Sturgill Simpson

Navy, rails and Nashville

John Sturgill Simpson was born on June 8, 1978 in Jackson, Breathitt County, Kentucky, and raised in Versailles. He served in the Navy from 1996 to 1999 as an operations specialist on the USS Rodney M. Davis, and later worked for Union Pacific Railroad in Salt Lake City. His band Sunday Valley formed in 2004 and disbanded in 2012, after which he moved to Nashville. High Top Mountain (2013), produced by Dave Cobb and self-released, preceded Metamodern Sounds in Country Music (May 13, 2014), which brought a Late Show with David Letterman debut on July 14, 2014 and the Americana Music Awards' Emerging Artist of the Year. He cites Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Keith Whitley and Marty Robbins.

A Sailor's Guide to Earth (2016, Atlantic, self-produced) won the Grammy for Best Country Album and was nominated for Album of the Year at the 2017 ceremony. He produced Tyler Childers' Purgatory in 2017 and busked outside the Bridgestone Arena during that November's CMA Awards. Sound and Fury (Elektra, September 27, 2019) came with a Netflix anime film, and he acted in The Dead Don't Die, Queen and Slim and Killers of the Flower Moon. After leaving Elektra in 2020 he released the bluegrass re-recordings Cuttin' Grass Vol. 1 (October 16) and Vol. 2 (December 11), then The Ballad of Dood and Juanita on August 20, 2021, which he said would be his last under his own name. Since 2024 he has used the alias Johnny Blue Skies, with Passage du Desir on July 12, 2024 and Mutiny After Midnight (Johnny Blue Skies and the Dark Clouds) announced for March 13, 2026. He opened for Dead and Company at Golden Gate Park on August 2, 2025, and was inducted into the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame on October 26, 2024. He opened three Guns N' Roses shows in 2017.