Sturgill Simpson concert a quick sell-out in Missoula

William Munoz

(Missoula Current) This concert was one of the fastest to sell out when tickets went on sale in June at 10:00 a.m. By 11:00 a.m., they were gone.

Besides being a popular music star, Sturgill Simpson is also an accomplished actor, having been cast as Henry Grammer in Martin Scorsese's 2023 film, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which featured local Blackfeet and recent University of Montana theater graduate Lily Gladstone.

For his current tour, The “Why Not” Tour, Simpson is supporting his 8th album, “Passage du Desir” (passage of desire) under the name Johnny Blue Skies.

The name came from a time when in his twenties. Just out of the Navy, he moved back to Kentucky and would go to a bar and the bartender would be standing around and say, as Sturgill walked in, “Johnny blue skies.

As he came out to begin the Missoula concert, Simpson noted there would be three hours of music with no crap, by which one can assume there would be no talking between songs, something he doesn't do.

His music is deeply rooted in the outlaw country of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson. But he has also been influenced by punk rock as well as mainstream rock. He isn't trying to please the listeners of the different genres but rather, as a songwriter and musical artist, he incorporates these other musical forms to create a unique sound.

In an interview by Qobuz, Simpson described how he writes songs saying, “When I write songs now, I'm not sitting down with a guitar. I'm writing, for lack of a better word, prose, or just getting things out in motion.”