Jeff Smokey McKeen, the Pemaquid Oyster Company co-founder and head of operations, has been working on the Damariscotta River since 1986. While he is locally known for his role with the company, McKeen is also a respected folklorist, master carpenter, and musician who has traveled around the world. (Johnathan Riley photo)
When locals think of famed Pemaquid Oyster Company co-founder and head of operations Jeff “Smokey” McKeen they might focus on the aquaculture industry he’s helped foster on the Damariscotta River. While the business is a big part of McKeen’s day-to-day, the South Bristol resident is also a carpenter who built his own home, a folklorist, and a world-traveling musician.
McKeen, originally from Worcester, Mass., attended Colby College in Waterville, graduating in 1976 with degrees in philosophy and history.
“Maine always felt more like home to me,” McKeen said. “I jokingly say I came to college to go to Maine.”
McKeen said his family had a farm up near Stockton Springs he visited in the summers, which is where his fondness for the state began.
Around the same time his love for Maine was being cultivated, McKeen was also honing the musical talents that he would carry throughout his life. Today, McKeen plays the banjo, mandolin, fiddle, button accordion and guitar, and also sings.
After college, McKeen stayed in Maine and worked as a carpenter while playing music with a bluegrass-folk band he co-founded called Old Grey Goose, named after a common character in American folklore.
McKeen said it was his love for music that brought him to the study of folklore, and after a long hiatus from school, he attended the University of Maine at Orono to pursue a master’s degree in folklore.
McKeen said that the term “folklore” is difficult to define, but studying traditional music of Maine and America led him to explore narrative and storytelling, central components to the field.
“It’s the informal study of culture,” McKeen said.
McKeen said an old professor of his at the University of Maine, to demonstrate what folklore is, began a lecture by asking the class to make paper airplanes.
According to McKeen, the way most people learn how to make a paper airplane is through friends in school, or another informal setting, and the transmission of knowledge is a great example of how information is passed down informally in culture.
McKeen has also contributed work to the Maine Folklife Center’s collection. Funded by grants from the University of Maine, McKeen helped create a series of 30-minute documentaries on traditional music from Maine for Maine Public Radio, covering topics such as French, Russian, Swedish, and Passamaquoddy music.
“That was a really fun project,” McKeen said.
While McKeen didn’t complete his graduate degree with the university, it was for good reason: a side project began to demand more of his time and attention.
A good friend of McKeen’s in college he played music with, Carter Newell, and another friend, Chris Davis, had set out to start an oyster company on the Damariscotta River after they had finished their doctorates and they needed McKeen’s help.
“I had skills in building things, and to start an oyster farm you needed to build things,” McKeen said. “We didn’t go in thinking that we were going to start a business.”
The three friends founded the Pemaquid Oyster Company in 1986, and over the last 38 years they have established themselves, along with three other farms from that time, as pioneers of Maine’s aquaculture industry.
McKeen said the lifestyle of an oyster farmer suits him. He loves being outside and other than when it’s “snowing and blowing” in the winter months, he never wishes he was inside with an office job.
“All summer long you think of your friends that are inside looking at a computer screen, and you get to be out on the boat,” he said. “I also love to swim.”
While his work with the oysters has occupied most of McKeen’s time, he’s still found time to play music, and not only locally.
In the early 2000s, a friend of McKeen’s was a cultural affairs officer for the State Department at the United States embassy in Poland. His friend called McKeen and asked if Old Grey Goose would be interested in playing at a cultural festival he was putting together.
After a few successful appearances in Poland, and the handing out of some of their music recordings, the band was given more opportunities to travel overseas as cultural diplomats for America and play music related to American folklore.
According to McKeen, from 2002 until 2016 he and the members of Old Grey Goose traveled and played all around Europe and Asia, visiting nations like Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Vietnam, Poland, and Mongolia.
“People in other countries just assumed we were famous,” McKeen said, laughing.
McKeen said their performance in Uzbekistan was accompanied by a 20-piece orchestra, where they played songs from one another’s countries, which felt particularly moving in its humanity.
“It was the kind of performance where you didn’t have to get on stage and say ‘Hey we’re all one big people,’ because we were up on stage doing just that,” McKeen said.
Between his music, the folklore, and running an oyster farm, the central joy within each endeavor has been getting to interact with the people along the way, whether that was a throat singing Mongolian ensemble, or putting together folklore radio shows throughout Maine.
“The fun part about studying folklore to me is the people you meet,” McKeen said. “I’ve met some really interesting people all over Maine doing those radio shows, and the musicians I’ve met; some of them become family, some you never seen again, but it’s the people that make it interesting.”
Traveling around the world representing America has given McKeen a unique perspective on the special qualities of Midcoast Maine, which he said, in part lies in the different kinds of people that make it up.
“This area is very interesting to me because it’s such a mix of people here,” McKeen said. “It’s a combination of fairly wealthy summer people in summer houses and working Mainers: loggers, farmers, or fishermen who’ve lived here their whole lives and it seems to work.”
For those wanting to hear McKeen play and tell stories, he’s usually performing at “Free Oyster Friday” during the summer at Schooner Landing Restaurant and Marina, an event he’s been putting on with his band, The Oystermen, for the past 20 years.
Those looking to purchase Pemaquid oysters will find them at eateries throughout the world, but the best bet is to go to pemaquidoysters.com, or find them on Facebook at Pemaquid Oyster Company.
McKeen and his wife, Kayli, also own The Hub, Market & Oysteria, located at 1005 Bristol Road in Bristol: a farm market store shared with WaldoStone Farm specializing in seafood. For more information, visit thehubfarmmarket.com.
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