MADCAP FRIEND & BRILLIANT MUSICIAN: REMEMBERING JEFF LLOYD

Happy Heavenly Birthday to a trailblazer lost in a frontier of his own making

Everyone thought Jeff Lloyd could’ve been a rock star. He was a good-looking and charismatic guy—the one-two punch to be “the next big thing” in showbiz. Chrysalis Records took an interest in him as a singer-songwriter, and he contributed to a major motion picture soundtrack. Yet Jeff eventually chose of life of obscurity in a Florida suburb, emerging to play music strictly on his own mercurial terms. Despite that, his world-class musical vision had an impact on everyone who heard him. He loomed large as a multi-talented comrade and, perhaps unwittingly, he mentored my career and my life. He was also the “leader of the pack” who encouraged me and a group of friends to “invade” California in 1977—to become, in his words, “west coast animals.”

Early in the 1970s, like many fleeing the Rust Belt back then, Jeff’s family moved from his native Detroit to Seminole, Florida. Similarly, I’d moved with my Dad from Pennsylvania to Seminole in 1974. Jeff and I were introduced in late 1975 by my Seminole High School friend Mark Jones (another multi-talented madcap who I still work with). I’d just moved back to Florida after a round-trip summering with a band in New York and I was hungry for new projects.

The following year Jeff and I recorded together, and he motivated me to study tone, compression, signal processing, how to use microphones, and more, and his guidance on songwriting moved me forward by miles. Mutual friends will report that Jeff was a patient and meticulous teacher, and he taught us how to mindfully probe recordings—how to learn from them and to celebrate the work that went into the finished production. We spent hours analyzing world music, electronic and fringe music, occasionally disco, and our favorite records by Badfinger, Beatles, Bee Gees, King Crimson, Kinks, Roxy Music, 10cc, Yes, and The Beach Boys—in fact, my notorious deep dive fan-dom of The Beach Boys was prompted by Jeff.

I benefitted from Jeff’s eclectic knowledge of stringed instruments as he showed me alternate tunings and the mechanics of electric guitar. He was also skilled on synthesizer, and he encouraged me to knuckle down as a keyboardist.

Jeff was also a comic, with a knack for turning the most mundane situation into a hilarious epic, complete with cartoon voices. What made all the difference, though, was his passion. He could hold people spellbound with his contagious excitement for the diversities of art, music, philosophy, religion, science, and the cosmos (from Beat Poets to lasers). Example: He was keenly interested in Paolo Solieri, the respected architect-philosopher. Solieri is hardly a household name, but everyone in our circle read his books because of Jeff’s enthusiasm. He even visited Soleri’s home in Arizona, spent hours with the old man, and came out with a collection of Soleri’s hand-made bells that Jeff gave out as presents (I got one).

We kept in touch over the years, exchanging goofy postcards and random music shares. Our last in-person time was around 2007-10. I was touring with Davy Jones (Monkees) and we were frequently gigging in central Florida. Jeff stopped by, taking video and hanging out with the band. In turn, we (Davy and band members) went to see Jeff play percussion with a Neo-traditional flamenco dance group in St. Petersburg.

As of this writing, there’s little of Jeff’s original music available in any format. Thankfully, I was handed high quality recordings from a 1973 Madeira Beach bar gig he did with his cover band Crystal Drive.

I made videos for their cover of “Marley Purt Drive” (Bee Gees) and…

“Ventura Highway” (America).

Also available are ten YouTube clips of his collaboration with the world music group Tree of Life from 2011-12

Over the years Jeff and I performed a few concerts together (including a 1980 crazy-noisy San Francisco art gallery gig from which we stormed out of mid-set), and we wrote at least four pieces together. A few were recorded, and “Ya Gotta Care” appeared on my first album in 1985:

Sadly, Jeff quietly passed in 2022 and he did not leave an orderly archive of his recorded legacy. Maybe he was flippant about his work. He was an “in the moment” type and would abandon projects for mysterious reasons, no matter how good they were. Nor did he try to build an audience beyond passing groups of friends or whatever went down at live gigs. In 1979 he contributed music to the film TILT starring Brooke Sheilds (as a pinball wizard), but the credits went to the film composer Lee Holdridge (review note: the music is the best thing about this hard-to-like film). In the 80s he made a series of superb singer-songwriter recordings well worth hearing—if we can only find them. It’s been like a quest for the lost ark to find workable copies of his demos and masters. Meanwhile, I’m very grateful that Jeff did care to share his incredible talents and gifts with the world. His influence and example inspired countless musicians and creatives.

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