About

There is something that happens inside a good song. A tootsie roll can take you back to your elementary school playground; a list of baby names becomes a prayer; the voice of a toothless refrigerator man reminds you to say “I love you.” Jenner Fox tells the stories of people and places with unparalleled compassion and respect. His artful tone, poetry, and fluency on his guitar do something only the brave ones do: let us in.

Jenner comes from a family of river guides. He followed the family river trade and recorded his debut album to make some extra money selling CDs on the boat ramp after rafting trips. Five albums later, a decade of cutting his teeth on the river and road, Jenner is a storyteller, a peanut butter purist, a cargo bike advocate, a Pacific NorthWesterner, and that rare kind of songwriter with the ability to, “Gather up what we see as common as crab apples and polish them into shiny orbs. To give himself and let us see ourselves.” – Sheridan Press.

Currently based in Seattle, Washington, the internationally touring troubadour has called many places his home: California, Connecticut, rural Chile, Texas, Oregon, and now Washington.

Songwriting Awards

2023 Songwriter Serenade 2nd Place

2023 First Fed Songwriting Contest 2nd Place

2022 Al Johnson Performing Songwriting Competition Finalist

2022 Folk Alliance International Official Showcase

Most Recent LP “The Moon That Moves The Sea”

“A stunning album that should make many a sleeper “Best of 2024” list.” – Glide Magazine

“This album, with just the two guitars and vocals, is evocative and revelatory…reminiscent of children’s books much loved by adults.” – Americana UK

“The Moon That Moves The Sea” is the debut duo release from Jenner Fox & Jeremy Elliott. It was recorded among the cedars, rain, and golden retrievers of Bell Creek Studio in Bellingham, WA. All songs were performed live in real-time – no overdubs, no underdubs, four days sitting across from each other surrounded by acoustic guitars and cups of tea.

“This a close-up record. A record to be sat with and savored, a painterly sonic portrait of the small moments that take up an outsized place in our sweetest memories. Infused with gentle humanity, bittersweet and beautiful, “The Moon That Moves The Sea” is a perfect companion to those stolen moments of quiet reflection.” – Tiny Human PR

Jeremy Elliott is a multi-genre spanning guitarist, composer, producer, and songwriter currently residing in Bellingham, WA. He hails from the guitar mecca of Macon Georgia, and brings a wealth of blues, rock, bluegrass, country, and West African elements into his unique style of virtuoso. His ambient textures, melodic leads, and masterful compositions stand brilliantly on their own, yet add to any musical collaboration beautifully.

Fox and Elliott collaborated on various touring and studio projects for years before formally assembling for an experimental cargo bicycle tour in 2020. It clicked. They shared a sensibility for deep listening, space, humor, and 50-mile bike days. Thousands of pedal-powered miles later, they are brothers in every way that counts. “The Moon That Moves The Sea” rolls on steadily, shining bright as a testament to profound beauty of the everyday.

Background

“Jenner combines the lyricism of Joni Mitchell and the commentary of Neil Young to represent the next generation of singer-songwriters.” – Grammy nominated producer, Cookie Marenco

Jenner's music has moved audiences from the high school years spent busking on the street corners of Palo Alto, to the countless riverside campfires, to the small living rooms all across the US, to the eight thousand capacity Hayden Homes Amphitheater alongside Trampled By Turtles in 2021. (*Trampled by Turtles lead singer, Dave Simonett, happened to hear Jenner play at an obscure lodge in the Oregon woods and invited him to open for the band at the Hayden Homes Amphitheater two days later). His most recent album Planet I’m From (2021) features musical contributions from Chris "Critter" Eldridge (Punch Brothers), Brittany Haas (Dave Rawlings Machine, Crooked Still), and was produced by Lawson White (Lake Street Dive). His latest album The Moon That Moves The Sea, is an all acoustic live effort with guitarist Jeremy Elliott , the LP will be released in February 2024 and supported by a national tour.

“I think the world of his songs. He’s not just good for on a river, he’s DAMN good” – Grammy finalist for best song, Mike Posner. (After Jenner guided pop icon’s river trip on Chile’s Futaleufú river in 2018).

Most Recent LP “The Moon That Moves The Sea”

“A stunning album that should make many a sleeper “Best of 2024” list.” – Glide Magazine

“This album, with just the two guitars and vocals, is evocative and revelatory…reminiscent of children’s books much loved by adults.” – Americana UK

Bicycle Touring

In 2019 a friend introduced Jenner to cargo bicycles: “Three years ago, my career as a van touring musician well underway, I rode my friend Jackson’s converted Xtracycle cargo bike for the first time in Massachusetts. He called it his “pickup truck.” It was smooth and maneuverable, and he assured me that a guitar and personal gear would fit easily. I returned a year later, strapped the guitar on, and toured by bicycle for three days through New Hampshire, Vermont and Connecticut. I remember I broke a chain between towns somewhere in New Hampshire. With no tools and very little “handiness,” I walked the bike and gear a few miles back to the closest town and asked around for help. I met strangers, I had to interact with them, we shared laughs. Eventually someone pointed me toward the local car mechanic notorious for cycling. After a generous dose of New England affection (shit giving), he fixed the chain and sent me off with his personal grease stained bike multi-tool to keep. Getting up on stage the next night, 90 miles of New England roads and trails later, I had a story to tell, something to give, and I was hooked.” –The Long Way, Xtracycle.com.

Since 2019, Jenner and his band have teamed up with bike company Xtracycle for bike tours in CA, OR, and New England.

“Good Luck Road” 2022

Good Luck Road is the latest record from Pacific Northwest based songwriter Jenner Fox. "They stopped replacing the sign to Good Luck Road | Cause everyone kept taking it home." The songs give voice to the small Wyoming town of Dayton where Fox lived and listened and wrote in 2019 and 2021.

Upon arriving in Dayton for the first time, Fox attended a community meeting in which a local policeman was outlining a new program to defend against school shootings (A.L.I.C.E.) "There was no air in the room. It was hunting season in Wyoming. I couldn’t believe the acronym was really "Alice". That night I went home and started writing – "I remember I remember when we were boys | And dad would take us out before class | And we'd hold guns and laugh and shoot squirrels and dirt | And I never once thought that bullets were to hurt other people.""

The album is a dreamy collage of a corner of America. It features field recordings, voices from the town, and songs that drift into one another taking the listener by the hand as a picture begins to form. It's a concept album in that the intentional song order from front to back is the experience. As Fox writes in the liner notes, "Look inside, you’ll find a story, scratched off by a penny. A small town, a parent, a child, two wheels, four wheels, life begun, life lost, a fishing pole, an unmade bed.”

Layered vocal harmonies, deep ringing piano chords, mallets on drum heads, all out electric guitar rock builds, quiet finger picked ballads, perhaps folk rock, perhaps indie, perhaps whatever we call the alchemy that happens when musicians sit in a room together and try to honor a simple song. Fox assembled an all star cast of Pacific Northwest based musicians arranged in a circle in an airplane hangar in Sisters OR around engineer Keith Banning's world class collection of vintage microphones. The rhythm section features La Pine based Jefferey Ingraham on drums (Merle Haggard & Kris Kirstoferson), Sisters local Justin Veloso (Jools Holland) also on percussion, Mark Karwan on Bass, Beth Wood and R.O. Shapiro on harmony vocals, and Bellingham’s Polecat duo Jeremy Elliott and Aaron Guest on keyboards and electric guitar. "We sat in a room together, rehearsed, and arranged the songs for a week while the tape was rolling. Sometimes the first rehearsal take became the final product, and other times we worked and reworked over the course of the next year. I got musicians I really admire together and bet on the magic of playing all together, every mistake and every beautiful moment captured."

Songwriting Camps & Workshops

Jenner leads songwriting workshops, camps, and individual sessions with songwriters from middle school to retirement, and first timers to life-timers.

Jenner’s teaching journey began in 2015 in a basement in Washington DC with 8 high school students who wanted to spend their first days of summer vacation writing, arranging, and performing original songs. 5 days, 20 songs, and many pick up basketball games later, they filled a house concert with first time performances of original music. Co-founders, Jenner Fox and Cuchulain Kelly, have since collaborated with the Sisters Folk Festival, Americana Academy, Path With Art, The Bellingham Folk Festival, The Central Ohio Folk Festival, and many musicians and educators to create a unique curriculum that empowers songwriters of all ages to fill the blank page with something from the heart.

“Without stating it directly, Jenner’s activity taught us an important lesson about leaving high expectations at the door when songwriting. I found the time I spent in sessions transforming the time I spent outside of sessions. I started spending more time in the community. I took to the guitar and piano more often. I woke up in the middle of the night with lyrics inside my brain screaming to be let out. I let my words flow out, instead of caging them inside with unrealistic expectations and fears.” Blake Blancett, The Nugget Newspaper.