Social Media Officer
Theodore Williams, aka Teddy, was appointed tambourine player of the GoGo Symphony in 2013. Shortly after that, he became the social media officer.
Teddy became interested in playing drums at age seven, but his family could not afford to pay for drum lessons. The first artist he tried to imitate was Elvis Presley, with a rolled-up newspaper as his guitar. After being drafted into the military and working at the post office, Teddy bought a military-style metal whistle and partied with it all the time. At age twenty-seven, he bought a used drum set, but his playing took a back seat to work and raising a family. Later in life, he purchased his first tambourine made of metal with screws and a removable cover. “I started playing it everywhere,” he said.
In August of 2011, Courtney Hicks, then a morning DJ at Majic 102.3 in DC invited Teddy to the station to celebrate the seventy-fifth birthday of Chuck Brown, the “Godfather” of go-go music. When Teddy met Chuck and other go-go celebrities, Chuck shook Teddy’s tambourine. “I swear he left some magic dust or DNA on them,” Teddy reminisced.
Teddy joined Chuck Brown’s Facebook page, where he saw a post about the GoGo Symphony hiring musicians. He sent them a message about playing tambourine for them. It took two years for an answer to come, but after he auditioned over the phone for Liza, the leader of the group, he got the gig. “I finally made it on stage at the tender age of sixty-two and three weeks …No matter how big or small, dreams do come true.”
Teddy is the fifth of eight children. His father James Williams was a World War Two veteran and retired postal worker. His “strong mother” was Geneva Leggett Williams. He was a second-generation, and she a first-generation Washington DC resident.