Greene began his own guitar studies at the age of 11, and was an accomplished player while still in high school, occasionally collaborating with local rock and R&B bands. He briefly studied accounting at California State University, Northridge, but dropped out to devote more time to music. In the 1960s he was a member of the rock band Natural Selection and a blues rock group called
Bluesberry Jam, which included future
Canned Heat drummer
Fito de la Parra. He was a friend and collaborator with
Joseph Byrd, on whose Columbia Masterworks album
The American Metaphysical Circus he was featured (he also provided the whimsical name of the studio band who performed it, "The Field Hippies"). During the late 1960s and early 1970s he did commercial studio work with Byrd.
Ted Greene: Sound, Time, and Unlimited Possibility, by guitarist Terrence McManus, published in 2015, is the most complete analysis of Greene's work that exists. Greene helped Fender design a 1952 Telecaster vintage reissue (their first such reissue) by making reference to his collection of old Telecasters, Esquires,
Broadcasters and
Nocasters. Greene died in his Encino apartment of a heart attack on July 23, 2005, at age 58. In 2009 Barbara Franklin wrote the biography
My Life with The Chord Chemist: A Memoir of Ted Greene, Apotheosis of Solo Guitar. She died on August 13, 2011. == Discography ==