Sturgill Simpson’s back: Kentucky country star resurfaces with tour, album, new name

Ever ask a question, almost dismissively, as if you knew there wouldn’t be any concrete answer at hand?

Such an instance occurred last month, when the same question popped up in conversations with three different friends that took place just a few days apart from each other.

What ever happened to Sturgill Simpson?

Granted, it wasn’t like the Grammy-winning Breathitt County-born musical renegade simply vanished. There were recordings and, increasingly, films that kept his name in public view. But for an artist that spent the better part of the 2010s establishing a global audience while defying commercially conventional norms — and, in the process, confounding critics and perhaps even a few fans — Simpson has kept his distance the last few years. You didn’t read about him in the press much, you didn’t catch him promoting an album on TV and, with a few brief exceptions in 2021, you didn’t see him onstage.

Then, in true jack-in-the-box fashion, Simpson is now back with a new release of an old album, a new album of new songs and a new tour that’s going to land him back in his one-time home base of Lexington this fall. Oh, he’s got a new a name, too. Seriously.

In some cases, such a response would trigger the familiar axiom of “careful what you wish for.” With Simpson, though, the realities of his reawakening are welcome in the extreme.

When the Sturgill Simpson return began

First, let’s track the first sign of life we saw within the return. That came in mid-May with the re-release of “Metamodern Sounds in Country Music,” Simpson’s second album as a solo artist following his Lexington tenure with the indie alt-country band Sunday Valley.

Issued initially a decade ago, the record built on the roots country promise of his 2013 debut, “High Top Mountain,” by fortifying hearty and heady outlaw spirits with shades — thematically, as well as musically — of psychedelia. The title may have been a tip of the Stetson to Ray Charles’ immortal country-soul album from 1962, “Modern Sounds in Country Western Music.”

Simpson, though, had his own idea of “modern” as it applied to country and it didn’t have squat to do with the truck-canonizing, beer-worshiping, sugar-coated pop that was coming out of corporate Nashville at the time. In 2022, Rolling Stone magazine included “Metamodern Sounds” in its list of the greatest country albums of all time.

Before we jump to the next recent announcement in Simpson’s return to active service, we should review what happened in the wake of “Metamodern Sounds.”

Previous Simpson albums

In 2016, we received a third album, “A Sailor’s Guide to Earth,” a record with a vastly more reflective country spirit but a brassy, anthemic revamping of Simpson’s sound. The record landed him at the Lexington Opera House that spring for two sold-out shows before earning a Grammy the following year.

Then we began to see more of Simpson on movie screens than concert stages. Among his more prominent cinematic adventures was a bit role in 2019 as a zombie in Jim Jarmusch’s “The Dead Don’t Die.” But Simpson also wrote and performed the film’s theme, which is repeated so often during the course of the movie that we pretty much know it heart by the time the zombies take over Centerville at the film’s conclusion.

Next up, a complete stylistic turnaround. In fall of 2019, Simpson released “Sound & Fury,” an album of synth-saturated rock and funk. A subsequent tour with fellow Kentuckian Tyler Childers followed (Simpson co-produced Childers’ breakout albums, “Purgatory” and “Country Squire.”) It included a February 2020 stop at Rupp Arena before getting cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the ensuing lockdown, and his own recovery from a bout of the coronavirus, Simpson shifted gears again to a pair of no-frills bluegrass albums (the two-volume “Cuttin’ Grass”) that boasted all-star support from the likes of Tim O’Brien, Stuart Duncan and Sierra Hull.

Finally, we had a 2021 concept album titled “The Ballad of Dood and Juanita” built around vintage folk, country and bluegrass inspirations. Its tour was also abbreviated after Simpson suffered a vocal cord hemorrhage.

Here we are, then, in 2024 with most of Simpson’s recent visibility coming from film work (including a role in Martin Scorsese’s recent “Killers of the Flower Moon.”) So, nothing musically new to soak in other than the reissue of a 10-year-old album?

Not quite. Earlier this month, everything changed.

Simpson relaunches with new album, name

First came word of a new tour that will include a return to Rupp on Sept. 27. The show is boasting an opening act by the name of Johnny Blue Skies, a new non de plume Simpson will be working under.

That leads us to the second bombshell, a new professional alias. Just so things don’t get any more confusing than they already are, the Rupp show and the entire fall tour are being billed as “An Evening with Sturgill Simpson with very special guest Johnny Blue Skies.”

In an attempt to explain such artistic duality, Chris Wellman wrote recently in Variety, “For the purposes of touring, he will remain Sturgill Simpson. Whether splitting that difference is by preference, or because major venue operators are unlikely to book shows for a major artist under a pseudonym, is unknown. But he will be hitting the road under the name Sturgill Simpson this fall.”

The third part of the Simpson makeover will be a new album — credited to Johnny Blue Skies. Does that indicate the record, “Passage Du Desir,” represents yet another stylistic rebirth?

Not exactly. It’s possibly Simpson’s (oops, Blue Skies’) most accessible work to date, a blend of country and soul accents that sounds like it could have prefaced “A Sailor’s Guide to Earth.” More specific reviews are embargoed until the album’s release on July 12. Check back with us then.

For now, the big news is simply that Simpson, under whatever moniker you choose to consider him, is back in full force and heading home to share some love, groove and confusion. After all, a rose by any other name ...

An Evening with Sturgill Simpson with special guest Johnny Blue Skies

When: Sept. 27, 8 p.m.

Where: Rupp Arena

Tickets: $59.50-$222.50 through ticketmaster.com.

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