JJ Grey and Mofro, Country Ghetto

I'm sort of a jerk.  Often times, when I'm talking to people who's musical taste I trust greatly I seem to shut my ears... then months later when I stumble across a band or album they tried to push on me back I'm really humbled.  Here's another one that I owe the discovery of to some of my Rock and Roll friends.  I don't think this is the exact disc they meant for me to check out but hey.... I wasn't really listening.

I had no idea what to expect from JJ Grey and Mofro's Country Ghetto. Trying to guess from the name, of the group or the album, left me with nothing.  Perhaps I was over thinking it all, perhaps I was scared my friends had sent me down the path to a Kid Rock sound-alike... Hillbilly Hip Hop for the 21st century.  Once I got the album home I realized that if I though a little less about it I'd have know exactly what I was getting into.

So this disc goes back about a decade... put that doesn't matter, it's a 40 or 50 year old album where it counts.  With some tasty funk, a gob of rich southern soul, and some of the fattest grooves this side of the R&B greats like Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, and the like.  For me, it was Otis Redding's style that seems most obviously adopted.... But I've always been a sucker for Otis so it's probably a bit of a quantum measurement there.

Guitars on the album will punch you one second, then sneak up with the wah pedal rocking gently and squeeze your wife's butt, finally soothing you with some heavy vibrato and steel guitar whines.  The horns, oh so essential to the genre are spot on. Most important of all the voice is authentic... Often a genre like this is forced upon some karaoke champ by a producer and you can't totally buy it.  That is not the case here, every sung note rings true... whether hollered through a harp mic or angelically delivered in the backups, nothing feels forced or faked. 

Usually I do a bit of a track-by-track breakdown but I can't really think of how to group the songs.  The overall mood is so steady but it takes you up and and down, picks you up and throws you away while managing to, all the while, keep you in the same general groovy state.

This album makes it clear that I need to check out the other Mofro albums in case they are even half as good.

Thanks for reading and happy listening