"I’d imagine, all art forms -- be it dance, music, painting, film -- are essential to the health and well-being of a society. Without the promotion and proliferation of the arts we shrivel up -- or go underground. Those repressive regimes that forbid artistic expression are to us in the free world, terrifying. I would first of all hope for a peaceful future, one in which new ‘golden ages” of the arts flourish."

Jeff Shucard:

Sweet Papa Lowdown Plays The Blues

Jeff Shucard aka Sweet Papa Lowdown began his musical journey of roots music as a child in his grandparent’s attic in Paterson, N.J. In 1970’s he went into exile as a draft resister and took up residence in Ireland where he performed in local pubs, concentrating on the music of Blind Blake, whose piano sounding guitar and tongue in cheek lyrics were challenging and entertaining. By 1982, in Vancouver, with Ray Charles alumnus Dan Marcus and Bocephus King - Jamie Perry he started a group called Sweet Papa Lowdown. The trio performed a hybrid style of music he called post-modern retro-fusion hokum jazz and blues. Local record label Azimuth signed the band to a 3 record contract. Their CD release Lost & Found soon caught the attention of British jazz great Chris Barber. Summing up his admiration for the group, he told Jeff, “I rarely hear an album I wish I had made myself”. Collaboration with Chris Barber resulted in a live CD titled One of Your Smiles, produced by CBC Radio, Canada.

(Photo: Jeff Shucard aka Sweet Papa Lowdown)

Jeff’s next found inspiration came from Istanbul in the form of one Göksenin, an internationally acclaimed Turkish blues artist. This relationship resulted in many concerts and Jeff’s  2023 release titled As Good As This, a collaboration of North American and Turkish musicians. This rewarding experience has been is in Jeff’s own words, “a true blessing that transcends all borders to a place of heart and harmony”. Jeff regularly returns to Turkey to work with his Turkish family of musicians. Sweet Papa Lowdown’s new release is a 6-tracks EP recorded live in Turkey (2009) and titled “Live at Eylül Music Club” (2024) by Bone Union Records.

Interview by Michael Limnios

How has music influenced your views of the world and the journeys you’ve taken?

Enormously. I came of age in the late ‘60s and like so many others of my generation I was swept up by the anti-war/ civil rights movements of which protest-folk music was a powerful instrument for change. As Woody Guthrie’s guitar read: This Machine Kills Fascists. I can’t think of another period of civil unrest in which music played such a prominent role. Think of the young Bob Dylan and multiply that by millions of us all strumming our guitars, raising our voices for peace and equality. These songs, voices were inspiring, changed my life. It was then that I turned my back on America and set off on my journey of self – discovery that continues to this day here in Portugal.

How do you describe your sound and music philosophy? What's the balance in music between technique (skills) and soul/emotions?

Many years ago at a Sweet Papa Lowdown gig someone asked me what I called this style of music we were playing. I hadn’t really thought about it until that moment, but I made a title up on the spot: Post-Modern, Retro Fusion, Afro-American Hokum Jazz & Blues. That about covered it!

Part Two is an interesting question, one that I have long contemplated myself. I will attempt to answer it with an analogy I offer young musicians I mentor who become stuck in technique at the expense of art. I ask them to imagine they are tradesmen, electricians going to a job with their toolbox. The tradesman looks at the specific job at hand, opens the toolbox, and chooses the tools he needs. He doesn’t dump the entire toolbox on the floor for no reason. The musician has a toolbox too. These tools are called the elements of music: dynamics, nuance, understatement, tension, space, time, volume, key, force, subtlety, etc., the many things that a particular piece of music might ask for. Playing a set, for instance, with blazing speed or the volume cranked up to the max, simply because you can is, I feel, not art but an immature exercise in which there is little or no artistic growth. As odd as this might sound, I have often suggested that aspiring blues musicians listen to Schubert’s impromptus or sonatas for his great range of both skill and emotion. Or, for that matter, listen to Dinah Washington sing “After You’ve Gone,” the way she builds the tension up to the knockout punch of the final chorus.

"Enormously. I came of age in the late ‘60s and like so many others of my generation I was swept up by the anti-war/ civil rights movements of which protest-folk music was a powerful instrument for change. As Woody Guthrie’s guitar read: This Machine Kills Fascists. I can’t think of another period of civil unrest in which music played such a prominent role." (Sweet Papa Lowdown with Chris Barber Band)

What moment changed your music life the most? Which meetings have been the most important experiences for you?

This would have to be the time Chris Barber called me at my home in Vancouver from London to congratulate me on the album “Lost & Found” I had just made for Azimuth Records (now defunct). He told me that it was very rare that he ever heard a recording he wished he had made himself, but that was the case with my recording. That call led to him coming to Canada twice to tour and record with my band. That put us on the map, so to speak, and afforded us the opportunity to appear at better venues, concert halls, and music festivals. Chris was a most gracious man to work with, and an important figure in Blues history. I will always remember him with great affection and admiration.

Are there any memories from gigs, jams, open acts and studio sessions which you’d like to share with us?

So many! It’s impossible to choose just one, but there was this time playing solo at the Cork Folk Club about 1980 that I performed all four sections of “The Maple Leaf Rag” flawlessly, something I never dared attempt to do again! I guess I was just in one of those magical spaces where you can do no wrong. As I finished the piece to rousing applause, a shower of coins flew up at me from the audience – obviously someone who had heard me busking on the street that afternoon. Hanging out after the show I met the girl who had thrown the coins my way. About six months later we were married in Galway.

What do you miss most nowadays from the music of the past? What are your hopes and fears for the future of?

Well, the past is a huge subject, but one thing I miss are those “authentic” sounds of what was once known as regional or territorial – the music that belonged to distant and usually rural places that produced music unique to a certain time or place. This, of course, for me was the blues, ragtime, early jazz. These sounds were “real” in a way that transcended anything else I’d ever heard in my middle class upbringing. I enjoy all kinds of music, but these haunting sounds of the early U.S. 20^th Century were (and still are) mesmerizing. It is a most wonderful coincidence that the birth of jazz and blues coincided with the birth of the sound recordings industry. Imagine how very much poorer our musical lives would now be had the recording industry not yet been in existence...

"Having lived and performed and recorded in many locations from Istanbul to Vancouver for over 40 years, my experience has been that the blues resonates on a universal frequency. The plaintive Irish ballads I played in Connemara, the fado tradition here in Portugal, even the wailing of the imam in Turkey have much in common socially and artistically: the shared history of hardship and faith, of longing and desire. These themes unite us all." (Photo: Jeff Shucard, Ireland 1980)

What is the impact of music on the socio-cultural implications? How do you want the music to affect people?

I’d imagine, all art forms -- be it dance, music, painting, film -- are essential to the health and well-being of a society. Without the promotion and proliferation of the arts we shrivel up -- or go underground. Those repressive regimes that forbid artistic expression are to us in the free world, terrifying. I would first of all hope for a peaceful future, one in which new ‘golden ages” of the arts flourish.

What are some of the most important lessons you have learned from your experience in the music paths?

To become oneself, to create one’s own vision, to not emulate others but to compose, arrange, or interpret music that has your personal stamp on it, to make it identifiably yours, to “own” what you play. That, I believe, is the ultimate goal. For better or worse, I have always been myself, sounded like myself, and trusted that there was a small but worthy niche in the music marketplace that would enjoy my stuff – and so it has been.

Canada, Turkey, Europe. Are there any similarities between the blues and the genres of folk and traditional local music forms?

Having lived and performed and recorded in many locations from Istanbul to Vancouver for over 40 years, my experience has been that the blues resonates on a universal frequency. The plaintive Irish ballads I played in Connemara, the fado tradition here in Portugal, even the wailing of the imam in Turkey have much in common socially and artistically: the shared history of hardship and faith, of longing and desire. These themes unite us all.

You’ve one release by Bone Union Records and Sarp Keskiner. How did that relationship come about? Do you have any interesting stories about the making of “Live at Eylül Music Club” in 2009?                (Photo: Sweet Papa Lowdown, Turkey)

In the year 2000, I arrived in Istanbul with the intention of teaching English at a language school in the Kadıköy district. I was recovering from a life threatening illness that prevented me from touring with British band leader – legendary trombonist Chris Barber. Though I had a guitar with me, I knew absolutely nothing about the Istanbul music scene and due to my health issues, I was not interested in performing at all. Then, one day in a local music store I met a university student who played electric guitar named Berk Sirman; who befriended me and took it upon himself to book me into a few clubs. One of those clubs was called Shaft and it was there that I met Sarp Keskiner, who enthusiastically welcomed me into the vibrant blues scene in which his band Moe Joe performed.

Sarp, as I discovered, was an avid student of blues history as well as a fine musician and producer. His ideas were far reaching and yet always in the pocket of the various genres of music he performed. Perhaps he alone in Turkey knew the music of Charley Patton, John Hurt and my favorite, Blind Blake. And so it happened that due to Sarp’s generosity of spirit and interest in acoustic country blues that we began working together. Listening now to these tracks recorded 15 years ago, I’m taken by the raw energy we collectively produced. Back then, many clubs that we performed at with a busy schedule had little in the way of sound equipment. As I clearly remember, around the mid-2000’s there were even some nights where we spent more time doing the sound check than playing. Although draining, some of the accumulated energy of the band; the primitive but vital energy of the venues suited us fine as somehow we ended up sounding like early Chess recordings at the end of the day! Thus, I often felt as though we were musical astronauts playing a style of music no one Turkey had ever heard before. Once the Turkish core of SPL line-up was set; with the support of my never ending energy on finding a new venue to play our music and following an eclectic approach to build up circular line-ups as booking who is available to gig with the band from the local scene; Sweet Papa Lowdown succeeded to tour in Turkey not for once but for three times as in 2000, 2004, 2006 while regularly holding gigs in the most respected clubs in Istanbul. Eylul (September) Music Club was one of the hot spots of the then lively blues scene, as all along the decade of 2000; each club in Istanbul had their own audience with specific musical tastes. Going back to the subject of circular but irregular touring schedule of SPL, the band found many chances to visit cities namely as Izmir, Izmit, Adana, Mersin, Antakya, Ankara, Mugla and Antalya while the line-ups that are mostly comprised of multi-instrumentalist national blues celebrities were also and intentionally enhanced by addition of well-respected names from Canada / USA such as Doug Rhodes, Rick Van Krugel, Blaine Dunaway, Dan Smith, Dan Marcus and Kris Bowerman. Regarding a vast audio archive that feature those aforementioned names that brought their own stance of blues to the band, SPL found a chance to create a unique mélange of blues, ragtime and gospel music in a swinging period of six years while establishing a common ground that gave the opportunity of a mutual exchange between local and international blues experts. Thus, this audio-doc is launched as just starting point and I hope other live albums of SPL shall create a series. Looking back on it; those were good days... My respect for the music that is produced by various line-ups of the band in Istanbul continued to grow in the next decades and now, I feel grateful to have been a part of that scene. 

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(Photos: Jeff Shucard aka Sweet Papa Lowdown in Turkey; with Chris Barber; in Ireland; with his band)