I want you to meet my brother in law Jeff Lakey:

I want you to meet him because Jeff is one of those people who, when you meet him you will know you have met someone truly special. Someone whose soul will touch yours, who’s energy will ripple through you, you will feel it, I know I did.

Jeff has an incredible story. He has through is journey battling addictions put so much of it into music.

His music is raw, it is real. It evokes emotions, it can’t not. It makes us feel and no matter what our life journey is allowing ourselves to feel the emotions within us is how and where we can start to heal. This is what the world needs more than ever, to have the sbity to feel and to heal.

Most of us have been taught to suppress our emotions. ” to get on with it” ” get over it”, when what we need to teach is to feel it, the hurt, the pain, the joy. We all have things in life sometimes we manage through them fairly well, sometimes they break us. Whether it be drugs and alcohol, illness, family, work, life can be and is hard, we make it harder by trying to toughen up to get through things.

I do believe we need a certain amount of toughness and stubbornness to help propel us forward, bit dometimes what we really need is to be allowed to feel. To have what we feel accepted and acknowledged.

Music helps do many people and Jeff’s music is the music that acknowledges, draws you in allows you to feel, to come away with a different outlook, with a little more compassion, with our own vulnerability coming to the surface.

I know as a person living with dementia, Jeff’s music says so well so much of what a person living with dementia feels, and yet it was not written about dementia, but it shows how the music can transcend it ways we cannot.

Jeff’s sings from his heart, music that can heal, music that can inspire. Please take a listen, read Jeff’s Story, share his music, let’s together through music help heal the world. Thank you, Jeff, for sharing your talent and sharing your story.

Here is a link to one of Jeff’s incredibly beautiful songs as well as a little of Jeff’s Story. There will be more I will share over the next while.

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INSPIRATION, PEOPLE

JEFF LAKEY, HEALING WITH MUSIC

SEPTEMBER 9, 2017 ART MARTENS 3 COMMENTS

Jeff Lakey

Sitting under a lush canopy of green leaves in a Cawston orchard last week, I asked musician Jeff Lakey, “What has surprised you?” He replied, “I’m surprised I’m still alive and healthy.” After hearing his story, Linda and I were surprised too.

The setting was a neighbourhood gathering of orchardists, farmers, fruit pickers, and anyone living in the area. A long table was laden with tempting, sumptuous dishes. I lost count of the many people seated at tables scattered among the trees.

Jeff was there as one of the entertainers who would perform on the spacious stage. He had asked us to meet him here for the conversation we had arranged when he was in Hedley with his band, the Black Birds. As we were eating, a succession of individuals came around to greet him. Some shook hands, some hugged. It was evident they were delighted to see him. I thought there was a sense of poignant nostalgia in some of the greetings. He was one of them, and yet different.

We learned that music has been a constant thread in most of Jeff’s 53 years and has almost certainly buoyed him and kept him alive. “I play drums, guitar, strings (key board), piano, bass guitar and I do vocals.” He writes much of the music he performs and has produced 2 albums. When the first musicians appeared on stage, Jeff was asked for help with the elaborate sound system.

Now a warehouse supervisor in Keremeos, he earlier worked 10 years at a center for children with mental disorders. “I introduced music therapy,” he said. “I brought in tambourines and shakers and we made music together.” He still cherishes the memory of hearing children say, “I feel like I’m actually worth something.”

He also did music therapy at Portage. “One day I heard a girl singing in her room. She had a beautiful voice. I urged her to come out and sing for everyone. She told me she didn’t sing for people. I offered to accompany her on my guitar and she agreed. She went on to sing ‘True Colours’ at a concert in Vancouver. About 30 musicians came out of my program at Portage. I always recorded them and gave them a copy.”

Personable and energetic, Jeff has loyal friends and has enjoyed considerable success as a musician. But, it almost didn’t happen. “My dad left when I was 3,” he said. “I’ve totally lost track of him. Fortunately Mom married again. This man became my father. He was my friend and mentor.”

For reasons Jeff doesn’t fully comprehend, his life began to unravel in his early teens. “I was carrying a lot of resentment,” he recalled. “I got into drugs, anything I could get my hands on.” In 1999 his parents intervened. They brought him home to their farm.

“I continued with the drugs though and hid this for 2 years. Later people in Cawston told me they knew. They accepted me anyway. During that time I teamed up with a friend and started the Black Birds band. Then my father died at age 56. He was my rock. With him gone, that was it. I couldn’t do anything. I crashed.”

A friend came looking for him and found him in a drug house. “I was lying on the floor. He took me away from there.”

In 2001, at age 38, he understood his life style was leading downward to certain failure and destruction. This wasn’t what he wanted. Within him was a desire to do something of value with his musical talent. He entered treatment at the Cross Roads Centre in Kelowna. This cleared his thinking. It was after this that he produced the 2 albums, worked with mentally disadvantaged children and then persons with addictions. He has written and performed numerous songs. When his mother died 3 weeks prior to our conversation, he wrote a song for her. It says in part, “Images of you in my heart, keep me satisfied.”

Jeff’s life experiences enable him to write realistically about addiction and homelessness. “My message,” he said, “is that sometimes when you are knocking on a door, asking for help, people don’t understand. Keep knocking and in time someone will answer.”

Recently Jeff Lakey auditioned successfully with an all-star band in Vancouver. He’ll have a bigger stage for his message. The people in that Cawston orchard will be cheering him on.

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3 THOUGHTS ON “JEFF LAKEY, HEALING WITH MUSIC”

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DaleJANUARY 27, 2018 AT 11:29 PMRock on. — foreverREPLY
John maynardJANUARY 28, 2018 AT 4:56 PMI’ve known you for a lifetime, through many ups and downs and even at your lowest you have always had a heart that expands to whatever environment you found yourself in…you are an inspiration to all that know you and your message will live on forever my friendREPLY

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