You have to hand it to Sturgill Simpson: He found a loophole in his own “quit after five albums” retirement plan. In April, Sturgill informed the world that he will now be known as Johnny Blue Skies. With the new name came the announcement of a new album out today, Passage Du Desir, as well as his first major tour since the mid-2010s. After all, it’s not as if Sturgill made any promises about not making a new “Johnny Blue Skies” record, did he? (Rest assured that Sturgill has promised, cheekily, that Johnny will also perform Sturgill Simpson material while out on the road.)
It was a classic Sturgill Simpson (er, JBS?)-style move, both amusingly perverse and weirdly predictable. Nobody has threatened to quit the music business more times in recent years than Sturgill Simpson. (At this point he makes Johnny Paycheck look like a loyal company man.) And yet he always seems to find a way back. Herein lies the central paradox of the Sturgill/JBS persona, which can be summed up thusly: He is a man who hides in plain sight. When I interviewed him in 2020, he responded favorably when I likened him to a country-music Frank Ocean. Frank isn’t a “thirsty bitch” when it comes to media attention, Simpson crowed, and implied that he wasn’t, either. But Ocean hasn’t put out a new album in eight years, and he’s mostly stayed under the radar. Meanwhile Passage Du Desir is Sturgill’s eighth album released in the past 11 years. He might be perceived as some kind of elusive enigma, but he’s actually been a relatively prolific and accessible presence for more than a decade.
(That’s right: Simpson has put out seven albums, not five, under his own name. I suppose the argument is that the two volumes of Cuttin’ Grass records released in 2020, which featured bluegrass reworkings of old songs, don’t technically count as “real” Sturgill LPs. Perhaps the RIAA — or even the federal government — needs to establish an accredited agency that can make official rulings on controversial discography matters such as this one.)
The new moniker naturally invited speculation about what Passage Du Desir — which wasn’t previewed with advance singles — would sound like. A continuation of the stripped-down acoustic era capped by 2021’s The Ballad Of Dood & Juanita seemed unlikely. Was he going to push further into the stoner rock-slash-disco hybrids of 2019’s bracing and underrated Sound & Fury? Or would he really upset the traditionalist country applecart and elaborate upon the electronic pop he dabbled in with Diplo (under the Johnny Blue Skies name) in 2023?
Turns out that Sturgill, once again, was a whole lot more visible than he appeared to be. Two important advance clues pointed the way forward for Passage Du Desir. The first was the decision to reunite with his 2010s era backing band, including ace prodigal guitarist Laur Joamets. The second comes from the liner notes of A Sailor’s Guide To Earth, Sturgill’s mainstream coming-out party from 2016, which includes the cryptic warning: “Beware the dread pirate Johnny Blue Skies.”
Countless eagle-eyed Sturgill fans have noticed the connection, but they couldn’t have imagined how literal it was in terms of hinting at the sound of Passage Du Desir. But now that the album is out in the world, this much is clear: Sturgill Simpson’s first music under a different name is the closest he’s come to making a “classic” sounding Sturgill Simpson LP in quite some time. In true paradoxical Sturgill Simpson fashion, being someone else has given him permission to be more like himself.