Geoff is a stand-alone songwriter focused on sharing songs and collaboration
Geoff’s journey has been about life experiences combined with time digging into the craft side of songwriting. Engaging stories along with catchy beats work together to touch listeners in their hearts and souls.
Songwriting, recording, and relishing in collaborations are his focus.
In 2007, Geoff was sidelined with his first jolt of MS, temporarily lost his vision and was left alone with his thoughts for many weeks. It was here that the songwriting path showed up. He realized that songs start in the mind of the writer and given life in the mind of the listener. It takes both sides of the story to make a song work. After his vision returned, he noticed that the lines of his journal during this time all flowed as lyrics rather than text. The seeds planted began to grow.
In 2010, Geoff joined a songwriting session in Costa Rica with Darrel Scott, Mary Gauthier and Beth Nielsen Chapman. From that moment, songwriting became an artisan craft and his path was in place.
Darrell Scott taught Geoff to find the right space that allows songs to show up. Mary Gauthier helped him to be honest with the stories, brutally honest. Since then, a lot of time spent with Eliza Gilkyson, John Gorka and Don Richmond, along with numerous other songwriters, has helped develop Geoff’s songwriting chops.
A workshop a couple of years ago with Gretchen Peters helped his songwriting soul spend time with his song narrators and allow feelings from deep within to show up.
His songwriting continues to help him and his audience deal with a wacky world around us. Geoff is a stand-alone songwriter focused on sharing songs and stories. Honest storytelling lines about feelings and experiences that we can all relate with are his gift.
“A poem is meant for the eye, while a lyric is meant for the ear, but both reach the mind and touch the heart.”
Sammy Cohen
“Unlike magicians who create the illusion of magic, writing a great song is genuine magic, miraculous even to those making the miracles.”
Paul Zollo Songwriters on Songwriting
Geoff’s Music Story
Geoff’s high school groups were electric bands playing Cream, Hendrix and eventually branching out into in a short-lived Philadelphia group with a local groove of soul and R&B. During his college years in the Boston area he transitioned to acoustic music influenced by Joe Val and The New England Bluegrass Boys along with the wider Cambridge folk scene of the 1970’s. This time period also began a 50 year journey as a Grateful Dead Head, an ongoing influence on his music.
Geoff had a long career in the mainstream marketing world telling stories to the masses. All this time, his guitar was still in his hands every day. In all waking moments when not at his day job, those years shaped Geoff’s music with jams that ranged from an informal duo with the bassist of the Tommy Dorsey Band to the Boulder music scene orbiting around the Ophelia Swing Band, The Reasonable Band and Mollie O’Brien. After moving to Durango Colorado in 1982, the jam based influence of the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and early Americana scene heavily influenced his style with regular jamming and songwriting circles.
Today, Geoff continues to hone his craft while living in Southwest Colorado. A regular diet of summer festivals, songwriting workshops and song circles provides new energy. Life experiences provide new stories.