Cafe Eleven

JJ Grey (lead singer from MOFRO)

Friday & Saturday - Dec. 8th & 9th, 2006 - $18

That warm, slow, southern, drawl. Words flow out of my Granny’s mouth like butter. Like many a southerner, she can also sit quiet and play the dumb one, never let on for an instant that behind those smoldering eyes she’s already read you like a newspaper. Her little tin roofed, heart pine, asbestos sided ‘cracker’ house sits here — an island in the high piney woods of north Florida.

I’ve lived all my life beneath the watchful eye of these towering oaks, long leaf pine, cypress and cabbage palms. These red clay roads blistered out to sand by the intense Florida sun, these tea colored creeks warm and full of fish, these beautiful gardens full of whatever seasonal crop we’ve laid down. These old chicken farmers who helped raise me have given me so much more than a place to hang my hat. They’ve given me a home, they’ve given me roots and honestly that has as much or more to do with who I am musically as any of the songs I’ve listened to growing up.

The heartbreaking southern ballad or the festive juke house romp. The joy to watch the butterflies beautiful dance in the summer sun by day or the mysterious fireflies by night, and then the hole it leaves in your heart, the sorrow, when they’re seemingly gone forever. The pain of walking this hard earth, and then the thrill of feeling your bare feet on the ground. The greatest inspiration of all.

These men and women who sing, whose voices move me, whose songs tell me the stories of living, loving, hating, hurting, healing and dieing. Lord I hope I do them proud.

- JJ Grey

Mofro Live Video for “Fireflies”