The Word on the Street
and on the Air
“Beneath Ross’ melodic, singable, easy flowing songs lies lyrical depth. To an amazing degree, he’s captured not just imagery but has managed to outline over a century and a half of Southern history in just a few masterful strokes of well-chosen words.”
– Jim Hynes, Glide Magazine
“The new Jefferson Ross album might just be the best album I’ve heard all year… A sublime, noble, sensitive and gripping album—that’s got classic stamped all the way through because of its endless, earthy glow, riveting tales and downright Americana magic… Ross is a model for his generation in showing how to have sequential careers, remain independent, and produce work that is both accessible and thought-provoking.”
– Alan Cackett (United Kingdom)
“If you like the rural richness of The Band – you’ll enjoy Ross.”
-John Apice, Americana Highways
“With a release that is firmly in the race for our “album of the year” – Jefferson Ross scores big with a down-home platter of authentically hewn songs that pay homage to all things south on Southern Currency. From pre-antebellum days to modern times the album’s 11 tracks are a study in the history of the land and life as it happens mostly below the Mason-Dixon line. The Georgia-based Ross states that his art is inspired by the sights, sounds, flavors and textures of the American South – and you can clearly hear that embedded deep in the grooves on this remarkable record… We recommend dropping some of your hard earned USD on this worthy slice of southern-themed Americana music ASAP.”
– Rich Lynch, Out Of This World
“Listening to Jefferson Ross is like taking a road trip through the South, you get a sense of the places and people, the food and the history. A real treat! And if you aren’t from the South, you may just find yourself wishing that you were or planning your next road trip!”
– Tammy Rogers (The SteelDrivers)
Jefferson Ross: Low Country Wedding (self-released)Having resided since 1981 in the crusty sinking shell of a very much Southern college town, where his old classmates own McMansions, this committed country-rocker’s still having nothing less than fun in what he designates the United Nations of Sparta, North Carolina, even though he believes in science and they’d throw him to the lions if he started talking like that. So he leaves his Baptist burdens behind as best he can, asks himself what would Jimmy Carter do, and makes the most of the nuptials cited in the album’s title.
A MINUS Robert Christgau
“Wow, just wow! Tennessee Williams couldn’t have cut to the core like this. This set needs to be enshrined in some southern music hall of fame.”
– Midwest Record
“Jefferson Ross is my favorite Southern songwriter.
Here’s a man who knows this part of his country like William Faulkner knew his imaginary Yoknapatawpha County, like Flannery O’Conner knew the land around Andalusia, like Eudora Welty knew the South by looking at her garden and her fellow men.
Jefferson Ross is a modern day mystic, a folk artist, a man driven by the power of the written word, the beauty of melody, the poetry of images and the ever ambient allure of the South.
Listen to him…”
– Thomm Jutz, Nashville, TN
“Jefferson Ross music is flannel-warm in the chilled autumn. It is a calling to decency, to chuckling open-mindedness. It is an invitation to art and sound, to words and ideas. It is the world’s greatest dinner party, set somewhere in the dusk of soft Georgia summer, with bootleg preacher Will D. Campbell, impressionist painter Paul Cezanne, and prophet of kindness Martin Luther King, Jr. in smiling attendance. It’s a little bluegrass-y, but it’s not bluegrass. I just like it, that’s all.”
– Peter Cooper, Nashville, TN
“Jefferson Ross stands in a small elite circle of songwriters who can take you in and make you a part of the song. Some of his subjects are simple truths, some complex, but all are amazingly insightful and entertaining.”
– Ernie Hopseker, Ocean Beach Radio
4 1/2 stars”Lyrically, Jefferson Ross is a genius but ultimately I think the best quality of his records is that as a singer-songwriter he never forgets about the importance of a decent tune and there are plenty of them on this quality release.”
– Duncan Warwick, Country Music People Magazine, UK