Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers has combined his twin passions for words and music since he was a teenager.
A grand prize winner in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, Rodgers performs original folk rock with masterful band-in-a-box accompaniment on acoustic guitar. He has released four solo albums, plus two DVDs teaching his acoustic arrangements of Grateful Dead songs.
Based in upstate New York, Rodgers performs both solo and in a trio with percussionist Josh Dekaney (Grupo Pagan, Samba Laranja) and singer-songwriter Wendy Ramsay (the Unstoppables). Rodgers recently organized a series of collaborative concerts with Rani Arbo and Maria Gillard, and he has shared the stage with such artists as Peter Case, Karen Savoca and Pete Heitzman, Eric Bibb, Cheryl Wheeler, Peter Mulvey, and Maura Kennedy.
Rodgers is also the founding editor of Acoustic Guitar magazine, a contributor to NPR’s All Things Considered, and author of Rock Troubadours (featuring his interviews with such artists as Jerry Garcia, Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, and Dave Matthews) and other books on music. He teaches courses on songwriting and creative nonfiction writing in the honors program at Syracuse University and leads workshops on guitar and songwriting.
P.S. Please see also the separate pages about Rodgers’ work as an author and as an editor.
FAST FACTS
Yes, Pepper is my real middle name—it's the last name of my great, great uncle, who has the same birthday. In sixth grade, I failed in a campaign to get classmates to call me Pepper. When I began writing professionally after college, I decided to use my full name and asked my editor at the San Francisco Chronicle to change my byline. She nixed the idea at first, preferring the casual Jeff Rodgers, but at the time I happened to be writing a review of a book by Joyce Carol Oates. So I told her fine, I’d go by Jeff Rodgers as long as the review said the book was by Joyce Oates. She laughed and relented, and I’ve been Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers ever since.
I started performing in New Jersey bars with my brother, Dru (currently with the world rock band Kazamoze), long before I was old enough to be allowed in the door. When I was around 15, my brother and I shared our original songs with producer and Patti Smith guitarist Lenny Kaye at his New York studio. (Kaye warned against getting pigeonholed as folkies and commented that unlike many people he knew in the rock 'n' roll business, we actually knew how to play our instruments.)
I studied north Indian tabla drumming both in the U.S., at the famed Ali Akbar College of Music, and in India. In performance, I draw on this training in several original songs accompanied only by frame drum, cajón, or kanjira, a tambourine-like Indian instrument. I have spent several long stints in south India with my family.
“Having come to appreciate the art of songwriting while living in Nashville, I realized the difference between a writer, an artist, and an entertainer. Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers is one of those unique talents who manages to embrace all three. Unlike so much of pop culture, the lyrics to his original music clearly come from his heart and soul; his mastery of the guitar is a work of art; and his attentiveness and interaction with the audience is warm and genuine.”
—Mark Kaufman
Evening of Story & Song
Fernandina Beach, Florida
PRESS
Read a recent news profile: Press & Sun-Bulletin Nov. 2012.pdf
Download the JPR one sheet.pdf
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Photo by Michelle Gabel
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“There are musicians...and then there is Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers. With an already impressive resume that includes a John Lennon Songwriting award, being a founding editor of Acoustic Guitar magazine and a regular contributor to NPR's All Things Considered, Rodgers still passionately works to move his chosen art forward.”
—Amy Robbins, WCNY Connected