Johnny Blue Skies, Sturgill Simpson, and Dark Clouds

Even though Sturgill Simpson first picked up the guitar at the age of eight years old, he is not one of the current breed of popular musicians barely old enough to drive. Quite the opposite in fact, Simpson lived enough for two lives before he became a musician as a full-time career, enrolling in the U.S Navy at the age of 19 and spending three years deployed everywhere from Tokyo to his native Kentucky. In fact, it was his time spent in the Navy that convinced him that he wanted to spend the rest of his life playing music, and in 2004, he formed his first real band, the bluegrass combo Sunny Valley. Despite his best efforts, Sunny Valley weren’t to be, and in the mid-200’s he left the band and took a job in a freight-shipping yard in Salt Lake City, Utah. Music was still in the back of Simpson’s mind though, so he wrote songs and performed at as many open mic nights as he could find the whole time.

Come 2013 he had enough material and drive to self-finance and self-release his first album “High Top Mountain”. It was a critical smash, with comparisons to the immortal Waylon Jennings coming from everyone from Allmusic to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal. The album was enough to secure him a record deal with Loose Music, and since then he’s remained one of the most exciting talents in modern country music. His second album “Metamodern Sounds In Country Music” sold over a hundred thousand copies after appearances by Simpson on David Letterman and Jimmy Fallon, and he has the world of country music at his feet. For that, he comes highly recommended.