Jeff Severson

Jeff Severson has a long history of music in the Washington, D.C. scene. In the early 1980's, Jeff was best known as the guitarist and arranger of the band Four Out Of Five Doctors. Since then, Jeff has made a mark on music as a producer, arranger, writer and recording engineer. He has placed more than 3,000 song demos from platinum selling R&B, Rock and Pop artists in the hands of top publishing companies. In his copious spare time, Jeff has toured with bands like Hall and Oates, The Clash, The Cars, Pat Travers, and The Romantics.

Jeff describes his playing as "finger style guitar". You get some sense of what he means but it's only clear once you hear him and see him play. He makes one guitar sound like three; lead, rhythm and bass coming from the same instrument, maybe even some percussion by thumping the guitar body. In fact, he plays the entire instrument from bending the body, to playing the neck like a keyboard to strumming the strings on the head. He is a joy to watch and the performance is amazing with only one guy making all that music. Oh, he sometimes sings as well and claims to occasionally "fall down from all the confusion". Jeff is currently part of a quartet along with Jeff Smith, Steve Brigida and Steve Cooper, some of them former members of The Sleepers and Artful Dodger.

Jeff's newest CD, Whole Inner Stalking, showcases his blazing guitar fury tempered with the lightest, most delicate classical playing style. You could hear Jeff rehearsing all of the songs on that CD right here at Rappahannock Coffee. This will be Jeff's fourth appearance here.