Born in Madison, Wisconsin, Ted Hefko began writing lyrics in the second grade and picked up the guitar and saxophone a few years later. Fresh out of high school, he caught a Greyhound bus down I-55 to New Orleans. He earned a degree in Jazz Performance from the University of New Orleans in 2000, studying with Ellis Marsalis, Harold Battiste, Ed Petersen and Steve Masakowski, and cut his teeth touring nationally with the jazz-jam outfit Idletime in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
After some years in New York City — where he worked as a movie extra and led his own jazz groups — Hefko returned to New Orleans about a decade ago, drawn back by the roots music that fit his talents like a glove. He grew from freelance saxophonist to composer and bandleader with his first all-original album, Egyptland (2009), followed by the jazzier and more playful If I Walked On Water and Distillations of the Blues, recorded in the Crescent City.
With his band Ted Hefko and The Thousandaires — Hefko on vocals, guitar and tenor sax — he brings raw life lessons of hope and hustlers, saints and strays, drifters and the down-and-out to life with the rough-hewn tone of backwoods folk and the raucous vibrancy of classic Louisiana R&B. Gas Station Guru (2018) brought them radio airplay around the world, and Down Below earned a spot on OffBeat's 2021 best-albums list. They have played the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and French Quarter Fest.
