steer gently away from the bad
Jonathan Skiffington aka Jon Skiff
Grandpa with a new bass player Rowan.
Jon says that his “genetic disposition for music came from both mom and dad.” Music runs deep in the family. A grandfather was said to be a traveling musician in the 19th century. He sang and played bass (just like Jon) and traveled between venues with his band on trains like groups did back then. During the influenza epidemic of 1890s, musicians were dying left and right due to close quarters and exposure so he decided to stop touring. He married a country girl from Sunbury, PA.
His father, who also sang and played guitar, would listen to everything from Bach to rock. Jon says they took road trips in an old VW van in the 60s, singing harmonies. Like many, Jon’s mother was his biggest fan.
Jon while sailing to Key West in 2016 at age 49.
Jon was 13 when he got the music bug and by age 15, he was already performing in country bars, making $40 on weekends, while doing beer parties with a rock trio. Jon has two brothers and ironically, while in high school, all three played the tuba at Bishop McDevitt High School in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Over the next 30 years or so, Jon sat in or performed with 100 bands and hundreds of musicians off and on the road.
Jon with his band at the Pink Pony in 1982.
In 2008, he took a sailing course in Annapolis, Maryland and was immediately hooked. During the recession, boats were selling cheap. Jon found a 30-foot Pearson, named Coyote, and bought it sight unseen. He spent the next seven years teaching himself to sail.
By 2015, Jon’s mother had moved to Florida and his son had married and moved to Colorado. With nothing holding him in Pennsylvania, he decided to sell everything that wouldn’t fit in the Coyote and just sail south. He spent about four months wandering slowly down the East Coast alone. Jon recommends everyone take at least a month alone in the wilderness. Something inside him changed during that period.
It was a life changing experience. Jon says he “dropped the bondage of self-expectation for a firm hold on “now-ness”. He would henceforth “go gently towards the good and steer gently away from the bad”.I promised myself I would enjoy the process and place and not worry about career, companionship, cash or conquest. “
After decades of being a “musically co-dependent bass player”, Jon decided to try his hand as a solo acoustic act. He had a brief Key West encounter in 1998 while touring but never really got a taste of it. However he knew of the concentration of high quality solo work and decided to give Key West a shot.
Jon Skiff at the Green Parrot June 2019.
While “on the hook” in Boot Key Harbor and after developing an “unscratchable itch” to play music, he wandered down to Key West for an open mike night at Virgilio’s. When Jon arrived, he saw a drummer, plenty of guitars but no bass, so he sat in and jammed all night. The next week he jammed with them again. Key West musician Jack Wolf, who had jammed with them, asked if Jon would be interested in a gig at Captain Tony’s. Within two weeks, Jon had three weekly gigs and moved the Coyote. A few weeks later, Jon had 4-6 gigs a week and Coyote was snugged in a slip on Stock Island.
Jon Skiff August 2019
For several years in Key West, there was an annual Les Paul Birthday Tribute at the Hard Rock Café and Jon attended regularly. It was at one of these events that he met “a new catalyst for change” and one of the loveliest persons ever, Kimber Tracy.
Jon and Kimber hit it off immediately. Her quick wit and strong independence intrigued Jon and she accepted his fierce “live by my own design” ways. It was only after a few dates that he discovered Kimber loved sailing as much as he did, and she owned a bigger boat and a charter business – Ka-boom. Over the next year, Jon got his captain’s license and within three years, they had a seriously thriving relationship along with a burgeoning charter business.
Jon was always a musician first, that never changed. He was from the Northeast where you couldn’t play the same town two nights a week and hold an audience. Key West is the polar opposite, you could play the Hog’s Breath Saloon seven days straight and never see the same audience. Jon was also a gifted vocalist as well as a bass player so he was in constant demand. He had never “done a triple” until arriving in Key West. Jon likes to say he came in at the tail end of a wave of new musicians (from about 2010 – 2016), a very talented group.
With all this music, Jon never forgets the most important fan base are the bartenders and servers. The most important keyboard in the room is the cash register. According to Jon, this “staff/musician economic codependency pulls the lasso of comradery even tighter.” Jon feels blessed that he was quickly accepted and absorbed into the Key West musical covenant. He is still amazed at the balance maintained between the competitive struggle for gigs and mutual respect and support for one another.
Full disclosure requires me to mention that this column is adapted entirely from a much longer biography written by Jonathan Skiffington. Jon has been diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and has issues speaking so our usual interview process was circumvented. The story above however is only a partial glimpse into an amazing life.
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