“Impassioned singing, riff-based Southern rock, cold blooded swamp funk and sly Memphis soul…

Rich, funky blues celebrate life’s most fundamental joys. Grey is a singer-songwriter with unforced talent and deep feeling.” -The New York Times

“The swami of swamp rock… JJ Grey is a North Florida sage and purveyor of the funkiest swamp rock the world has ever heard…chicken-scratch guitar and bone-deep songs.” -Oxford American

According to musician, singer and artist JJ Grey, “The best songs I’ve ever written, I never wrote. They wrote themselves. The best show I ever played, played itself and had little to do with me or talent. To me, those things come from the power of an honest moment, and I guess I’m trying to live in that power and not force life to cough up what I want.”

Since his first album, Blackwater, back in 2001, Grey has been releasing deeply moving, masterfully written, funkified rock and front porch Southern soul music. Now, with his new album, Olustee-his tenth and first in nine years, and the first he has self-produced-Grey is back, singing his personal stories with universal themes of redemption, rebirth, hard luck, and inner peace.

With his music, Grey also celebrates good times with lifelong friends, oftentimes mixing the carnal with the cerebral in the very same song. Fueled by his vividly detailed, timeless originals spun from his own life and experiences in the Northern Florida swampland, Grey’s gritty baritone drips with honest passion and testifies with a preacher’s foot-pounding fervor.

With Olustee, JJ Grey has once again pushed the boundaries of his own creative musical, lyrical and vocal talents, delivering an album that is destined to become a stone-cold classic. Many of the songs are steeped in the mythical Southern stories of his ancestral Florida home and filled with people from J’s life. The songs overflow with the sights and sounds of the region as told through the eyes of a poet and sung with pure, unvarnished soul.

The album’s eleven songs range from the introspective opener The Sea to the raucous, celebratory first radio single, Wonderland, to an escape from an out-of-control wildfire in the title track, to the inward-looking closer, Deeper Than Belief. Singing of his own personal triumphs and struggles, his hopes and desires, his friends and family, Grey’s message is simple and strong: respect the natural world and always try to live in the moment. And never forget the importance of having a good time.

From his early days playing cover music behind chicken wire at a west side Jacksonville juke joint, to playing sold-out shows at some of the largest venues and music festivals in the world, JJ Grey has always delivered his soul-honest truths. Now, with Olustee, JJ Grey & Mofro will bring their music directly to fans as they hit the road for a massive months-long tour across the country and throughout the world. AllMusic says JJ Grey’s music is “as authentic as the ground under your feet because that’s where it comes from-just before it moves, simply and directly, through the body of the listener, into the human heart.”