Simpson’s version includes a combination of striking vulnerability and tough love, channeling the lessons handed to him by his own father and grandfather and mixing in his own confessions. The album’s conceit - a letter from father to son - was inspired by a death letter written by his grandfather, when he was stationed in the South Pacific during World War II, to his wife and child, in the event he did not make it home. Nautical themes tie “Sailor’s Guide” together. Elvis was a way bigger influence than Waylon Jennings, but you don’t wanna tell people, ‘I never really listened to Waylon.’” Simpson is partial to Presley’s later years, the Stax era, “when they were laying it down hard and heavy. “T.C.B., baby!” he yelled, a reference to Presley’s band. Rather, it makes clear what’s been hiding in plain sight all along: From the mellow groans on the opening song, “Welcome to Earth (Pollywog),” to the desperate rockabilly yelps on the closer, “Call to Arms,” it’s Elvis on Mr. If outlaw-minded country music is the context you bring to bear on listening to Mr. “Sailor’s Guide” is rowdier, more emotionally insular and also far more musically surprising, an album of raw country cut with rich and messy Southern soul and sleek orchestral bombast. Simpson has been sober for several years, apart from the occasional joint.) “Metamodern” was a spectacular fun-house mirror take on vintage country music, full of tiny psychedelic gestures and songs about a person coming to terms with his darkest corners, featuring some select lines about drug experimentation that took on outsize importance: “But you get turned into ‘the acid guy.’” (Mr. Simpson released his second album, “Metamodern Sounds in Country Music,” in 2014. Simpson to his son - his first child - who was born just a month after Mr. The record takes the form of a song cycle from Mr. In mid-April, he’ll release “A Sailor’s Guide to Earth” (Atlantic), his arresting third album and first on a major label. Trying hard not to be who anyone else thinks he is has become something of a Sturgill Simpson specialty. Simpson, who’s 37, with a squint and asked, “Are you who I think you are?” He is a beholder’s dream: Traditionalists see in him a savior outlaws find him rebellious country outsiders and newbies find him thrillingly unfluffy.Īfter 15 or so minutes, the waitress returned with the food, fixed Mr. Simpson, who, despite some shared DNA here and there, is not any of those things.Īn idiosyncratic and bracing singer and songwriter, he is sometimes a vessel for classic country, and sometimes a strategic dismantler of it. Nashville is home to deeply ambitious country music centrists, accommodationist lifers, would-be outlaws, actual outlaws, and also to Mr. He was talking about the people who do most of the musicmaking in this town, the ones he doesn’t encounter much and who don’t much encounter him. NASHVILLE - One recent afternoon at Jack Brown’s, a burger joint in a quickly gentrifying industrial stretch known as Germantown north of this city’s downtown, Sturgill Simpson announced, “I’m grateful to all the non-risk-takers,” then settled in and ordered a double cowboy burger with fries.
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