Photo by Tobin Voggesser

In Southern slang, a yellow grasshopper often found near Florida’s northern border is called a Georgia Warhorse. It is small, tenacious and known for its strength and resilience.

It is also a fitting metaphor for singer/guitarist JJ Grey’s steady rise in popularity over the course of his career. For more than a decade, Grey and his longtime band Mofro have been fixtures on the jamband and festival circuits – sharing the stage with everyone from Widespread Panic, Galactic and The Allman Brothers Band to Mavis Staples, Booker T. and Sharon Jones. In that time, Grey has slowly amassed a loyal following without having a hit record or the rock star drama that has marked the careers of many of his contemporaries.

He has his own fan site – Mofrofans.com – and has played to the masses at festivals like Bonnaroo, Fuji Rock, Austin City Limits and Wakarusa. Despite all of his worldly adventures, Grey couldn’t help but think back to the small grasshoppers he first encountered as a child when it came time to pick the title for his latest album, Georgia Warhorse.

“I grew up in Florida, 25 miles from the Georgia line,” Grey says in a deep, Southern drawl. “For me, the grasshopper represents the toughness and tenacity of my grandmother – something I always wanted to be able to pull off. My dad and all the older people I grew up with all pulled it off. I am waiting for my turn to get there.”

Grey – who grew up in an area he affectionately calls “the redneck triangle” – has always used his blue collar, Jacksonville, Fla. hometown as a backdrop for his songs. Before he was able to play music fulltime, the 43 year old held a number of jobs to support his fledging career – everything from being a lumberjack to booking bands and throwing festivals. He remembers those humble roots and one can hear the working-class mentality in his voice – the lynchpin of Mofro’s mix of classic soul, gritty funk and front-porch blues.

“I know I’m not planting a flag or nothing,” Grey admits of Mofro’s sound. “I’m not claiming that I do something that’s so different than anybody else. It’s like saying that you speak different from everybody else. Hell, we all speak the same, but some people speak [in a way] you’ve never heard before [that you find interesting] while other people’s voices sound totally familiar. Regardless, you still want to hear what everybody has to say.”

While everything from Grey’s sandy, graying hair to his flannel shirts feels like a reflection of his toughness – especially when compared to many of his jamband peers like Umphrey’s McGee or The String Cheese Incident – these days, the singer can justifiably say that he’s made it. Mofro is currently signed to Alligator Records, one of the most respected labels putting out blues-based music today. Without much fanfare, Grey has turned into one of the most prominent singers in a scene often defined by instrumental virtuosity. He’s not only been able to pay respects to traditional blues and soul but also has helped introduce those sounds to a young, hungry audience.

“I often think of reggae, which sticks closer to its tradition, where [the artists] have never really thought to change it – to try add new chord progressions or different rhythms and [so as] not do the skank,” he says. “They never wasted time thinking about stupid stuff like that. Consequently, what happened is the music [naturally] became different.”

Despite his strong roots in Southern music, Grey got his first break when he scored a record deal with a U.K.-based record label in the mid ‘90s. The singer/songwriter/guitarist relocated across the pond and formed a band featuring an international cast of musicians. He also brought along his hometown friend Daryl Hance, who Grey met while working at an air conditioning company and also played in bands with him that now “would be considered indie without the skinny pants and goofy clothes.” Nodding to their strange setting, Grey and Hance played an early show as Mofro Lives in London. The name Mofro, Grey says, felt like a good word to describe his sound. “It sounded like Southern slang, but didn’t sound like [it was describing] one [particular] style,” he admits.

Soon after arriving in London, Mofro’s deal started to crumble. Grey and Hance returned to Jacksonville where they regrouped Mofro and signed a deal with Fog City to release the 2001 debut, Blackwater. The band suffered another setback at the beginning of a tour in late October 2001 when Grey’s wife and several members of Mofro were seriously injured in car accident in Florida.

The band soldiered on and the album’s modern mixture of swampy blues and thick, heartfelt soul introduced Mofro’s signature sound: organ, guitar, dorbro, percussion and Grey’s trademark gruff voice. While the group’s early style was a dirtier blues rather than an expansive, Grateful Dead-inspired psychedelia, the jamband scene “adopted” him through tours with Galactic and Widespread Panic.

Grey likens his association with the jam scene to a playing basketball: “When you steal a ball, a lot of times you don’t see the opportunity coming. Sometimes that’s the cool thing about it – it isn’t where you wanted to be but you figure out how to get somewhere. The coolest thing about jambands is that they take chances.”

Though Grey and Hance remained at the heart of Mofro, onstage and in the studio, the two surrounded themselves with a rotating cast of backing musicians that appear on 2004’s Lochloosa, 2007’s Country Ghetto and 2008’s Orange Blossoms. Grey admits that the band’s shifting lineup has as much to do with interpersonal band problems as it does with simple economics. “It is hard to keep a band together, especially when there isn’t any money,” Grey says. “But I always hoped to have [enough money for] a big band with horns, even if I died [fanatically] trying for it.”

As Mofro began playing bigger venues, Grey started touring with a small horn section and utilizing other auxiliary instruments. He also made the move in promoting the band as JJ Grey & Mofro to better reflect the personal stories that shape his songs.

His songs have addressed everything from a friend’s heroin overdose to the issues facing hunters and fisherman in his hometown. “I wish I could just breeze through the writing process because everything you write that you don’t think about tastes better – feels better – and that resonates with me a lot longer. I feel like every song has gotta have the name of a local town or local person in it because [interesting] shit happens in Florida. The key to success is just telling a story – there’s nothing else to do.”

Photo by Darren Jacknisky

When it came time to write material for Georgia Warhorse, Grey locked himself in a room and began sorting through a stack of ideas he had accumulated up to that point. Like all of his records, Grey demoed the songs for Georgia Warhorse in his home studio – the self-described “Egg Room” – before entering a proper studio with his band. “The tunes just started to come,” he says. “When I record, I get all the songs done and just look, listen and figure out what the album sounds like; what it feels like. This time a majority of the record felt like the song ‘Georgia Warhorse.’”

Grey is quick to note that he doesn’t spend time comparing his albums, but says that each release has built on its predecessor. If Country Ghetto focused on down-trodden blues, then Orange Blossoms had a decidedly more upbeat feel. Georgia Warhorse pushes Grey deeper into a vintage soul sound that wouldn’t be out of place on old STAX records thanks to key tracks like “Gotta Know” and “King Hummingbird.”

The album features a contribution from Toots Hibbert of Toots & The Maytals – one of Grey’s all-time vocal heroes – on “The Sweetest Thing.” “We ran into each other at festivals and I just tried to keep my distance,” he says of his deference to the reggae legend. “His manager was always there and after a couple more times of bumping into each other we got to talking and I said, ‘Let’s do it.’ I still can’t believe it happened.”

Georgia Warhorse’s other notable guest is fellow Floridian resident Derek Trucks. Grey first encountered the future Allman Brothers Band guitarist when Trucks was only 12 years old. The musicians became friendly, bonding over guitar and fishing. “He came by my house one day and knocked out his part in only 20 minutes,” Grey says of Trucks’ contribution to the new record, “Lullaby.” “He’s a badass – the best I’ve ever heard. I’ve never heard a guitar player play a guitar like him – I don’t give a shit what anybody says. Mechanically, he’s one of the greatest players of all time.”

Mofro’s new bassist Todd Smallie, a longtime member of the Derek Trucks Band, joined Mofro this past summer while Trucks focuses on a new project with wife Susan Tedeschi. Smallie is the latest addition to the ever-revolving band that now includes Anthony Farrell (Hammond organ), Anthony Cole (drums) along with Dennis Marion, Art Edmaiston and Andrew Trube (dubbed as the “Hercules Horns” ).

One musician who is notably absent from Mofro’s current lineup is Hance who took a hiatus from the band this past summer to work on his own solo project. The decision surprised some of Mofro’s longtime fans as the guitarist typically avoided the spotlight for most of his time in the band. Grey insists the split is amicable, noting that he hired Hance as an opening act this year. The guitarist also used the same studio where all Mofro has cut all of its records.

Grey is already looking ahead to his next project, despite a busy tour in support of Georgia Warhorse. “I already have another record in my head,” Grey admits. “I definitely want to get the new record at in the works when I’m off the road and at home.” He also hopes to continue balancing full-band electric gigs with solo acoustic dates in addition to continuing film scoring. (Grey contributed original material to the acclaimed 2009 documentary The Good Soldier that profiles the journeys of five American combat veterans from different generations.)

“Not to make another basketball analogy, but when I played basketball in school all I had was a jump shot,” Grey says with a laugh. "I would look at people like Michael Jordan and go, ‘How’d he pull that rabbit out of the hat?’ I can’t do that – but I can still play.
“When it comes to music, some people can be super inventive and come up with a new sound. Other people do it differently and are able to keep the soul intact and the spirit of it alive.”