Jazz Articles about JJ Grey & Mofro

Various artists: Alligator Records: 50 Years of Genuine Houserockin’ Music

by Jim Trageser
June 18, 2021

Maybe this half-century commemoration of the jny: Chicago-based, blues-focused label should have been titled, “The Last of the Independents." Almost alone of the mid-major labels that formerly thrived in the 1980s and '90s by specializing in non-mainstream styles of music, Alligator has managed to navigate stunning changes in the music business--from the vinyl of LPs and 45s to cassettes and CDs, and then, most recently, the virtual collapse of the retail record business and wholesale pivot to online ...

JJ Grey & Mofro, Jonny Lang and The North Mississippi Allstars at The Paramount

by Mike Perciaccante
July 26, 2019

JJ Grey & Mofro, Jonny Lang and The North Mississippi Allstars The Paramount Huntington, NY July 16, 2015 On a warm July evening, just prior to the summer's first “real" heat wave, JJ Grey & Mofro, Jonny Lang and the North Mississippi Allstars touched down in Huntington, NY for a triple-headlining performance at the Paramount. Though the venue was not sold-out, the three bands played full sets to a loud, fervent and ...

JJ Grey & Mofro: Georgia Warhorse

by Doug Collette
September 9, 2010

Recorded in the same studio (Retrophonics) with the same producer (Dan Prothero) as all of JJ Grey & Mofro's previous works, Georgia Warhorse constitutes an overview of the band's whole career. The CD strikes an effective balance between the swampy blues of early albums like Lochloosa (Alligator, 2007) and the authentic R&B/soul music that filled the predecessor to this album Orange Blossoms (Alligator, 2008) The CD sounds like a throwback at first, as it begins with “Diyo Dayo," ...

JJ Grey & Mofro: Orange Blossoms

by Doug Collette
August 29, 2008

JJ Grey & Mofro Orange Blossoms Alligator Records 2008

JJ Grey and Mofro's Orange Blossoms is a natural evolution from its predecessor, the ambitious Country Ghetto (Alligator, 2007). Here Grey and his regular road band extract the R&B/soul elements and artfully expand upon them.

The title song is emblematic of the way Grey uses imagery from his Florida heritage as a means to telling a story: “orange blossoms" is a trigger to remembrance as ...

JJ Grey & Mofro: Country Ghetto

by Chris M. Slawecki
July 3, 2007

It's rather promising for a band's debut to remind you of the Faces on the fast numbers and of Otis Redding on the slow ones, but these legends provide solid points of reference for JJ Grey & Mofro's Country Ghetto.

Country Ghetto is swampy, funky, bluesy, and above all genuine, straight from JJ Grey's backwoods home in the swamps outside Jacksonville, Florida. Grey composed and arranged every tune, sings lead, and plays keyboards as well as acoustic, electric ...

JJ Grey & Mofro: Country Ghetto

by Doug Collette
April 4, 2007

Like all musical genres, the blues has its own particular set of conventions. Yet the seemingly infinite variations on the shuffle tempo and the AABA lyric format derive from the unique personalities involved. Such is the case with JJ Grey & Mofro's new album. Country Ghetto feels like everything that is the blues while mostly sounding nothing like it.

While Mofro boasts a somewhat unconventional instrumental lineup-- no bass guitarist--the low registers nevertheless permeate the music almost like a subliminal ...