Jeff Golub was born on April 15, 1955, in Copley Township, Ohio, near Akron. He grew up on a mix of pop, rock, blues, funk and R&B, took up guitar as a pre-adolescent, and counted George Benson, Larry Carlton, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy among the guitarists he listened to. In the 1970s he left Akron for the Berklee College of Music in Boston, and in 1980 he moved to New York City, which stayed his home for the rest of his life.

His first steady work in New York was in rock. In the early 1980s he was hired by Billy Squier, and he is credited on Squier's Capitol albums from Emotions in Motion (1982) through Tell the Truth (1993). The Squier connection led to a long list of pop, rock and R&B sideman jobs, among them Peter Wolf's Come as You Are (EMI, 1987), Paul Shaffer's Coast to Coast (Capitol, 1989), Tina Turner's Simply the Best (Capitol, 1991), and work with John Waite, Ashford & Simpson, Vanessa Williams and Dar Williams. From 1988 to 1995 he toured and recorded with Rod Stewart, and he is credited on Stewart's Vagabond Heart (1991), Unplugged ...and Seated (1993) and A Spanner in the Works (1995). For most of the 1980s and early 1990s this, not jazz, was how Golub earned a living.

His first record under his own name, Unspoken Words, came out on the Gaia label in 1988, the year he joined Stewart. Golub produced it, wrote or co-wrote most of it, and played guitar in a quintet with saxophonist Jim Biggins; it closes with the standard "There Will Never Be Another You." Leading a band became his main activity only in 1994, when he formed Avenue Blue. The group signed with Mesa/Bluemoon, and Avenue Blue Featuring Jeff Golub, released on November 15, 1994, did well on smooth jazz and adult contemporary radio. Trumpeter Rick Braun, who also played on the first album, co-produced the follow-ups Naked City (1996) and Nightlife (1997). Nightlife drew in drummer Steve Ferrone, Bob James on Fender Rhodes, Gato Barbieri on saxophone and the saxophonist Bill Evans, and after it Golub retired the band name. Out of the Blue (Atlantic, 1999), produced with keyboardist Philippe Saisse and featuring bassist Tony Levin, Ferrone and saxophonist Tim Ries, was billed to Jeff Golub alone.

He then moved to GRP, which issued Dangerous Curves (2000), Do It Again (2002) and Soul Sessions (2003). Guitarist Peter White played on Dangerous Curves and was featured on its single "No Two Ways About It," and Do It Again leans on soul-jazz and R&B repertoire, with readings of "Cold Duck Time," "Cold Sweat" and "Mercy Mercy Me." Temptation (2005) and Grand Central (2007) followed on Narada Jazz, along with a holiday record, Six String Santa (2007). Away from his own albums he was a regular name on smooth jazz sessions, including Richard Elliot's Crush (2001), Euge Groove's S7ven Large (2011) and David Benoit's Conversation (2012), and he was a member of Dave Koz and the Kozmos, the house band of The Emeril Lagasse Show.

In 2009 he went back to his rock roots with the electric blues album Blues for You (E1), which AllMusic says features vocals from his old employers Billy Squier, Peter Wolf and John Waite. The Three Kings (E1, 2011), credited to the Jeff Golub Band featuring the New Orleans pianist Henry Butler, was a blues and R&B set that Golub produced, with Euge Groove and Rick Braun as guests. In 2011 pressure on his optic nerves cost him his eyesight, and he began working with a guide dog. In September 2012 he fell onto the tracks at a New York subway station, was clipped by an approaching train as bystanders tried to help, and survived with cuts and bruises. He then recorded Train Keeps a Rolling with the British organist Brian Auger, released by eOne on August 13, 2013.

While touring behind that album Golub began to have trouble with balance and speech, and he was diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy, an incurable degenerative brain disease, in 2014. He passed away at his home in New York City on January 1, 2015, at the age of 59. A tribute concert at B.B. King Blues Club & Grill in New York, with Koz, Christopher Cross, Chuck Loeb and Kirk Whalum among the announced performers, was scheduled for January 21, 2015. The Vault, a benefit album of unreleased and reworked recordings with guests including Rick Braun, Koz and Whalum, was released in 2015 with proceeds going to his family.

Golub was a blues-and-soul guitarist who worked mostly in commercial settings, and that should be said plainly: the bulk of his working life was as a rock, pop and R&B session and touring player, and his own records were aimed at smooth jazz and adult contemporary radio, where several of them were played heavily. His sound is the clean electric guitar of that style, with a soul-leaning, bluesy edge that carried over from his rock years. AllMusic describes him as a soul-jazz improviser at heart, says he refused to play what he considered elevator music, and says he had the technique for straight-ahead bop but chose commercial work; the standard that closes his first album is one of the few clear signs of that side. The guitarists he cited as influences range from jazz and fusion players such as Wes Montgomery, George Benson, Lee Ritenour and Larry Carlton to blues and rock figures such as Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy, and AllMusic says he liked being compared with groove-minded instrumentalists such as David Sanborn, The Crusaders, Ronnie Laws, Joe Sample and Grover Washington Jr.. By his own account on his website he cared less about genre than about whether music was heartfelt.