Music

Jess Jocoy, a Nashville songwriter with a crystalline vocal, plays Tampa concert on Sunday

Opener Will Quinlan meets his melancholic match at Hooch and Hive.

by Ray Roa February 14, 2024February 22, 2024

Jess Jocoy, who plays Hooch and Hive in Tampa, Florida on Feb. 18, 2024. Credit: Photo via jessjocoy/facebook

New power-pop single “Radio Life” aside, Will Quinlan is very much Tampa Bay’s king of the melancholy folk song, and he might have met his match in Jess Jocoy. The title track of the Nashville songwriter’s 2022 album Let There Be No Despair features a forlorn, crystalline vocal that channels the earnest of Gillian Welch while also wearing polish and power of Brandi Carlile.

There’s no cover to see Jess Jocoy and Will Quinlan play Hooch and Hive in Tampa on Sunday, Feb. 18.

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This article appears in Feb 8-14, 2024.

Ray RoaEditor-in-chief

rroa@cltampa.com

Read his 2016 intro letter and disclosures from 2022 and 2021. Ray Roa started freelancing for Creative Loafing Tampa in January 2011 and was hired as music editor in August 2016. He became Editor-In-Chief... More by Ray Roa