Biography
During the early and middle years of the 1990s, Don Lennon fronted Boston band The Umpteens, which issued three cassettes and one single before its short run ended. His move into solo work came in 1997 with Maniac, released on Martin Phillips Records after being tracked at Studio 7 under producer Sean Drinkwater. The resulting deadpan, straightforward delivery quickly attracted notice within indie pop and indie rock circles, while his offbeat compositions invited comparisons to Jonathan Richman and the Talking Heads. From the beginning Lennon worked and performed alongside an assortment of supporting players that included numerous drummers, bassists, violinists, and saxophonists. In 1999 the self-titled Don Lennon followed on the same Martin Phillips label, this time recorded at Zippah Studios with producer Pete Weiss. The 2002 album Downtown, issued by Indiana’s Secretly Canadian Records and again captured at Zippah with Weiss, represented a marked departure from the earlier pair of releases. Lennon also composed the scores for three Gary Knight films: How to Cut Cake, Concord, Mass, and Knock In on Kevin’s Door. In the fall of 2002 he returned to the studio to begin work on his fourth solo recording.