Sturgill Simpson releases the new album “Mutiny After Midnight” by Johnny Blue Skies & the Dark Clouds.
Sturgill Simpson, who with his previous album started recording as Johnny Blue Skies is releasing a new album backed by the Dark Clouds called Mutiny After Midnight later this month. But he has posted the album’s music on YouTube early for fans to enjoy.
The album’s cover features a sword in a disco ball with dripping blood, hinting this music is for dancing, influenced by disco. The title track title is a nod toward a certain president’s hat while signaling that the music is about havin fun, “Make America Fuk Again.” While it may seem like Simpson has diverted drastically from his country roots, the album still features his strong songwriting and Simpson has always defied categorization. On first listen the album also seems to be capturing the joy from his recent tours heavily influenced by jam bands.
Simpson is releasing the album Mutiny After Midnight on physical media on March 13, 2026, but you may listen now on YouTube below. Play it loud and get up and dance.
In October 2024, Sturgill Simpson played a sizzling cover of William Bell’s “You Don’t Miss Your Water.”
In addition to his classic original version, William Bell’s “You Don’t Miss Your Water” has been covered by artists such as Otis Redding, Gram Parsons, The Byrds, Percy Sledge, and more recently Sturgill Simpson. Not a bad group.
“You Don’t Miss Your Water” is one of the great heartache songs. The song recounts how we often do not appreciate our lovers until they are gone. The singer explains, “But now that you left me / Oh, how I cried out, I keep crying / You don’t miss your water ’til your well run dry.”
The live performance below by Sturgill Simpson (aka Johnny Blue Skies) is from October 25, 2024. Check it out.
Sturgill Simpson adopts a new name, Johnny Blue Skies, for his latest album “Passage du Desir.”
Sturgill Simpson has adopted a new name for his latest album, Passage du Desir (2024). Citing other artists who have adopted a different name for their work, like Eric Clapton’s Derek & the Dominoes or David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, Simpson is currently using the name Johnny Blue Skies.
Simpson has long explained that he planned to release only five albums. So following his release of five albums — plus two pandemic era bonus bluegrass albums — fans wondered what he would do next. Simpson has said that in adopting a new name for his albums, it frees up his creativity while also allowing him to keep his birth name for himself.
The new identity comes out of Simpson’s struggles with a vocal cord injury and his travels in Thailand and Paris. Additionally, he lost several people close to him, including one friend to suicide. These experiences gave Simpson new directions in his life, although the name “Johnny Blue Skies” originated from a name he was called by a Kentucky bartender when he was 21. The name has popped up in other work by Simpson, such as in the gatefold of his album Sailors Guide to Earth (“Beware of the dread pirate Johnny Blue Skies”). So, as he has noted there was not a lot of planning in choosing the name, but “the paperwork was already done, I owned the name.”
Of course, all of that biographical drama is mainly an interesting distraction for a listener who wonders what does Passage du Desir sound like? Well, to my ears, it sounds a lot like a Sturgill Simpson album, meaning, great music. It does feature some more orchestration than past albums, somewhat reminding me of Bruce Springsteen’s intentional sound deviation for Western Stars.
Many of the songs have a country sound, but the album also incorporates some R&B, such as on “One for the Road” and “If the Sun Never Rises Again,” perhaps the biggest deviation from most of Simpson’s previous work.
One of my favorite tracks is “One for the Road.” While it features lusher orchestration than we generally expect from Simpson’s past work, it would not be that out of place on A Sailor’s Guide to Earth album.
Similarly, Pitchfork has called Passage du Desir sort of a comeback for Simpson, arguing that while it deviates in some ways from past work, it is a true follow-up to A Sailor’s Guide to Earth following Simpson’s deviation into bluegrass and The Ballad of Dood & Juanita. Giving the album 8.5 out of 10, it states, “This is country music caught between earthiness and spaciness, and it reintroduces him as one of Nashville’s oddest artists, who understands and subverts both the square mainstream and the outlaw fringes of country music.”
Overall, if you love Simpsons’ past work, you’ll probably love Johnny Blue Skies too. Sturgill’s fans have always known we are in for a non-traditional ride with the guy. And that’s true of Johnny Blue Skies too.
Below, Simpson discusses the new album and Johnny Blue Skies further.
