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Sturgill Simpson

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Sturgill Simpson
Background information
Birth nameJohn Sturgill Simpson[1]
Born (1978-06-08) June 8, 1978 (age 46)
Jackson, Kentucky
GenresCountry
Occupation(s)Singer-songwriter
Instrument(s)Vocals, guitar
Years active2013–present
LabelsAtlantic Records
High Top Mountain
Loose Music (Europe)
Websitesturgillsimpson.com

Sturgill Simpson (born June 8, 1978) is an American country music singer-songwriter. He has released two albums independently.

Early life

Simpson was born in Jackson, Kentucky, a small town in Breathitt County in southeast Kentucky, the son of a secretary, and a state policeman who formerly worked undercover narcotics.[1][2] Due to his father's work, Simpson's family moved to Versailles, Kentucky, outside Lexington, Kentucky, where Simpson graduated from Woodford County High School.[2]

On his Kentucky upbringing: "For all intents and purposes, it felt like I'd had two childhoods, even when I was there. In the summers, I was always back in eastern Kentucky with my grandparents. It felt like my mom and I went home about every weekend. In my heart I guess I'm from Appalachia."[2] Simpson's mother's family were coal miners.[3]

On music: "I've always played. I got my first guitar when I was 8 or 9. It was never anything that was encouraged or anything that I thought I could do for a living. Everybody back home plays music; it's what you do when you're done with your real job."[2]

After three years in the United States Navy, he spent time in Japan then moved again to Lexington, Kentucky.[4] Sturgill Simpson's songs are represented by Downtown Music Publishing.

Career

He formed the bluegrass band Sunday Valley in 2004, which played at the Pickathon festival in Portland, Oregon.[5]

Simpson took a break from music and worked a job in a Salt Lake City, Utah railroad freight-shipping yard for Union Pacific Railroad. Simpson says. "Trains would pull in and we'd tear 'em apart and move 'em around and build new trains. It was like playin' with a giant train set. I loved the job but I screwed up and took a management position and it slowly changed into 'I hate this job.'"[6] After playing local open mics and gigs, Simpson returned to touring with Sunday Valley and made an album with them until the band disbanded and he and his wife moved to Nashville.[6]

After going solo in 2012, Simpson released his debut album High Top Mountain in 2013 which he self-funded and self-released.[5][7] When recording the album, Simpson told producer Dave Cobb (Jason Isbell, Shooter Jennings) that he "wanted this project to have the feel of those old country records". Among the session musicians were Hargus "Pig" Robbins and Robby Turner, a former guitarist for Waylon Jennings.[4] The record is named after a cemetery "where many of Simpson's family members are buried, near his family's home in the Appalachia coal town of Jackson, Kentucky."[8]

Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic rated High Top Mountain 4 stars out of 5, comparing its sound favorably to Waylon Jennings.[9] Erik Ernst of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel also compared it to Jennings, saying that it had "rich vintage sounds, heartbreaking ballads and juke-joint ramblers".[10]

In 2014, Simpson released his second album, Metamodern Sounds in Country Music to positive reviews.[11][12][13][14][14] The album's lead single is "Living the Dream".[15] The record fleshes out "a deep and unconventional relationship between traditionalism and new ways of thinking," and deviates from Simpson's more traditional hard country debut.[16] On that, Simpson said he focuses on his "[n]ighttime reading about theology, cosmology, and breakthroughs in modern physics and their relationship to a few personal experiences I've had led to most of the songs on the album."[16] Simpson said that: "Recording and mixing was done in five and a half days for about $4,000. I was pretty proud about that."[17]

On the meaning of "Metamodern": "The metamodern idea… I read this guy… I read weird shit. This guy called Seth Abramson was talking about oscillation between naivety and our current culture's love for nostalgia. It's exactly what I see happening in Nashville right now."[2] Other influences on the record: "Dr. Rick Strassman's book The Spirit Molecule was extremely inspirational, as were a few recent highly visionary indie films and a lot of Terrence McKenna's audio lectures. The influences are all over the place but they culminated into a group of songs about love and the human experience, centered around the light and darkness within us all. There have been many socially conscious concept albums. I wanted to make a "social consciousness" concept album disguised as a country record."[16]

Metamodern Sounds in Country Music includes two covers: Buford Abner's "Long White Line" (which appeared on both Charlie Moore & Bill Napier's Truckin' Favorites and Aaron Tippin's In Overdrive) and When in Rome's 1988 hit "The Promise",[18] which appeared in the closing credits to Napoleon Dynamite.[19]

Simpson made his television network debut on July 14, 2014, on the Late Show with David Letterman, playing "Life of Sin".[20] He has also played the Opry—which was an important milestone to his family, especially his grandfather, who is very close to[3]—and has opened for artists like Dwight Yoakam, Willie Nelson,[21] and the Zac Brown Band.[22]

Band

Current members of Simpson's band:

  • Laur Joamets[23] - electric & slide guitar
  • Kevin Black - bass guitar
  • Miles Miller - drums, percussion, backing vocals

Musical style

Often compared to Waylon Jennings[24] and the Outlaw Country genre of country music,[25] Simpson acknowledges the compliment but as Shooter Jennings says: "Sturgill isn't imitating at all, and he sounds like my favorite era of my dad, the Seventies, when he would sing quieter and more conversational. That's what struck me about Sturgill from Day One. And still does."[26]

Personal life

Simpson is married, and has lived with his wife and dog in Nashville, Tennessee since 2010.[2] They have a son who was born in June 2014.[6][27]

Simpson has talked about his struggles with alcohol; he's been sober since he was 28.[3]

Discography

Albums

Title Album details Peak chart positions Sales
US Country
[28] 		US
[29] 		US Heat US Indie
High Top Mountain
  • Release date: June 11, 2013
  • Labels: High Top Mountain, Loose Music
  • Format: CD, LP, digital
 31 — 11[30] —
Metamodern Sounds in Country Music
  • Release date: May 13, 2014
  • Labels: High Top Mountain, Loose Music
  • Format: CD, LP, digital
 8 59 — 6
"—" denotes releases that did not chart

Singles

Year Single Album
2013 "Life Ain't Fair and the World Is Mean" High Top Mountain
2014 "Living the Dream" Metamodern Sounds in Country Music
"Turtles All the Way Down"
"The Promise"[33]

Music videos

Year Video Director
2013 "Railroad of Sin"
2014 "Turtles All the Way Down" Graham Uhelski
2014 "The Promise" Graham Uhelski

Notes and references

  1. ^ a b "J Sturgill Simpson, United States Public Records, 1970-2009". FamilySearch. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Cooper, Duncan (15 July 2014). "Another Country: A Freewheeling Hour with Sturgill Simpson". The Fader. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
  3. ^ a b c Martin, Rachel (25 May 2014). "'I Wanna Make Art': Sturgill Simpson's Twisting Path To Nashville". Weekend Edition Sunday. NPR. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
  4. ^ a b Tunis, Walter (30 May 2013). "Kentucky native Sturgill Simpson took long road, and railroad, to Nashville". Lexington Herald-Leader. Retrieved 18 April 2014.
  5. ^ a b Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Sturgill Simpson biography". AllMusic. Retrieved 18 April 2014.
  6. ^ a b c Dougherty, Steve (6 May 2014). "Sturgill Simpson Sings Country Metaphysics". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
  7. ^ Cooper, Duncan (12 May 2014). "GEN F: Sturgill Simpson, the Cosmic Cowboy of the Digital Age Read". The Fader. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
  8. ^ Inman, Davis (26 April 2013). "Sturgill Simpson: Man Of The Hour". American Songwriter. Retrieved 24 July 2014.
  9. ^ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "High Top Mountain". AllMusic. Retrieved 18 April 2014.
  10. ^ Ernst, Erik (11 June 2013). "CD reviews: Jason Isbell, Alison Moyet, Walter Trout, Sturgill Simpson". Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Retrieved 18 April 2014.
  11. ^ Deusner, Stephen M. (16 May 2014). "Sturgill Simpson, Metamodern Sounds in Country Music". Pitchfork. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
  12. ^ Caramanica, Jon (14 May 2014). "A Country Lament Sinks Into Despair: Sturgill Simpson's 'Metamodern Sounds in Country Music'". New York Times. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
  13. ^ Keohane, Joe (1 May 2014). "The Best, Darkest, Weirdest Country Record of the Year". Esquire. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
  14. ^ a b Dauphin, Chuck (16 May 2014). "Sturgill Simpson Shuns 'Tailgating and Spring Breaks' on New Album". Billboard. Retrieved 26 July 2014.
  15. ^ Rowland, Sarah (20 February 2014). "Song Premiere: Sturgill Simpson - "Living The Dream"". Paste Magazine. Retrieved 18 April 2014.
  16. ^ a b c Powers, Ann (17 April 2014). "God, Drugs And Lizard Aliens: Yep, It's Country Music". NPR.
  17. ^ Trageser, Stephen (23 July 2014). "Mystic Mind: A Q&A with Sturgill Simpson". American Songwriter. Retrieved 24 July 2014.
  18. ^ Betts, Stephen L. (19 June 2014). "Sturgill Simpson Keeps His Country 'Promise': Watch the singer put a country spin on Eighties pop hit, "The Promise"". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
  19. ^ Ganz, Jacob (4 May 2014). "First Listen: Sturgill Simpson, 'Metamodern Sounds In Country Music'". NPR. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
  20. ^ Hudak, Joseph (15 July 2014). "Sturgill Simpson Makes 'Letterman' Debut: Kentucky singer-songwriter wows Dave with "Life of Sin"". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
  21. ^ http://acl-live.com/calendar/willie-nelson-2014-12-30
  22. ^ Trigger (16 May 2014). "Where Does Sturgill Simpson Go From Here?". Saving Country Music. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
  23. ^ Cooper, Duncan (18 September 2014). "Another Country: An Estonian Guitarist Sets Country Music Ablaze". Fader. Retrieved 14 November 2014.
  24. ^ Lore, Mark (21 May 2014). "Sturgill Simpson: Metamodern Sounds In Country Music Review". Paste. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
  25. ^ Hyden, Steven (30 April 2014). "The New-Age Outlaw Country of Lydia Loveless and Sturgill Simpson". Grantland. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
  26. ^ Hudak, Joseph (3 June 2014). "Is Sturgill Simpson Country Music's Savior? Not If He Can Help It". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
  27. ^ Barker, Brian (July 2014). "Simpson gets metamodern". Country Standard Time. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
  28. ^ "Sturgill Simpson Album & Song Chart History - Country Albums". Billboard. Prometheus Global Media. Retrieved September 25, 2014.
  29. ^ "Sturgill Simpson & Song Chart History - Billboard 200". Billboard. Prometheus Global Media.
  30. ^ "High Top Mountain charts and awards". AllMusic. Retrieved 18 April 2014.
  31. ^ Bjorke, Matt (23 July 2014). "Country Album Sales Report: July 23, 2014". Roughstock. Retrieved 26 July 2014.
  32. ^ Matt Bjorke (February 11, 2015). "Country Album Chart Report For February 11, 2015". Roughstock.
  33. ^ "Future Releases on Triple A (AAA) Radio Stations". All Access Music Group. Archived from the original on 4 July 2014.

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