Meet Jeff Moyer: Kids Musician Extraordinaire

We’re male, female… but we’re people first. We’re dark, we’re pale, but we’re people first. We’re people, just people. People living our lives. We’re people, just people, and we’re glad to be alive.

These lines, from the CD We’re People First are a few of the profound (but somehow fun to sing!) lyrics created and performed by Jeff Moyer. The first time I saw Jeff Moyer perform was in an inner city school here in Cleveland. It was a tough crowd. Kindergarten through grade 8. Try standing in front of that group of 200 and keeping them all engaged, but Jeff did just that.

An international musician (performing abroad, as well as in 47 of the states), he’s a Cleveland-based musician with a lot to offer kids. He's also something of a renaissance man: he's been a commentator on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, been featured on the CBS Evening News and 20/20, and in National Geographic magazine... not even to mention that BBC documentary on the U.S. disability rights movement.

Moyer's experience as a songwriter, author, historian, passionate public speaker, publisher, and champion of human rights and equality makes his music all the more worth listening to (one of the several awards he has received is for “Best Children’s Album, Just Plain Folks Music – 2003) and has the great lessons we want our children to embrace.

Travel back a few years to find the remarkable story of where Jeff came from and what he made of his own adventures in life. When Jeff was 5, he had a severe case of measles, of which one of the rare side effects is a progressive retinal disease that was left undiagnosed and untreated for a period of time. Complaining to his parents about poor vision, they took him to the eye doctor. The eye doctor told his parents he was pretending.

When he started taking piano lessons at age 6, the teacher made him sit back as though he could see the music. Wanting to play, he learned to do so by ear. Taking up the ukulele at age 11 and guitar at age 14, his talent grew as his abilities did. Although Jeff is legally blind, this disability has never stopped him. Today, visiting his home, one finds over 250 instruments from around the world. This love of world music, world cultures and the universal values of humankind influences the music he creates for kids.

Recently, Jeff sat down with Cool Cleveland to gain further insight to his life as a Cool Cleveland kid musician.

Cool Cleveland: Tell me about how you got your start with children’s music.

Jeff Moyer: This has definitely been a process of evolution. I have always been involved with music. My first children’s song I wrote was “Merry Go Round” (can be heard on Maxwell the Dancing Dog) which I wrote for my son nearly 30 years ago when he was 11 months old.

Officially, I began as a writer in the 1960s looking at the “issues of the day”. In the 1970s, I became a troubadour for the disabilities rights movement. In the 1980s, I began to look at music and disability. I realized there is no music that communicated the normalcy of disability. Working with the Cleveland Sight Center beginning in 1982, I was occasionally asked to work in the schools. I soon learned through writing and performing, that it helped kids learn that it is okay to have a disability. In the 1990s, I began this venture wholeheartedly. I began to realize that people who are different needed a voice. I realized how much fun it was. This was an avenue that pulled my interests as a writer, producer and musician together.

You’ve had some cool gigs. On your website (http://www.jeffmoyer.com), I see you with Peter, Paul and Mary, Miss America, and Ted Kennedy Jr., among others. What has been your favorite gig? Why?

Early on, when I had the idea for the song We’re People First, I was singing with a group of people with cognitive disabilities. I wanted to write a song that people could learn quickly. I started singing this song and people started coming up on stage with me. By the end of the song, there were 150 people on stage. It really showed the power of the music.

Another great experience was when I was in Australia performing at the Abillympics. There were 150 performers and I closed the concert with all of them on stage. We were singing A World Working Together (on the CD How Big is Your Circle). There were multicultural bands, mimes, and signers, all with disabilities. There were all these different voices. It was a thrill.

Then there are the toughest schools. Somehow, when the performance ends, we are all a community. I use music to communicate the truth and remind people what they already know. I don’t patronize kids. I use language they can connect to and have an opportunity to really change them. Every time I sit down to write, I remember that.

There is a connection that takes place while performing. It makes every audience unique and provides me an opportunity to make every concert my best performance. Two weeks ago, I was performing for Hospice. I can’t imagine any greater opportunity than to do what I love to do. It is what drives any of us. For every hour of performing there is a 100 hours of preparation.

What’s your favorite song you have written and recorded?

I'll answer that two ways: We Are All Family is close to the top because I’ve sung it with so many and do it in sign language. The words teach what I am fundamentally about. My belief is that music by its nature, a composition, carries a feeling. Any music that is well crafted carries you along and moves into your heart. With a lyric, you direct feeling in nature. Nothing else, like music, makes a heart and mind connection. When you add a spiritual element (universally) like we are connected and we can be loving, there is a deeper nature of our being. Through music, I try to help communities pull together, to celebrate our unity, our oneness, our human being. The song We Are All Family communicates these feelings and I often close each concert with this song.

I also really love the songs I sing with kids or they sing by themselves. (Interviewer’s note: Check out the kids singing on Maxwell the Dancing Dog, it will have your kids singing too!)

I have to ask, who is Maxwell (in reference to the CD Maxwell and the Dancing Dog) and does he really dance?

Maxwell is probably living on a farm in Burton at this point. He did dance. He was also a biter. When he wasn’t terrorizing the household, he was quite a lovable animal. When I was putting the album together, I remembered a guy that I knew in California who had a dog that danced and thought that was a cool idea so I named the album after Maxwell who, at that time, was also dancing.

That is a neat album. The kids on the album singing are a mix of kids with and without disabilities. I was working with them at their school and then brought them into the studio and had them perform. I do not use professional kids for recordings. Kids listening hear that the kids aren’t perfect and they want to sing along.

What’s next for you?

I am getting ready to do a concert at the Kids Included Together Conference, April 18 – 20 in San Diego, California.

Moyer is a key representative from the Northeast Ohio area and information on the conference he is participating in can be found at http://www.kitconference.org. You can check out Jeff Moyer’s calendar at http://www.jeffmoyer.com.

Moyer also performs a regular concert residency at Hospice of the Western Reserve in Cleveland. From schools, to camps, community venues to your living room, Jeff has a variety of recordings and also offers live performance programs designed to engage “kids of all ages” -- that means adults too!. To find out more about Jeff and “music that your children will never tire of,” contact Jeff at 440-442-2779 or via email at moyer@jeffmoyer.com.

From Cool Cleveland contributor Jeannie Fleming-Gifford, M.A., fleminggiffordATyahoo.com
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