This background clearly shows in his music. It\u2019s funkier than foot odor after walking all day in 95% humidity, and heavier than boots full of swamp muck. The boys of Mofro have all been thoroughly schooled in the fine arts of funk and soul, and JJ Grey possesses that smooth Southern way of always talking in rhythm. And when he opens his mouth to sing, boy, you better take a step back. If I hadn\u2019t seen it with my own two eyes, I never would have imagined that a voice that big was coming out of a thin, tall, white Floridian.<\/p>\n
Songs like \u201cTragic,\u201d \u201cCircle,\u201d and \u201cA Woman\u201d are testaments to JJ\u2019s impressive vocal range. In the lower registers, his throat sounds like it\u2019s full of rocks (in that bluesy good way). And in the upper registers, it sounds sweeter than the honey in your tea. But in addition to his singing capabilities, JJ has another talent that harkens back to blues and funk music. He\u2019s one hell of a bandleader, in the vein of the late great James Brown. During the show, there was never one second where he wasn\u2019t absolutely in control of Mofro. You could tell it in the way he gave cues to the drummer by stomping his feet, the way he called on the band members to give solos, and even in the call-and-response game with his harmonica during their second encore. The man knows how to extract the very best out of all of his bandmates.<\/p>\n
For most of the night, one song melded into another in a continuous flow of Southern funk and soul music. The audience ate it up, dancing to the beats that were flowing off the stage. As a photographer, even I found it hard to stand still while taking photos of the band. The continuous onslaught of funk lasted about two and a half hours \u2013 eighteen songs worth, including a grand total of three encore performances. My personal highlight was JJ\u2019s solo performance of his song \u201cThe Hurricane,\u201d which you won\u2019t find on any of his albums (yet). He played it earlier at his acoustic in-store performance at Lou\u2019sd Records, and his tour manager, who had never heard the song before, asked him to play it again that night. It was well worth hearing twice. It\u2019s a sweetly modest acoustic retelling of what it\u2019s like to sit in a house while a hurricane rages outside for thirty-eight hours straight. But more than that, it\u2019s about the things that make us feel small and mortal. To me, listening to that song made me feel the way that some people feel in church.<\/p>\n
The band was visibly having a great time, and so was the crowd; neither one of us wanted the night to end. But eventually it did, and we all shuffled home, feeling the pain in our feet for the first time in two hours, but relishing it nonetheless.<\/p>\n
NK<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
JJ Grey & Mofro @ Belly Up Tavern, 3-30-07 Show review and photo by Natalie Kardos JJ Grey hails from the part of Florida that most people never think about. Not the Florida where old people go to retire, to drive their Buicks and Cadillacs at mind-numbingly slow speeds down highways bordering surf, sun, and sand. Not the Florida where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[226],"class_list":["post-272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","tag-jj-grey-mofro-show-review"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4549,"url":"http:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/2011\/04\/17\/show-review-mike-wojniak-soda-bar-41311\/","url_meta":{"origin":272,"position":0},"title":"show review: Mike Wojniak, Soda Bar 4\/13\/11","author":"admin","date":"April 17, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"[Show Review] Mike Wojniak at the Soda Bar 4\/13\/11 Reviewed by My Nguyen Ignited by his music, Mike Wojniak resembles Popeye in the throes of an intense struggle. 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