You’d never had known from his recent sold-out show at The Anthem that Sturgill Simpson suffered a vocal chord rupture a few years ago. In a three-hour marathon performance, Simpson sounded as good as he ever has, working his way through a fantastic set of originals and covers.

Since his debut with High Top Mountain in 2013, Sturgill has been of the most fascinating artists in all of music — not just country. He’s clearly influenced by the Outlaw movement of the ’70s, in sound as well as his refusal to play by Nashville’s often strict rules. He opened his landmark second LP, Metamodern Modern Sounds In Country Music, with “Turtles All the Way Down,” a song that recounts his experiences with a variety of mind-altering substances. He also covered, in his own inimitable style, ’80s band When In Rome’s song “The Promise.” (He played both on Nov. 18 at The Anthem.)

After winning a Grammy Award for Best Country Album with A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, Simpson made a hard left turn into psychedelic, spaced-out, blistering hard rock with Sound & Fury. The title, drawn from a line in Shakespeare, reflects the literary depth of his work; he also had an anime produced to accompany the project.

Never staying in one place, Sturgill’s next excursion was to bluegrass, with two volumes of Cuttin’ Grass, on which he reimagined a number of his old songs. He delved into family history for a traditional country record, The Ballad of Dood & Juanita, and developed an alter ego, Johnny Blue Skies, for his latest album, Passage du Désir, which was released this summer. If that sounds like French to you, you’re right: Simpson made the album after moving to Paris while he was recovering from his vocal chord injury. He played several songs from the record: “One For The Road” was smartly followed by a cover of the Allman Brothers’ “Midnight Rider,” and the set also included “Right Kind of Dream,” “Mint Tea,” “Scooter Blues,” and “Jupiter’s Faerie.” As one can tell from the title of that last one, he has an interest in science-fiction and fantasy, which was also evident from “Best Clockmaker on Mars.”

Stream “Best Clockmaker on Mars” by Sturgill Simpson on YouTube:

The covers were every bit as eclectic as Sturgill’s own music, ranging from soul (William Bell’s “You Don’t Miss Your Water”) to classic country-folk (Steven Frommholz’s “I’d Have To Be Crazy” and Moore & Napier’s “Long White Line”), vintage ’60s psychedelia (Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale”), boogieing blues-rock (ZZ Top’s “La Grange”), classic rock (The Doors’ “LA Woman”), and ’80s funk (Prince’s “Purple Rain,” a song that’s also been covered by another country rebel, Dwight Yoakam.) Three hours is a long time to listen to a band play, but the diversity of the material keep it interesting and prevented it from becoming an endurance contest.

As Simpson noted, he doesn’t say much on stage, which is perhaps surprising, giving how he can be opinionated and outspoken. In this respect, he’s similar to the Drive-By Truckers, another fiercely political Southern band that mixes hard rock and twang and who keep it focused on the music at their shows. He did get in one good zinger when he said, “What if we just played ‘Eye of the Tiger’ right now?”

Sturgill and his band started precisely on time as promised, played on by “Soul Lan Plearm” by the Petch Phin Thong Band, and went right into “Living The Dream.” After the cover of the Allmans, they did “Welcome to Earth (Pollywog)” from Sailor’s Guide. They also played “Water in a Well,” “Life of Sin,” “Juanita,” “Railroad of Sin,” “A Good Look,” “Just Let Go,” and “A Call To Arms.”

A wide-ranging journey through a diverse range of material, this was a great night with a terrific band that was adapt at playing all the styles of music Sturgill explored. I heard someone say he’s not going to do this too much longer, and I hope that’s not true, because he’s a great performer.

Here are some photos of Sturgill Simpson performing at The Anthem on Nov. 18, 2024. All pictures copyright and courtesy of David LaMason.