JJ GREY & MOFRO @ OTTAWA FOLK FESTIVAL - AUG. 27/11
ALLIGATOR RECORDS PRESS RELEASEFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - July 28, 2011
JJ GREY & MOFRO TO PERFORM IN OTTAWA!"Inspired, deliriously funky, deep-in-the-pocket front porch soul." -
Chicago Sun-TimesDown-home roots, rock and soul artist
JJ Grey and his band,
Mofro, will perform at the Ottawa Folk Festival in Ottawa on
Saturday, August 27, 2011.
JJ and the band will perform songs from their latest release,
Georgia Warhouse.
Georgia Warhorse features 11 original JJ Grey compositions (including one co-write) that come right out of the Southern musical tradition. Following up on the major success of Grey's previous Alligator albums,
Country Ghetto and
Orange Blossoms,
Georgia Warhorse is a groove-driven, soulful masterpiece.
On September 13 Grey will release his first-ever live DVD/CD, entitled
Brighter Days. The 78-minute CD and 2-hour DVD were recorded in Atlanta in January 2011.
The Ottawa concert information is below:
Date: Saturday, August 27, 2011Event: Ottawa Folk FestivalVenue: Hog's Back Park - The Falls StageAddress: Riverside Drive (south of Heron Road)City: Ottawa, ON, CANADAPhone: 613-230-8234Showtime: 6:45pmTicket price: $39.50-$225See the website for complete line-up and detailed ticket information:
Website: www.ottawafolk.comSinging with a passion and fervor directly influenced by the classic soul heroes, JJ Grey has written and recorded five albums of original songs steeped in the rhythm & blues, rock and country soul of his native backwoods home outside Jacksonville, Florida. Grey comes from a long tradition of Southern storytellers and, in that spirit, he fills his songs with details that are at once vivid, personal and universal. After a decade of hard touring, he still spends eight months of the year on the road, bringing his music to a loyal, ever-growing, worldwide fan base.
Georgia Warhorse is named after the resilient Southern lubber grasshopper. "Yellow and black, and tough like an old-school Tonka toy," says JJ. "They seem so at ease with the world. Nothing seems to rile them. They're in no hurry, but they have a kind of resilience because they just keep coming back, and I've always felt there was a lesson in there for me to learn."
Joining him for a track on this album is Grey's long-time musical hero and reggae icon
Toots Hibbert, who sings with Grey on the "The Sweetest Thing". "Toots is the greatest soul singer I've ever heard and one of my biggest influences," says Grey.
Georgia Warhorse also provided the opportunity for Grey to work with another friend and hero, fellow Jacksonvillian
Derek Trucks. In true neighborly fashion, Trucks stopped by JJ's house to record slide guitar for the song, "Lullaby".
Debuting in 2001 with the CD,
Blackwater, following up in 2004 with
Lochloosa, Grey steadily built his following one live performance at a time. Both albums (reissued by Alligator in 2007) were released under the name, Mofro, a name the young Grey chose to describe his music and sound while still working his day job at a lumberyard. He has since used the word to name his band of ever-changing, world-class players. The albums were met with critical acclaim, including "one of the 10 best R&B records of the year and one of the best of the decade" at Amazon.com for
Blackwater and "one of the 10 best releases of the year" in Rolling Stone for
Lochloosa.
In 2007, with his first Alligator release,
Country Ghetto, Grey reached an even larger audience, doubling both his album sales and his concert attendance. Relix said, "Country Ghetto is a tribute to JJ Grey's rich comprehension of the South's learned musical roots and knack to make age-old ideas sound fresh. Grey and Mofro fuse rock with plenty of soul, groove-heavy blues, and dirty, infectious funk. The deep and introspective lyrics are a breath of fresh air." 2008's
Orange Blossoms built on that energy, with even more fans, radio stations and critics coming on board. A 2009 best-of vinyl LP,
The Choice Cuts, kept the momentum going.
Grey, an avid outdoorsman, is a dedicated fisherman and surfer and holds an honorary position on the board of the Snook Foundation, dedicated to the protection of coastal fish and fish habitat. He has written passionately and articulately about his love for the untrammeled environment of his north Florida home.
JJ has brought his music to countless festivals, including the Austin City Limits Festival, Byron Bay Blues Festival (Australia), Bonnaroo, Montreal Jazz Festival and Fuji Rock (Japan). Over the course of his 15-plus year career, Grey has shared stages with the likes of B.B. King, The Allman Brothers Band, The Black Crowes, Los Lobos, Jeff Beck, Ben Harper, Lenny Kravitz, Mavis Staples, Booker T. Jones and many others.
His songs have also appeared in film and on network and cable television programs, including "House", "Flashpoint", "Crash", "Friday Night Lights", "The Deadliest Catch", and the film, "The Hoot". In November 2009, JJ wrote his first film score for the critically acclaimed documentary, "The Good Soldier", that appeared in theatres and on Bill Moyers' "Journal" on PBS.
Recently, Grey played piano, sang and contributed a song ("The Wrong Side") to Buckwheat Zydeco's Grammy-winning Alligator album,
Lay Your Burden Down.
With the release of Georgia Warhorse and a relentless world tour to follow, Grey is set for a breakout year. Commenting on his musical future, he says,
"Life just makes itself up right in front of me and I just roll with it. All I know is to have the family I have, see the places I've been, meet the people I've met and to get to play music with some of the most talented folks around has got to make me the luckiest man alive."
Please contact Bill Giardini at
intl@allig.com for interviews, photos or additional biographical information.
Alligator Records
P.O. Box 60234
Chicago, Illinois 60660
773-973-7736/773-973-2088 (fax)
www.alligator.com----------------------------------------------------------
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