“Georgia Warhorse.”

That’s the vivid title of the new album by JJ Grey & MOFRO, a Southern band that cooks up a sweaty, gritty mix of blues, swamp rock and Memphis soul.

When we Northerners hear a title like that, we’re thinking maybe that the artist is taking on the mantle of a warrior, throwing down the gauntlet, making a swaggering declaration of purpose.

But not quite. The Georgia Warhorse is actually a colloquial nickname for the eastern lubber grasshopper, which is a resilient species found in the woods and marshes of south Georgia and north Florida. “It’s yellow and black, and tough like an old-school Tonka toy,” declares Grey, who comes to The Ark on Wednesday, Dec. 1, backed by his six-piece band.

“They seem so at ease with the world. Nothing seems to rile them. They have a kind of resilience because they just keep on coming back, and I’ve always felt there was a lesson there to be learned.”

But Grey isn’t using the Warhorse as a metaphor for himself. “No, I was thinking more about my grandmother, who’s 93, and she’s calm and cool, and tough as nails and sweet as sugar,” says Grey by phone from his home near Jacksonville. “Being around as long as she has, she’s had so many things happen to her, but it hasn’t soured her or made her bitter. So the song is kind of a tribute to her and people of her generation who’ve seen it all, but don’t let things bother them that much.

“I aspire to being calm and cool like that, but I’m not there yet,” says Grey, who is more the passionate sort who can get on a roll when the subject turns to something he feels strongly about, like the despoiling of the environment in Florida and along the rest of the Gulf Coast — whether by developers, oil companies or local government bodies.

Listen to a selection of songs by JJ Grey & MOFRO:

The song itself is a languid, slow-burn helping of the swampy rock that Grey has become known for, goosed along by a greasy guitar riff and sweltering slide guitar.

Grey cites a long list of influences that inspired his synergy of styles. On the swamp rock side, Jerry Reed was a big influence, he says, and other inspirations vary from Stevie Wonder to Lynyrd Skynrd to Otis Redding to Creedence Clearwater Revival to the Allman Brothers to Toots Hibbert.

In fact, he got Hibbert to do a guest turn on “The Sweetest Thing,” a simmering Memphis-soul-style number that recalls some of Al Green’s classic tracks from the ‘70s, complete with the judicious, punctuating horns.

“Toots is definitely one of my role models,” says Grey. “He and Otis are my two favorite singers ever. Plus, he’s one of my favorite songwriters. I met him at a festival and we got to talking and I sat in with him, and then he sat in with me, and we finally decided to record together, and I knew he would just slay it on this song” — which addresses the theme of “getting woken up again” when he and his wife had a baby girl about 18 months ago, when Grey was 42 years old, with a son who was already grown.

Elsewhere, “Diyo Dayo” is a foray into sultry swamp-funk, with Grey delivering ominous vocals over a syncopated groove, evoking the bayou-gris-gris-man vibe of Dr. John’s early work.

“Hottest Spot in Hell” is a chugging roadhouse rocker with crunching, snarly guitars that bring to mind mid-‘70s ZZ Top, while “King Hummingbird” is a sensitive and wistful song that reveals Grey’s strong attachment to nature. (Indeed, Grey is an avid outdoorsman and fisherman, loves to surf, and he holds an honorary position on the board of the Snook Foundation, which is dedicated to the protection of coastal fish and fish habitat.)

Another song on the disc that’s devoted to his new child is “Lullaby,” which also features a special guest — the virtuoso guitarist Derek Trucks, who’s been tearing it up with the Allman Brothers Band for the last decade, in addition to leading his own band. “Derek is a good friend of mine, he lives about 20 minutes from me, and I also think he’s one of the greatest guitarists on the planet.”

On “Lullaby,” which Grey actually wrote before his daughter was born, Trucks obviously downplays the fiery side of his prodigious guitar chops and instead plays supple, lyrical lines that are more befitting the tone of the song. “I felt like Derek and I were doing a ‘duet’ there, because he really is ‘singing’ with his guitar, responding to my vocal.”

The song, says Grey, was partly inspired by the fact that, while he had already raised a son, “I’m a man, and I don’t know that much about ‘little-girl’ things, so I was thinking, ‘Thank God mama is around, to help balance that out. I was also thinking, you know, ‘This little girl is not an extension of me, she is a distinct individual, and as she grows up, I just want to do the right thing — whatever I need to do that helps develop into her own person.”

Kevin Ransom is a free-lance writer who covers music for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at KevinRansom10@aol.com.

Watch a mini-documentary about “Georgia Warhorse”: