Joslyn & the Sweet Compression

Joslyn & the Sweet Compression is a funk and soul band from Lexington, Kentucky, fronted by vocalist Joslyn Hampton. The group came together when Hampton began writing with her stepfather, guitarist and songwriter Marty Charters, who had toured and shared stages with Junior Wells, Buddy Guy and Van Morrison; the two wrote the material and assembled the band around it. Their self-titled debut arrived in 2019 and drew notice well beyond Kentucky, including praise from Billboard and a place on Blurt's albums of the year list, which singled out Hampton's originals and a George Harrison cover. Charters, born in 1967, died in 2022, and the band's second album, Bona Fide, released 25 August 2023, was made as a tribute to him. The sound sits between neo-funk and 1970s and 1980s R&B, built on a tight rhythm section and horn-shaped arrangements rather than contemporary production. Hampton names Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey as touchstones and brings classical and operatic vocal training to the material, which is part of why reviewers describe the group as a version of neo-soul unbound by the genre's current cliches. The band headlines regional clubs, outdoor concert series and festivals across the Midwest and South, with recent routing taking in the Levitt AMP series in Scandia, Minnesota, FitzGerald's in Berwyn, Illinois and a river walk concert series in Kokomo, Indiana, and it has taken support slots with Tower of Power at Sony Hall in New York and Tyler Childers at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado. It has been covered by Billboard, Glide, SoulTracks and the Lexington Herald-Leader, is managed by WhizzBang Management and booked by Royal Artist Group.

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