VOA标准英语2013--Florida Bluesman JJ Grey Heads Home with 'This River'

 

Florida Bluesman JJ Grey Heads Home with 'This River'

Grey is a natural storyteller. His songs are inspired by people he grew up with and the rural swamplands of his childhood home near Jacksonville, Florida. His new album is named for a prominent feature of the Jacksonville landscape, the St. John’s River.

For Grey, songwriting is all about observation, a recollection of the people and places in his life, and “This River,” his sixth album for Alligator² Records, is no exception. 

“On this album the songs just kind of come together and more often than not they wind up being stories, either about my own ‘craziness’ or about friends of mine," he said. "Or, sort of a composite or a mixture of people I know, and myself.”

Grey says if you want to find the true source of "swamp" music, go south.

“It varies from the New Orleans ‘super swamp’ style of it all the way over to more of the [singer] Jerry Reed ‘Alabama wild man’ more Country side of it, or Tony Joe White Country side of it. And that swamp music, you know, swamp funk, swampy³ blues¹, swamp rock, whatever, it sounds like those places. It sounds like those swampy places in Florida, in Georgia, in Alabama, in Mississippi and all those places, Louisiana. I can’t put my finger on exactly what it is. I know that a clavinet with a little wah-wah pedal on it, if you play it right, it sounds just like a frog.”

Grey and his band Mofro begin a three-month tour of the U.S. and Europe in Lake Buena Vista⁴, Florida on April 5. He says he loves to tour but nothing compares to the sights and sounds of home.

“If I’m on tour way up north somewhere, and it’s beautiful and I love it, and I’ve been gone from home for a while, when we start to get down there around South Carolina I start seeing palm trees, pine trees and oak trees; and you know you’re not too far from the ocean and I know we’re getting close to home,” he said.

1 blues   

n.抑郁，沮丧；布鲁斯音乐

参考例句：

• She was in the back of a smoky bar singing the blues.她在烟雾弥漫的酒吧深处唱着布鲁斯歌曲。
• He was in the blues on account of his failure in business.他因事业失败而意志消沉。

2 alligator   

n.短吻鳄(一种鳄鱼)

参考例句：

• She wandered off to play with her toy alligator.她开始玩鳄鱼玩具。
• Alligator skin is five times more costlier than leather.鳄鱼皮比通常的皮革要贵5倍。

3 swampy   

adj.沼泽的，湿地的

参考例句：

• Malaria is still rampant in some swampy regions.疟疾在一些沼泽地区仍很猖獗。
• An ox as grazing in a swampy meadow.一头牛在一块泥泞的草地上吃草。

4 vista   

n.远景，深景，展望，回想

参考例句：

• From my bedroom window I looked out on a crowded vista of hills and rooftops.我从卧室窗口望去，远处尽是连绵的山峦和屋顶。
• These uprisings come from desperation and a vista of a future without hope.发生这些暴动是因为人们被逼上了绝路，未来看不到一点儿希望。