Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers
Original acoustic music, and lessons for songwriters and guitarists to make their own
Acoustic Guitar magazine, Career advice, Creative nonfiction, Performing, Writing
Originally published in Acoustic Guitar magazine, July 1997 Dear Readers, Lila with her uke. It all started innocently enough, in a quiet domestic scene a few nights ago. I was sitting there on the bed trying to iron a few wrinkles out of a guitar arrangement when Lila, my two-year-old daughter, barreled into the room,...
Creative nonfiction, Writing
Becoming a writer Grabbing the bright blue Mad hat by the brim, I flip it onto my head as the computer beeps and grinds and finally presents me with the blinking amber command line. I summon WordPerfect and the program’s promise that it’ll help me find just the right language to tell the story. The...
Lessons and playlists, Writing
I'm lucky enough to spend my days and nights immersed in music—listening, writing about it, interviewing artists, teaching it, playing it. I just created a Spotify playlist called Free Range Acoustic to share songs that grabbed my ear lately—many from recent albums, but with some older gems in the mix as well. It's a kind...
Acoustic Guitar magazine, Interviews, Writing
I think serious, curious musicians owe it to themselves and to the music-loving public to avail themselves of all the tools. You run into a lot of people who are consciously leaving vast swaths of their potential musicianship undeveloped in the name of staying pure. Those kinds of decisions don’t achieve the desired result, because...
Acoustic Guitar magazine, Guitar, Interviews, Lessons and playlists, Songwriting, Songwriting process
[Poor David's Almanack] came out of 20 years of thinking about folk music and the roots of things, and seeing that so much beauty comes out of the fluidity of writing from things that move you. Sometimes I listen to songs that I love and I think, 'Wow, it’s like we’re all standing on the...
Creative nonfiction, Songwriting process, Writing
Through the doorway and into the street, around the corner and past the groaning school bus and down the hill... I walk through the waking neighborhood but actually see very little because of all the clutter in my head—the lead of the article that I need to finish, the prep for my class and the...
Acoustic Guitar magazine, Complete Singer-Songwriter, Lessons and playlists, Songwriting
Think of the timeless ballad “Something,” from the Beatles’ Abbey Road, in which George Harrison muses on his lover’s allure over a wistful chord progression in the key of C. He sings a verse and loops back for another by way of the song’s signature guitar line, but the second time he lands not on a...
Acoustic Guitar magazine, Interviews, Songwriting process
The analogy of fishing has been used before. You’re just trying to be there at the right time, when your brain is in the right state for catching new images, new ways for words to come together. That’s what I think he’s speaking to. If you’re consciously trying to make it fit your form, you’re...
Acoustic Guitar magazine, Beatles, Inside the Song, Performing, Shows
In the summer of 2016, musician and producer Paul Davie contacted me and my duo partner Wendy Sassafras Ramsay about performing in his annual BeatleCuse concert—a major event involving 70 musicians from the Syracuse area and beyond. Plans for 2017 included appearances by Joey Molland of Badfinger and Hilton Valentine of the Animals, and a complete performance of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely...
Creative nonfiction, Writing
“What a beautiful day!” he calls from the driveway, pausing with his shovel wedged into the snowbank. It’s an early morning, 16 degrees, and last night’s snow has faded into flurries under a slate sky. “Cold, but beautiful,” he adds with a smile. His name is Nick. We’ve talked several times before, but he’s always...
