Jon Geffner

About Jon Geffner

Jon Geffner has been writing songs and performing live since the late 1970s and early 1980s. His influences include Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, the Beatles, Buddy Holly, and Nick Lowe. A confessed music nerd, Jon was like the kid in "Almost Famous." He studied musical minutiae in high school and dabbled in rock criticism in college. He admired Dave Marsh, Lester Bangs, and Greil Marcus almost as much as his musical heroes Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. After college, Jon gave up rock criticism to find his own musical path. He had been writing songs and performing live since his college days in the late 1970s and early 1980s. While he was raised on the the Beatles, the Stones, and CCR, it was his discovery of Dylan and Springsteen in the mid-1970s that fueled his desire to create music. Through them he learned that music could could provide an avenue for expression and act as an agent of change. Springsteen and Dylan also led him to other great artists such as Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, and Woody Guthrie. Other favorites include Steve Earle, Guy Clark, John Hiatt, and Tom T. Hall. Jon has played in various Long Island bands since the mid-1980s and has also been performing in clubs and coffee houses in Manhattan and Long Island solo and occasionally as part of an acoustic duo with his friend of many years, Jim Mulligan. He has released four solo CDs and two collaborative CDs with Jim (under their assumed identities Mugz and Lamar), with one more in the works. Jon is a member of the New York Roots Music Association (NYRMA). Jon took up acting in 2018 and has been in several plays and musicals in various theater groups on Long Island. He and his wife Linda live on Long Island with their four cats.