Catching Up With Joslyn and The Sweet Compression

WANT TO GO?

Joslyn & The Sweet Compression, Holly Forbes and Emmy Davis

WHEN: 7 p.m. Saturday (March 22)

WHERE: Pumzi’s, 813 Hunt Avenue (Charleston)

TICKETS: Suggested donation $20

INFO: Facebook

Joslyn Hampton remembers where she was five years ago.

In 2020, the singer and frontwoman for Joslyn and the Sweet Compression was working at a children’s hospital in eastern Kentucky.

Hampton, who brings her band to Pumzi’s in Charleston Saturday night, said working at the hospital was her day job.

The soul and funk singer balanced shifts at the hospital and shows with her band.

Music fed her soul, but the hospital gave her a reliable income and health insurance, but being on the medical front lines during COVID was harrowing. As the virus took root, it only got worse.

“I decided to quit,” Hampton said. “The hospital didn’t know how bad it was going to get, and I just didn’t feel like they had any real precautions to protect us.”

Hampton said she felt like a number and especially vulnerable because of her asthma.

“So, eventually, I was like, yeah, I don’t feel safe. I’m getting up out of here,” the singer said.

Hampton went home and during the worst time to be a live performer, decided that she was going to focus on music.

“I made music my full-time job,” she said. “I haven’t worked a regular job since I decided to take that leap of faith.”

The singer said she feels blessed, though that blessing comes at a cost.

“Now, am I saying I traded my financial security for passion? I absolutely did that,” Hampton said. “Every day is a gamble, but I’m still here five years later and I still have a roof over my head and food in my belly.”

She’s grateful to have that and to find audiences who want to hear her.

“It can get a little bleak sometimes,” Hampton said. “But you have to choose your heart, and I will choose that over financial security any day.”

But since the end of the lockdowns and the thin number of shows during social distancing, Hampton has managed. She and The Compression have built themselves up into a hard touring band. They play up and down the eastern portion of the country.

Last week, they were in Florida. Next week, they’re in Mississippi and Louisiana. This weekend, they’re playing again in West Virginia, which has been a regular and frequent stop for the band for years.

“It’s like my other home,” Hampton said.

Or at least next door.

Hampton still lives in Lexington, Kentucky, where she grew up. It’s a short drive to get to Huntington or Charleston and not much farther for shows in Lewisburg or Morgantown.

Joslyn and The Sweet Compression have played all over the state.

Hampton got into music because she was born into music.

“My family on both sides were very musical people,” she said.

Her father’s family were all into church music scene. Her mother’s family was loaded with musicians who played in little bands and ensembles.

“Music was just all around me.”

Coming up with the band was something that she and her stepfather, Marty Charters, put together. Charters played guitar for blues greats like Junior Wells and H Bomb Ferguson.

He encouraged Hampton to think big. They wrote songs together and the two of them pieced together the original Sweet Compression.

Charter died in 2022. Hampton has continued on since, though the band has changed.

“I’ve been riding a lot of changes,” she said. “I’ve been trying to stay steadfast and hold on.”

Joclyn and The Sweet Compression are in kind of a transitional phase at this point, Hampton said, but that’s not all bad.

“Some doors have closed, and others have opened,” she said.

What is consistent is the band keeps working. They stay on the road and play wherever they can.

“It’s hard,” she said. “People talk about how great it is to be on the road, and it’s great to see new places and experience new things.”

But Hampton liked to get home.

She laughed and said sometimes she’d just stay in bed for a couple of days.

“My own bed,” she said. “I won’t see anybody or go anywhere.”

Staying home doesn’t last. Before long, Joclyn and the Sweet Compression are backstage somewhere performing.

“It’s what I love to do,” she said. “It sounds corny, but just getting to sing, just getting to dance is the highlight of my year.”

Follow Joslyn and the Sweet Compression here.