whose own high school “big band” featured well-known arranger and director, and close family friend Nelson Riddle.  Jeff watched Nelson’s orchestras on Academy Awards shows, and his arrangements and musical directions on notable works performed by Frank Sinatra, Nate Cole and Ella Fitzgerald.  From this, Jeff recognized the key role of disciplined arrangers, producers and directors.  Jeff was always a prolific composer, arranger and producer, who started at age nine creating his own styles of music with his first “band”, the “ Termites”, performing instrumental songs Jeff wrote in school assemblies that he assembled as a platform for his music. 

Interestingly, this music used Latin and calypso instruments and rhythms.  At age ten, Jeff started classical training in woodwinds, initially with the clarinet and later oboe.  Eventually, his creativity overwhelmed the standard music program at his school where he took over the school’s symphony orchestra practices wanting the orchestra to jam as he laid down the rhythm on orchestral tympanis.

If you lived in Wilmington, Delaware in 1969 and 1970, then inevitably you had heard of a band called Martha Lidd. It was the end of the 1960's. We had lived through a decade of war, racial upheaval, and cultural renaissance. Contemporary music was a reflection of this backdrop. In 1969, after five years of successful bands, Jeff Bove decided that the time was ripe for something that would paint a new musical landscape in Wilmington, and maybe beyond. He conducted auditions that first led him to guitarist Blake Ring. Bove's eclectic styles, a mix of San Francisco-folk rock and classical, would pair with Ring's never-ending love of jazz and blues (Blake would rehearse by learning Ella Fitzgerald vocal lines and Oscar Peterson's piano solos on the guitar). Both played red semi-hollow Gibson guitars, Ring with his stereo and Bove with his 335. The guitar combination broke new ground. Bove then added a versatile vocalist and performer, Julie Alexander, and bassist, Dave Berry, rounded out by drummer Jim Russell. Jim's drumming would hold it all together while everything swirled around it. Bove wrote sets of new music and Martha Lidd was launched. Later, Bob Cullen replaced Berry and Andy Eaton joined to add vocals and percussion.