Written interview with singer, songwriter, guitarist Jeff Saxon – Happy Traveling.
Jazz Blues European Union: – Thank you for taking the time to have this interview with Jazz Blues EU. Tell us about your music. When did you start performing? Tell us about your music. When did you start performing?
Jeff Saxon: – I started performing at about the age of 14, in a variety of rock bands with kids I met in school. Everyone’s skill level was pretty low (I remember screaming out chord names to bass players while trying to sing and play electric guitar), but we played with a lot of spirit and had a ton of fun. We played popular rock tunes we heard on the radio and miraculously managed to get hired to play some local gigs at school dances and a couple of clubs at army bases that our parents had to drive us to (and withstand for an hour or two).
What do you consider to be your hometown and how does that affect your music?
My hometown is a relatively small city (which had a population of about 20,000 or so when I was growing up there): Long Branch, New Jersey (USA). It’s a couple of towns away from Asbury Park, NJ, the place that Springsteen made internationally famous with his music. I don’t think my hometown significantly affected my music because my best songs didn’t come until I moved to other states and bigger cities (Washington, D.C. for college and then Los Angeles for about 15 years when I was in my 30’s).
What performers have been your inspiration?
Mose Allison, Ray Charles, Kenny Rankin, Jose Feliciano, John Martyn, Bill Withers, Ry Cooder, Kenny Loggins, James Taylor, Freddie King, B.B. King …
What do you find most challenging about being an independent artist in today’s music industry?
I’d say the most challenging element of being an independent artist is to figure out how to cut through the increasingly crowded “playing field” to get noticed. Ever since home recording (and the high quality and relatively low start-up costs) it enabled more indie artists to churn out cost-effective, good quality recordings and have a way to get their music out there . So the sheer number of indie artists that are out there today make things much more competitive, as everybody’s vying to get heard, develop a fanbase and get traction for their music. But I’ve always hung onto the mindset that if you come up with the best songs you can write, have your own sound, and put out the highest quality music you can, you’ve got a chance.
What do you base your success on?
I try not to equate success with how much I earn monetarily from my music. Instead I view my musical success in artistic terms and ask myself if I’m continually evolving and improving as a songwriter, guitar and uke player and singer. Another unit of measure of success is my songs resonated with listeners. Yet one more unit of measure to gauge one’s success is getting unsolicited off-the-cuff compliments from your fellow musicians that worked on your tracks or are band members. Much like positive fan feedback, getting kudos from musicians can be really meaningful as well.
Can you talk about your experiences collaborating with other artists or musicians? How does it influence your creative process?
A lot of musical collaboration took place on my new album, Happy Traveling, as I utilized players from all over the world to play on different songs. For instance, for the New Orleans styled blues tunes, I hired players from the New Orleans area who are play this zydeco, cajun and Louisiana-styled music all the time. I made this decision because I wanted the tracks to sound as authentic as possible and file sharing with them was a lot more practical and cost and time-efficient. I used the same premise for the sole instrumental track on the album (a blues rhumba): “A Little Feel-Good Latin Blues.” I called upon a guy who previously had produced a couple of other Latin tracks for me.
My underlying production mindset is to serve the song and track well and hopefully they’ll serve me well in return. For the rest of the tracks I let each song guide me as to the musical sensibilities needed to put it across effectively and made my supporting musician casting decisions accordingly. With the exceptions of the 3 acoustic tracks on the album, the rest of the (fully produced) tracks were done via file sharing through a musicians-for-hire website.
What was your latest musical release?
My new album is called Happy Traveling. It’s an all original blues song set of 13 tracks (12 vocal, 1 instrumental) released April 24, 2026.
Do you have any news to share? Could you share the story behind your latest new CD Jeff Saxon – Happy Traveling what inspired its creation?
I have always loved the blues and through the years I’ve written a lot of blues based songs. But up until this new release, I was doing a variety of genres. For this record, however, I made the decision to go all blues, but with a twist: try to keep the tunes upbeat and positive as much as I could without it sounding like I was seeing the world through rose-colored glasses. I’m a tough taskmaster on myself, so the songs had to be real, relatable, and genuine or they wouldn’t have made it through my internal quality control. While some listeners may simply view the title cut literally (i.e. to enjoy yourself traveling), it’s also meant as a metaphor and approach to life itself; to try to appreciate it as much as you can and also try to figure out ways to make the most of it. For instance, in “You’re Speakin’ My Language,” the lyric revels in the magic feeling knowing you have friends and people in your life who you truly relate to and love being around. In “Get It While You Got It,” the message is that golden opportunities don’t present themselves every day, so when they do, it might be wise to jump on them before they disappear. In the song, “Satisfied,” I address the topic of overdoing it with consumerism and instead appreciating and enjoying the things you have.
As to news to share goes, the album’s gotten numerous positive reviews from magazines, music blogs from all over the world. To get this kind of affirmation and to know that the premise I set out to achieve in assembling the songs (positive, uplifting blues tunes that offer some “musical medicine” for the challenging times we’re living in) resonated. I’m also starting to get some initial feelers about performing inEurope. So if that can be worked out, then I guess I’ll live up to my album title and get to do some Happy Traveling.
How does your latest album fit into your creative path? Is this a goal you wanted to achieve?
I’ve been a blues lover since I was a kid. I have included 1 or 2 blues songs on every one of my 5 previous albums, so it wasn’t a stylistic breakthrough or change for me. I have always connected to the directness and emotional outpouring that’s at the core of the blues. For these stressful and often turbulent times, however, I felt the timing was right to go all-in with an all-blues album with the hopes it might offer some musical comfort to listeners by including songs that were upbeat and hopeful, but had a fun vibe, too.
How do you approach the process of songwriting, and are there any specific themes or emotions you tend to explore in your music?
I mostly work off of emotions, song titles, and melody. Lyrically I try to impart what I’m feeling or concerned about (or what someone I know is feeling). I assemble connective words, phrases and things that tie into those emotions. Working off a song title is another way I write songs. This title-first approach isn’t a novel one, but it’s worked out well for me over the years. The trick to writing from a title is making sure the end result remains honest and emotional and not come off like a songwriting exercise. But many times a song will start with a melody line or two that pops into my head as I’m pondering the mood that the lyric should convey. And if nothing’s working on a given day, I may start with a chord progression I like or a musical hook that comes from noodling around on a uke or guitar. Some themes that I have explored more than just once in my songs include overcoming adversity, trying to find hope despite it not appearing to be there, living life to the fullest and enjoying yourself, being honest and having integrity, and avoiding worrying and overthinking.
As an indie musician, how do you navigate the balance between creative freedom and commercial appeal?
While I allow myself full creative freedom (I don’t often self-censor), I also have to account to the “gods” of catchiness. And what I mean by that is that no matter what I’m writing about, a song has to have at
least a couple of hooky and commercially appealing elements. And there are so many different ways to accomplish that in a song; it could be a memorable background vocal part, a recurrent guitar or uke riff or musical figure, etc. and if you use them wisely and appropriately to the genre, you are essentially giving your song commercial appeal. So for me these two seemingly disparate concepts actually have some synchronicity.
What role does technology and social media play in promoting your music and connecting with your audience?
I absolutely recognize the significant role that social media plays for artists and in general. The thing with me is I have always put music and song creation into the lead role in my life and found it hard to
break away from the creative side to do the social media side. I spend an inordinate amount of time writing and perfecting my songs as much as I can and then devoting similarly large chunks of time recording them. These are my passions and they really eat up a lot of my time (but I love every minute of it!). Simply put, I’m more of a “doer” than I am a “talk-abouter.” So when it comes to social media it’s not
something that I have much discretionary time for. But I do see its importance, which is why I’m going to hire someone soon to oversee my social media.
Could you describe a memorable live performance experience or tour that has had a lasting impact on you and your music?
A number of years ago, at a music event called The Telluride Blues & Brews Festival (in Colorado), they had an acoustic blues contest and I was selected as one of the finalists. All 10 or so finalists had to perform the song chosen by the festival (which was “Hound Dog”, popularized by Elvis Presley) and then we got to choose any other song to follow it. And while I love the writing team of Stiller and Leiber
(who wrote “Hound Dog”) I was never a huge Elvis guy or too wild about that particular tune. So I knew the only way I had a chance to pull this off was to radically rework the tune harmonically. So I did just
that, reimagining it as a blues, jazz and bossa-nova-infused song.
And ya know what? I came to love the song in this new light.
However, the contest judges just didn’t take to it, despite it clearly being the most daring and extreme departure from the iconic version by Elvis. And while I wasn’t counting on winning the contest (which
would mean a slot on the main stage of the festival), I was a bit surprised and bummed I didn’t even finish 2nd or 3rd. So afterwards my fiancee and I walked the streets of Telluride and we decided to go up on the gondola ride that offered dramatic scenic views from high above. Almost immediately upon getting seated and buckled up in the gondola, a guy sitting across from me said: “Man…..you were robbed!” And he seemed genuinely bewildered and bummed about it. That really meant something to me
to hear those words said so spontaneously and sincerely. And that, along with my own belief that I had come up with a viable and unique hybrid style that I dubbed “Blujanova” (which later became the title of
my 4th album) set me on a path to do a full production of “Hound Dog” in that style along with 2 other equally bold cover choices “I Got You (I Feel Good)” by James Brown and “Riders On The Storm” by The
Doors, along with 9 of my originals in this style. Blujanova then went on to get critically acclaimed and I even won a Best Music Video award (at The New Hope Music Festival in Pennsylvania) for one of my originals from that album: “Yes Is My Favorite Word.”
In an era of streaming platforms, how do you feel about the changing landscape of music consumption and its impact on independent musicians?
It’s challenging, but change and evolving technology are out of any independent artist’s control. So I try to focus on the things that I can control, like creating and recording music I can; with that hope music listeners and purchasers will value what they hear on streaming services enough That they want to have it in their music collection.
Musicians often have a close relationship with their fanbase. How do you engage with your fans and build a dedicated community around your music?
Every fan and fan communication is meaningful to me and helps keep me going. There’s no doubt that fans play a big role in nurturing artists they relate to, appreciate and enjoy.
How can fans find you? Lastly, please share some final words with the fans.
Through my website: jeffsaxonmusic.com Fans can reach out to me thru my website email: info@jeffsaxonmusic.com (I try to answer every email as soon as soon as I can) Fans can also leave a comment on my YouTube channel (jeffsaxonmusic):
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBbEDgqbAc0OnMqkqS33_Zg
They can also join my Facebook Artist Page: https://www.facebook.com/JeffSaxonMusic
By Olivia Peevas
