Nine years elapsed between the release of
JJ Grey & Mofro's
Ol' Glory in 2015 and 2024's
Olustee, and the world changed quite a bit between them. The U.S. has seen two contentious presidential elections, the end of the Afghan war, a global pandemic, frequent hurricanes in the U.S. across the South and East, massive wildfires in the West, and drastic cultural changes.
Grey meditates on all of this by staying close to home. He continues to mine the raw material of life and Florida's (and the South's) history and geography.
Olustee is
Grey's first self-produced album, and given its warm, captivating sound, he should have been producing the band's work from the very beginning.
Mofro, a standard rock quintet, expands here with addition of horns, reeds, orchestral strings, winds, a backing chorus, and percussion.
The 11-track set moves back and forth across Americana, blues, funk, and blue-eyed Sothern soul. "The Sea" is an opening ballad initiated by a plectrum acoustic guitar buoying
Grey's falsetto. He refects the stillness, peace, and calm his protagonist experiences near and on the sea. Singers, piano, gentle strings, and brass underscore the reverie and longing in his tender lyric. "Top of the World" commences with ringing electric guitars and a funky backbeat that drives a wrangling, bluesy, souled-out gospel jam that recalls
Bob Dylan's "Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat)" with a killer tenor sax break from
Kenny Hamilton. "On a Breeze" is a lushly romantic ballad with nearly Baroque arrangements that simultaneously recall mariachi horns and the production on
David Ackles'
American Gothic. The bigger instruments hover and float over biting guitars and blues harmonica atop a swampy, skeletal funk that nods to
Ike Turner's Kings of Rhythm and
Sly & the Family Stone circa 1967. "Seminole Wind" is arguably the most poignant lyric on the set, as
Grey & co. reflect on the price Florida's environment continues to pay for "progress" while driving piano, guitars, and horns carry the harmony into the red. A dubwise trumpet solo dramatically follows the final verse where the protagonist swears he can hear the ghost of Osceola weeping in the wind. "Wonderland" is a rave-up Southern soul ditty with
Stax-styled horns, pumping
Jerry Lee Lewis-esque piano, and raucous call-and-response vocals. The other side of deep soul emerges in the deeply romantic waltz-time ballad "Starry Night," with electric piano, fluid guitars, and piano framing sweeping strings and the chorus. While the twinning of guitars and horns on "Free High" fuels an unrestrained dancefloor stomper, "Rooster" revels in horn-drenched, hard-rocking, gospelized funk with a rapped lead vocal fronting a sultry backing chorus -- à la
Delbert McClinton. Closer "Deeper Than Belief" carries
Olustee out on a reflective note, reveling in lush Americana with spacious piano, reverbed vocals, flute, strings, electric guitar, and a spiritually instructive lyric.
Grey and
Mofro provide listeners with both a good time and emotional poignancy. As evidenced here, they reveal that the nine-year wait was well worth it. ~ Thom Jurek
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