It was a big weekend in the Bluegrass State.
Fresh off his return as Johnny Blue Skies via Passage Du Desir, Sturgill Simpson has been lighting the road on fire with his Why Not? 2024 Tour and this Saturday, he was officially inducted as a member of a very special institution.
During a ceremony at the Renfro Valley Entertainment Center in Mt. Vernon, Kentucky, 12 acts were inducted into the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame, including Mr. Sturgill Simpson.
The Kentucky Music Hall of Fame was founded in 2002 to celebrate the state’s rich history of music, spotlighting artists of all music genres, though mainly bluegrass and country, that called Kentucky home. Some notable members are Loretta Lynn, Merle Travis, Tom T. Hall, Ricky Skaggs, Wynonna & Naomi Judd, Dwight Yoakam, Keith Whitley, and Carly Pearce.
Well, we can now add to that list an artist the perhaps influenced the modern country music scene more than any other.
To make this moment even more special, Simpson was introduced by the legendary actor Danny McBride, who claims it was his first time ever in Kentucky, which makes me wonder why he was tagged with giving the introduction (maybe because of Sturgill’s role in Righteous Gemstones?) but we’ll table that for the time being.
Before calling Sturgill onto the stage, McBride said:
“Tonight we’re here to celebrate an artist who has redefined what it means to be a musician. Not just in Kentucky, not just in country music, but across the board. Sturgill Simpson isn’t just talented, he’s one of a kind.
Now the music industry has a habit of slapping a label on artists to shove them into neat little boxes, but Sturgill didn’t play that game. He didn’t just step outside the box, he threw gas on it, he lit it on fire, he smoked pork on it, and then he left the box behind. And he made his own rub.
Sturgill saw rules and he said “Yep, that’s not for me.” When people expected him to stay in the traditional lane, Sturgill decided to drop an anime soundtrack, so that’s what he does…
For Sturgill it’s not about following a formula, it’s about truth. It’s about digging deep, telling stories, and finding the sounds that make people feel something real…”
He then called Stu up to say a few words of his own.
“I’ve been very, very fortunate in the last thirteen, fourteen years, a lot of really cool stuff has happened on my journey or my ride, whatever you want to call it. I’ve been fortunate enough to meet, and not only meet but become friends with a lot of my heroes, most of them are gone now, sadly, but this is definitely the most humbling and, you know, I don’t know how to say this.
A lot of moments I found that as they were happening I wasn’t able to process until days or months or sometimes years later, and this one is not lost on me right now. I saw the display cases the other day and I look to my right and there’s Keith Whitley and Bill Monroe and other people, so this is heavy dope…
10 years ago, before the record Jessica was talking about came out (Metamodern Sounds In Country Music), I only made that record because I thought I’d never get to make another one. I was an unemployed, pot-head songwriter working at a grocery store and about six or seven months before that my wife had said “Hey, I’m pregnant”. So I thought, “Alright, I left a great job with the railroad that paid me a good salary to be an unemployed pot-head songwriter, I must have been out of my mind. So now I’ve got a baby coming, this is probably the last chance to do this…
The songs that we recorded changed my life and it’s just been a head-down endeavor ever since.”
He went on to speak about the impact his grandfathers and cousins had on his music taste, the first concerts he attended, and how his wife was the one who told him to give music a real try before his voice broke at the end while saying thank you to everyone.
You can watch both Sturgill and McBride’s full speeches in the video below.
Sure, winning a Grammy or being elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame and the like are incredible achievements, there’s no denying that, but there truly is something special about being recognized by the people in the state that formed you, where you learned to play music and write songs, and where you first played in front of people.
A huge congratulations to Sturgill and the other inductees of the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame class of 2024.
