Jeff Standfield

Jeff’s musical journey began long before he knew it had started. As a toddler, he was steeped in sound by folk-loving parents whose guitars were never far from reach. Many evenings rang with strummed chords as his mom and dad played through a growing stack of music sheets, often handwritten, wine-stained, and softened by time. On special weekends, neighbours gathered for a good old hootenanny, complete with gut bucket and washboard, turning the living room into a small, joyful orchestra.

After being sent to bed, Jeff and the visiting kids would slip downstairs with pillows and blankets, aiming to get as close to the music as possible without being spotted. They would eventually drift off, wrapped in laughter and song, only to wake the next morning back in their beds as if by magic. As Jeff grew older, he began to sense how music reached something deeper in us all. It was rhythmic and hypnotic, spiritual and mysterious. It was adventurous, playful, and above all, it was family.

Around the age of ten, Jeff began to study the craft itself, captivated by the interplay of rhythm, melody, and words. Without prompting, he spent hours playing the records his parents loved. It was the late 1960s, the height of the folk era. Jeff would sit beside the stereo, headphones on, listening intently for every nuance. This was the time of the Beatles, Elvis, the Beach Boys, and the Rolling Stones. Motown was in full bloom, with the Temptations and the Supremes weaving their counterpoint melodies. And at the heart of it all was folk music: Peter, Paul and Mary, Simon and Garfunkel, and our own Gordon Lightfoot, voices that helped shape not just his taste, but his sense of wonder.