Mr. DOWNCHILD

 Mr. DOWNCHILD 
(Stephen Brazier)
(2CD)

 BIOGRAPHY 

Mr. Downchild is a singer, guitarist and harmonica player who has been a fixture on the U.S. blues scene for more than two and half decades. Born Stephen Brazier in South London in 1950, he learned to sing and dance from his mother, a singer and dancer, and his great aunt, an opera singer. When he was 5, he sang Frankie Lymon’s “Why do Fools Fall in Love?” at one contest and won £5. He now calls it his first paying gig.

His father was friends with various U.S. service men who were stationed around London. They brought and shared their records with Steve’s father which provided him with his introduction to rock and roll and ultimately, the blues. “You couldn’t get those records in England back then,” he said “But the Americans had them, and I loved Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis!”

When he was 11 years old, Steve began acting in various musicals and plays in London. He appeared as Oliver opposite of Davey Jones’ Artful Dodger (yes from The Monkeys) as well as on several TV shows and in some movies. When he was 15 his acting career suddenly became less important. “I saw Sonny Boy Williamson playing with the Yardbirds on Ready, Steady, Go!,” he recalled, “and it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. I was totally knocked out by that guy.” Steve went out and bought a harmonica and learned how to play it.down

In 1966 Steve was in a TV series called Espionage. The same day he was in studio filming an episode he realized the Ready, Steady, Go! was being filmed next door. The special guest was Long John Baldry. “There he was, a white guy playing the blues!” That’s when this young white boy from London decided he was going to be a blues player. His focus was now on music. He played in pubs around London and sat in with several artists including Ian Stewart, the Scottish keyboard player who was a founding member of the Rolling Stones.

Around 1970 Steve decided to take up the guitar. Inspired by the open tunings of the Delta style, he focused on playing slide guitar in the style of Muddy Waters, Elmore James and Robert Johnson. Throughout the 70s and early 80s he played as both front man and as a side man in various bands. The bass player in one of his bands had played with two Cleveland musicians. They invited him to Cleveland and he decided it was time to go to the U.S. to seek out the roots of the blues. Besides, he was particularly interested in one bluesman from Cleveland, Robert Lockwood Jr.

“I came to Cleveland Christmas of 1985.” Little did he know how his life was about to chtaylorange. “I first met Robert Lockwood at the Saloon, a bar that used to be on Coventry Road in Cleveland Heights.” he recalls. He went to another Lockwood gig at a bar called The Rockwell when Marilyn Adams, a writer for Ohio Blues News, came over and arranged for him to sit in and play harmonica with Lockwood.....