Meet Joe Savidge | Bluesman, Singer and songwriter

We had the good fortune of connecting with Joe Savidge and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Joe, why did you pursue a creative career?
I wanted to follow my heart. So cliche; yet, so hard to actually do! And it’s what Napoleon Dynamite does. I did a semester at Wazzu as a creative writing major and I made this huge leap of the heart that if I wanted to be worth a damn as a writer I had to go have experience beyond the norm. So I left, and it’s been this wild ride ever since. Music has always been a navigational part of it.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
The guitar captivated me, and I wanted to be a writer. I decided money was not important, but that unknown life experience, my guitar and notebooks was. I’ve worked dead-end jobs non-stop for 20 years now. It’s just what I do. I live life. I could live smarter but I’ve been dumb enough to write some good songs and learn how to play my Rocky Blues, so now I look back and I realize I did what I set out to do. Sometimes it gets so crazy paycheck to paycheck, but then the next sign pops up, this reassurance of the heart. It’s a lot to silence the external howling, let alone the internal, but a loud guitar and some mouthing off usually helps. It gets tricky, dealing with others let alone oneself, but I know that matters of the heart are what belong on the pedestal. It’s from that point I work. My brain has learned it’s place and is catching up, sometimes I think.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I’d pick ‘em up from SeaTac and we’d go to DeLaurentis for a sandwich and coffee and a can of beer, Get some of their stuffed cherry peppers to-go. Run around the market. Hit the doughnut shop. Add on some corned beef and hash from The Athenian. Catch a ballgame. See a show at Central City Saloon in Pioneer Square. Chill out at Golden Gardens in Ballard. Go to Paseo’s in Fremont for a Cubano. Walk the archaic, sprawling jungle-y stairs of Queen Anne while smoking jays. Thrift shops all along the trails. See the troll why not? Head back north to my wilderness retreat and have a smoke with my father-in-law, get fried-chicken and go to my favorite secret beach and have an illegal campfire and hot dogs and s’mores with my daughter while we muck around a low low tide and pull some crab pots in the morning.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
It’s a gargantuan shoutout to Tony MF Ford. He’s been a musical ally since we ever met. He’s always believed in me and my songs, and I cherish his belief because he’s one of my favorite songwriters. He’s a craftsman and so am I, so there’s this understanding between us. And he’s very motivated. He gets me moving. I was used to nights at home writing a handful of songs a year for ten years. All of a sudden we co-found The SawTones in 2021: Tony’s had bands, written and recorded his own music for about 16 years! It was a warp-speed learning curve for me, and the learning continues! Nobody has pushed me to work on my music and to get my music out like Tony. Best of all, we’re two people who absolutely love music. We’ve rocked and rolled, laughed and and howled at the moon, whether onstage or not. We’re blues brothers.

Speaking of blues brothers, my hometown pal Lyndsey Bayles and I formed a band for a couple years back in 2006, The RagAbouts. The creative talent of him still resonates. He writes magnificent songs and he has an amazing ear. He’s the reason I play a Martin. He told me he wrote songs that went up and down because it made people dance. I’d never written more than a hook, verse or chorus of something here and there. His wisdom lent well to the blues sound and its hypnotic-boogie rhythms I admired since the start of all this. Things started making sense.

All the birds who’ve put up with hearing the same thing played over and over, whether by me and my guitar or the record player.

Instagram: https://instagram.com/joesavidgebluze

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100073987237857&mibextid=LQQJ4d

Youtube: https://youtube.com/@joesavidgebluze

Other: https://linktr.ee/joesavidge

Image Credits
Sophie Dudley Dennis Browne Tony Ford