The Musical Box

jj grey performs tonight for woodsongs.

Even though he has made a lifelong home in the Sunshine State, there is something distinctly unsunny about the music of JJ Grey.

That’s not to say the Jacksonville, Fla. singer, songwriter, bandleader and multi-instrumentalist doesn’t pack his Southern-steeped records with considerable warmth and jubilance. It’s just that within the blend of funk, blues and vintage R&B Grey creates with his band Mofro is a sound that is altogether swampy.

It’s as though the music was cooked in some thick, humid, Cajun-less bayou. OK, so Jacksonville isn’t exactly bayou country. But for Grey, who will perform a solo acoustic set tonight for the WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour, his Florida homeland is where all the magical soul inspirations of the South - and even a few sounds from other regions - converged. The evolution of those sounds continue to inspire Grey’s Mofro music, especially the horn and string orchestrations that play into his new Orange Blossoms album.

“It was kind of a mutual exposure,” Grey said last week during a tour stop in Birmingham, Ala. “The music I listened to went from R&B to soul to vintage country, especially George Jones and his tracks with those huge, almost orchestral arrangements. There was a point in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s where strings and horns made a big appearance. They would eventually get into all kinds of music, from disco to punk rock. To me, that music always sounded so powerful.

“Mostly though, I love the guitar sound of Tony Joe White and Jerry Reed. I love the drum tone of (Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section player) Roger Hawkins, especially his playing on records by Aretha (Franklin). But I also love the bass playing of James Jamerson and all that great Motown stuff he played on.”

On Orange Blossoms, such inspirations play out in the way wiry guitar riffs peak through a dense, funky percussion shuffle to ignite an almost intimate post-psychedelic bushfire in the title tine. Later, on Higher You Climb, the patient but purposeful Southern inflection of Grey’s singing works off a groove charged by clavinet and organ. And on Ybor City, the soul sound is all Southern even if the inspirations seemingly aren’t. The tune sounds like a cross between the rockier tunes of Chicago bluesman Billy Boy Arnold and the West Coast swamp music John Fogerty designed nearly 40 years ago for Creedence Clearwater Revival.

In fact, you could play spot-the-influence for hours with any of the four Mofro albums that Grey has recorded. The resulting music is never an imitation, though, but a hearty and original assimilation of those rootsy sounds.

“Once you find all of those elements, you have to make sure they all fall together without sounding too derivative,” Grey said. “You never want the music to only sound like the sum of those influences. You have to allow that intangible to happen. But then, that’s something you can’t force. It just has to happen.”

Allowing that “intangible” to ignite has meant anchoring a Mofro lineup that shifts from album to album with a few mainstay elements. Specifically, guitarist Daryl Hance and producer Dan Prothero have been in Grey’s corner for all four Mofro albums. Then there is the matter of where those records have been cut - namely, a St. Petersburg studio that Grey has spent over half of his music-making life in.

“While there have been a number of variables with these records, all of them have been recorded in the same studio on the same gear,” Grey said. “I’ve been recording there since I was 18. I’m 41 now, so it’s been a long time. It helps that Dan possesses a scary knowledge of how the control room, the amplifiers - everything there, really - works.

“Dan, in fact, has really pushed me to become a better musician. I was always content to let other people play so I could just sing. Dan kept telling me, ‘You will wind up playing around your singing. It will make a difference.’ He explained to me the story about Aretha and how they got good recordings of her at Muscle Shoals. But when they sat her in front of a piano and let her play as she sang, things started going to a whole other level. Dan, to me, is a just a genius.”

Of course, when Grey visits WoodSongs, the Mofro team won’t be around. It will just be himself, his guitar and an unaccompanied instinct for making great Southern stewed music.

“It was a big challenge playing solo at first,” Grey said. “One of the first lessons I had to learn was to not worry about trying to recreate what you do with a full band. You just sing and play the songs. Tony Joe White would often have to do the same thing. He would change the way he played just a little bit so he could accompany himself.

“Once you can do that, the music becomes less about all the funky stuff and more about what you’re singing. The lyrics take on a life of their own.”

After eight years of solo gigs and Mofro tours, Grey’s music is championed by a devout but still somewhat modest fan base. He sees younger acts that have clocked fewer road miles pass him by on their way to larger audiences. But Grey doesn’t sweat that. His enthusiasm for the art of live performance, as well as his sense of hope at establishing a wider fan following, remains undiminished.

“You can look around and see a lot of bands playing in a garage one day and then, it seems, they’re getting signed to some big time record label,” Grey said. “And you can get aggravated with that. But I’ve also seen plenty of other groups that work really hard where things don’t come nearly as easy. For us, we have to go out and play every night that we can. And to be honest with you, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I don’t mind working for what I’ve got. The road to here has taken eight years to travel. But it seems like the blink of an eye. I wake up every day and say, ‘I get to play the music that I love in front of great crowds.’ And that feels great.”

JJ Grey and Victoria Fox perform at 7 p.m. tonight at the Kentucky Theatre, 214 E. Main St. for the final 2008 taping of the WoodSongs Old Time Radio Hour. Tickets are $10. Call: (859) 252-8888.