The ballad of Benjamin Scheuer

We are sitting in the Crazy Coqs, an intimate cabaret lounge below street level at London’s Piccadilly Circus, where my friend has brought me to hear New York-born musician and songwriter, Benjamin Scheuer. He’s surrounded on the small stage by his five guitars, all tuned for the songs he’ll be performing in his set.  As the lights dim, my friend whispers, “I cried when I first listened to his music.” Sure, I think, but that won’t happen to me. 

Three songs in and my eyes are streaming.

Scheuer, 42, is singing many of the tracks from his autobiographical show, The Lion. The title song speaks of the sudden death of his father when he was only 13, and his own diagnosis of advanced cancer at 28. But this is not maudlin storytelling. Scheuer’s music is life-affirming and uplifting. So there are tears, but in a good way. 

The Lion opened in New York in 2014 and won an Off-West End Award for Best New Musical, with Scheuer also winning an award for his solo performance. He’s toured the show around the US, making over 500 appearances. 

Much of Scheuer’s appeal is the raw, unvarnished sentiment of his lyrics, a quality he attributes to advice he received at a workshop for emerging songwriters. “If you want to write a good song, write what you don’t want other people to know about you,” one of the teachers, country music singer/songwriter Lari White, told him. “And if you want to write a great song, write what you don’t want to know about yourself."

“I realised that I wanted people to like, admire and respect me, which is a bad place to start from when you are making art. I realised that, instead, having a deep need to tell the truth is perhaps a better place to begin,” says Scheuer.