About
Edward Felix McTeigue was a Grammy-nominated songwriter and music producer.
Born in New Jersey, McTeigue grew up with parents Joan and Frank McTeigue. His birth mother was Maggie Roche of folk band the Roches which she formed with her sisters Suzzy and Terre. McTeigue performed on Roche's posthumous album, Where Do I Come From, Selected Songs by Maggie Roche (1951-2017).
Singer-songwriter Lucy Wainwright Roche, Suzzy's daughter with Loudon Wainwright III, is McTeigue's cousin.
For his 2001 debut album, Felix McTeigue, reviewer Brett Hartenbach wrote "McTeigue shares his mother's talent for writing intelligent and fetching, if slightly left-of-center, material, delivering a dozen (13, if you include the amusing hidden track) irresistible folk-pop tunes that can be as joyful as they can be melancholy, but always with a keen eye on the everyday."
For his 2005, three-CD album New Deal , McTeigue recorded and produced 50 songs in 50 days with McTeigue playing all the instruments. That same year, he provided contributing vocals to Josh Cole's album Hypocriticool.
McTeigue 's catalog at ASCAP lists more than 130 songs to his credit. He collaborated with musicians Patty Smythe, Peter Blachley, Julie Kathryn, Lisa Bastoni, Sophie Sanders, Tommy Brunett, Heidi Newfield, Shane McAnally and Erin Enderlin.
As a songwriter, McTeigue collaborated with Lori McKenna's “Wreck You,” which was part of her Grammy nominated 2008 album, The Bird & The Rifle. McKenna spoke of McTeigue: “He had an extraordinary ability to harness magic in the room that no one else could see.” The song was also nominated for a Grammy and Americana Music Award. The song features "lovely filigreed guitar work in the vein of James Taylor, finds the narrator worrying over troubling changes in a relationship that might be her fault."
McTeigue worked with Chris Tompkins and Craig Wiseman on Florida Georgia Lines No. 1 hit “Anything Goes” that became the title of their second studio album. Taste of Country wrote about the song "By freeing themselves of the shackles of what is or isn't 'real' country music, this duo is able to fall into rhymes and metaphors that set their sound apart as much as their in-your-face production style...Sonically, the song is very similar to many (but not all) of FGL's previous hits...a closer listen reveals an incredibly refined sonic landscape."
“We always wrote great songs together,” recalled Tompkins. “The first time we met, we were instant friends. I’m so thankful for the good times we had and the beautiful songs.” The song entered the Billboard Country Airplay at number 50 on June 27, 2015, and peaked at number 3 on October 31, 2015. It sold 430,000 copies in the US as of November 2015 and was certified Platinum by the RIAA on September 23, 2016.
McTeigue and Tompkins also wrote Canadian country singer Dallas Smith’s, “Jumped Right In,” title track for the Juno nominated Gold-certified album and Platinum-certified EP.
He met wife Liz Lynch at a folk rock adaptation of the Odyssey at The Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture. They have two children, Nora and William. After the birth of his children, McTeigue transitioned to become a sought-after songwriter and producer. As a producer he cut more than 30 albums. His production credits include Vermont's Max Linehan, Sami.The.Great and Tommy Brunett's album Hell or High Water. Kobalt Music Publishing represents hundreds of his songs, several dozen of which were in various phases of production at the time of his death.
In 2015, McTeigue partnered with ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) and America SCORES, a non-profit youth development organization dedicated to enriching the lives of America’s youth by incorporating arts and exercise into everyday life, for the 62nd ASCAP Songwriter Residency.
McTeigue with Boston area America SCORES students. Over a period of two days, McTeigue and the young musicians produced "a poignant, rhythmic, and youthful original track, “The World’s On Fire" possessing "airy, enthusiastic vocals, generous melodies, surprisingly full solos, and uncomplicated instrumentation." McTeigue reflected upon the experience: "The kids were amazing – the brilliance of it, the lyrics and the singing – it was incredible. This demographic is not represented at all. They sent me the tracks and I produced them and it turned out great. If they asked me to do it again I would do it in five seconds.”
Edward Felix McTeigue died July 24, 2020 after complications from surgery. He was 48 years old.
Anaïs Mitchell releassed a new single "On Your Way (Felix Song)" in January 2022, which is an ode to Felix. The song was featured on her first album in over a decade, Anaïs Mitchell. Mitchell wrote about the song: "I wrote "On Your Way (Felix Song)" for my friend Felix McTeigue, who died unexpectedly in 2020. We briefly had the same manager in our early "hustling days" of trying to get a songwriter career going. I can picture us playing at the old Living Room on the lower east side, and me being one of five people in Felix's audience, and vice versa. Felix was really fearless and present, he always had a guitar on his back, he was always writing something, he loved the act of just rushing headlong into writing, recording, not overthinking it. It's a lesson I'll return to for the rest of my life."
