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Sunday Valley, Thelma & The Sleaze, and The Bad Reeds

Presented by The 5 Spot at The 5 Spot

November 12, 2011

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SV’s first full-length album, To The Wind And On To Heaven, is a prime example of controlled chaos. The intensity and versatility of their stage performance is harnessed in ten songs, which, from top to bottom, serve as an airtight trek through the at once intimate and universal landscape of soulful bluegrass, rock, and roots music. There are some who might argue that Sunday Valley’s unique sonic ...blend and delivery defies genre. John Sturgill Simpson, on guitar and lead vocals, agrees that the band comes from a range of influences, “But I think the thing that grounds our sound more than anything, is as soon as I open my mouth it’s gonna sound country or hillbilly…so there’s always a core root country sound.” According to Simpson, the band has worked diligently to retain the purity of Sunday Valley’s style, “Definitely the rawness and the intensity is intentional because that’s what we do.” Additionally, one of the wonderful aspects of To The Wind, is at times, there is a delicacy that might not always read through the ambiance of a live show. For instance, on “Oh, Sarah,” and “I Don’t Mind,” a fiddle threads through effortlessly, a gust of raw silk alongside the denim as Sturgill’s throaty tenor colors in point-blank lyrics taking the listener from the floorboards to the rafters, sometimes within the same breath. At the end of the day, Simpson maintains it’s the power of the fans and the audience that keep a working musician in business, “To get up and sing that song that you wrote about your life and see a roomful of people relate to it and connect to it and sing it back to you, I can’t put that into words.”

-Bianca Spriggs, ACE Weekly Lexington, Ky

 

Also performing: Thelma & The Sleaze, and The Bad Reeds