In another display of his wide-ranging artistry, Sturgill Simpson delivered his latest album, Cuttin’ Grass Vol. 1: The Butcher Shoppe Sessions in mid-October. The project saw the singer tap into the bluegrass world by flipping some of his past material for the new album. Simpson continued his promotion of the release by bringing his talents to The Late Show With Stephen Colbert to perform “Breakers Roar” on the show. The track originally appeared on his 2016 Grammy award-winning album, A Sailor’s Guide To Earth, and he shared the performance from Nashville’s legendary Station Inn venue with support from a full-fledged bluegrass band.
In addition to performing the song, Simpson also sat down with Colbert to talk about his relationship with the late John Prine, who partly owned The Butcher Shoppe recording studio and tragically died in April from coronavirus complications. He revealed in the discussion that he was using the studio for A Sailor’s Guide To Earth when he met Prine.
“We’d finished the record and I was in there mixing it one day, and I was pretty in the zone… and when I turned around, John was sitting in a chair in these plaid pants,” he said. “I kind of freaked out, you know when you come face to face with your hero. And he was like, ‘that was pretty good, do you want to go get some meatloaf?’ And any time I’d come to town, we’d go grab lunch.” Simpson also added that he became the owner of Prine’s 2008 Porsche 911 Turbo after he died and said “it’ll be something I treasure for the rest of my life.”
You can watch Simpson’s performance in the video above.
Cuttin’ Grass Vol. 1: The Butcher Shoppe Sessions is out 10/16 via High Top Mountain/Warner. Get it here.
Sturgill Simpson is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.