JJ Grey and Mofro bring the smell of ‘Orange Blossoms’ to Varsity

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By Jason Andreasen

Revolutionary. Unprecedented. Innovative.

You most likely won’t hear any of these adjectives used to describe the music of Florida-born artist JJ Grey or his band Mofro. You probably won’t hear anyone herald his arrangements as avant-garde or proclaim his approach to the genres he fuses together, employing his voice as the soldering gun, as fresh. No, these aren’t accurate descriptions of JJ Grey. And he likes it that way.

“The one thing that I’m not worried about is breaking new ground and being ‘progressive,’ which is the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard of in music in the first place,” said Grey with a tone bordering on anger. “There’s 12 notes in western music. Music, for me, is not a place to plant flags. I’m not climbing a mountain. I’m not here to change nothing.”

Grey, speaking from the set of the video for his new album’s title track, “Orange Blossoms,” continued his thought. “Most times, ‘new’ is directly tied to technology. It’s like Jimi Hendrix was doing what Buddy Guy did, but with distortion. He sounded different, and it made him ‘new.’ Nothing is new.”

Obviously, what is new is Orange Blossoms, Grey & Mofro’s fourth album, which was released on August 26. The album was recorded and mixed at St. Augustine, Fla.’s Retrophonics Studio, where Grey has been recording for nearly two decades. Like Grey & Mofro’s prior efforts, while listening to Orange Blossoms one can almost hear its roots continuing to stretch out into the spongy northern Florida soil, something that Grey felt was inevitable.

When asked about the association between his sound and the region from which he hails, Grey replied, “Things sound like they do for a reason. There’s a connection and that connection makes it real and relevant for me. I really don’t think about it; it just kind of shows up. It’s like being conscious of how you walk down the street; y’know, you just want to walk down the street.”

No bones are made about Grey’s love for culturally relevant music, whether it be reggae or old Muddy Waters records. In fact, the truth that he finds in such relics, be they new or old, is what Grey hopes others find in his own work.

“When music was moving slowly along in its way, directly tied to the culture of the people where it was coming from, it was wonderful,” said Grey. “That’s the kind of records everyone goes back and listens to and they’re timeless. I certainly don’t know if what I do has that connection, and I figure that if I try to make it, it would get worse. Somehow or another, if I can bring a fraction of that connection – actually that’s the wrong way to say it; if it just happens, that’s great.”

On Orange Blossoms, Grey feels like he might have come closer to that “real connection” than on any of its three predecessors.

“The sound of the record is warmer. It’s closer to what I’ve been wanting to do since day one texturally and album-wise,” said Grey.

Textured might be the most apropos term to describe Orange Blossoms. Grey’s vocal versatility is able to shine on the album due in no small part to the album’s own variety from track to track. All but one of the 12 tracks were written and arranged by Grey, who is also credited with having played nine different instruments on the album, evidence of his ability to escape any pigeonhole he might be squeezed into. Whether it be the thick and funky sexual sales pitch that is “WYLF” or the satin-draped and gospel-tinged love song, “The Truth,” there is plenty on Orange Blossoms that makes it a complex and engrossing listen.

As far as its northern Florida roots, the deceptively melancholic title track sets the scene for the album by describing the memorable scent of the state flower, while the rest of the album takes you deeper into Grey’s soul and his home, including a Howlin’ Wolf-inspired romp through the raucous “Ybor City” and the cathartic lyricism and hauntingly layered vocals of “Dew Drops.”

Those effortless vocals are one of the most intriguing aspects of Orange Blossoms. Grey’s ability to oscillate between belting out “With you I wanna be, with her I still belong” on “Everything Good is Bad” and the bridled, tormented simplicity of “She Don’t Know” is what helps to add so many fibers to the album’s texture.

The album’s eighth track, “Move It On,” is easily its most layered. The number actually reveals that to believe that there isn’t anything innovative in Grey’s repertoire is to miss out on the intricacies that define Grey & Mofro’s sound. The song seems to slither towards your ear with nothing but seduction on its agenda. The innovation, however, comes from Grey’s use of a sitar as a funk instrument. According to Grey, it brings a Kama Sutra-like aura to things.

“I wanted it to be hypnotic and as sexual as humanly possible,” Grey said emphatically. “The sitar, I didn’t plan on that shit. I walked into the studio and [after the studio’s owner showed him an electric sitar] I said I gotta play that. I was like, I know the perfect song.”

He joked, “We got tantric with it.”

JJ Grey & Mofro will be seducing, inspiring and confessing to audiences at The Varsity on Wednesday, Sept. 3. Tickets to the show are available at The Chimes. However, if you pick up Orange Blossoms before the show and have a set idea of what the band will sound like live; allow Grey to be the first to warn you, “Songs take on their own life when you start doing a show.”

E-mail the author at JasonAndreasen@tigerweekly.com.

Originally Published: Issue 702 - August 27, 2008

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