Visit Tallahassee and Scott Carswell Presents
JJ Grey & Mofro
With the new album 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 all steeped in the mythical Southern stories of his ancestral Florida home and filled with people from JJ’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 ten 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.” Billy Allen + The Pollies There is a ferocious Southern engine inside of Billy Allen + The Pollies’ debut album Black Noise. It thrums to life atop a classic rock chassis and expertly weaves in and out of gospel, grunge, funk and soul along its eleven-song journey. From the explosive top of the album (a liberating anthem of self-worth called “All of Me”) to the spiritually haunting final track (the wurlitzer fueled “Go on Without Them”) Black Noise is a genre-defiant haymaker that lands. The band is a hybrid of four piece rock outfit The Pollies and fellow Alabamian, and frontman, Billy Allen. The story of what fused Allen and The Pollies is one that begins in a bar 8 years ago. This particular bar was on Allen’s gig circuit and it just so happens to be where Jay Burgess (founder of The Pollies) was having a drink that evening. While there was intrigue and potential in that first chance meeting, the two would remain ships in the night, each building their own careers, until years later when the stars would align at FAME studios in Muscle Shoals. As the story goes, both Allen and The Pollies, who were all occasional session musicians at Fame, were finally in the room together and the track on deck was Little Richard’s “Greenwood, MS”. To hear Allen retell this part of the story is to hear a man talk about the beginnings of a priceless friendship. “There was an immediate romantic musical connection,” Allen said. “This is my band.” To hear Burgess tell it, the feeling was mutual. Over the subsequent year, the two groups rehearsed, toured, wrote, and gelled together under the moniker Billy Allen + The Pollies. The joining of Billy and Jay (along with the other charter members of The Pollies: Spencer Duncan, Jon Davis & Clint Chandler) was like the clicking of a dislocated bone back into true.