Good morning Reader and happy Tuesday. Here's what I've been jamming to:

10.25.22 Ned

I caught Kevin Morby's This is a Photograph tour last night at the Sinclair in Cambridge, MA with my cousin (and OFNL artistic contributor) Jerry M. The show was electric, acoustic, emotional, intense, face- and heart-melting, with political undercurrents and odes to America's good and bad.

Once you get acquainted with Kevin Morby's work, you realize he doesn't miss. He's not a hit maker, hits don't compute with his 7-album-and-counting catalogue. He's an album crafter. And with so much to pick from he brings a coherent and cohesive show that hooks you from the start, plays for the ideal amount of time (just under an hour and a half) and leaves you in a sophisticated, pleasant yet almost unsettling daze.

So if you're not a Morby aficionado, worry not, neither am I. But I'm trying, and I want you to try with me. So enjoy some of his better known jams, touching Americana ballads, and corrosive calls-to-action here. Then dive into his work and see where it takes you.

Harlem River (live at Boston Calling, 2017)

The first Morby tune that spoke to me. It's just a cool song. It's long and winding but never boring. "Harlem River" is of course a tribute to New York yet it transports you to an LA Noir scene, walking among dereliction on a faint psychedelic-tinged path. The rhythm section acts as your spirit guide, never forcing you in a direction but standing resolute as your North Star when it feels like you're lost and something is following you.

When Morby crooned "And I-I-I don't know just where I'm going" under dark purple lighting I felt solitude in a sold-out venue (and feet from the stage, not to brag). A strange feeling that was cut short but by ripping jam outro, thankfully or not.

Bittersweet, TN (ft. Erin Rae)

Erin Rae may have stood in the traditional spot of female back-up vocalist last night, behind the lead guitarist on stage left, but "back-up" is a minimization of her role. She is the centerpiece of the banjo-twained, heartland drenched "Bittersweet." She never wails and doesn't need to. Her voice melts and meshes with Morby's (and the bassist, who provided choral backing, too) but she shone brightest on a capella solos that brought pin-drop attention in the packed Sinclair.

Beautiful Strangers (ft. Waxahatchee) (acoustic version)

"Love my mama and my papa

Love my sister, can't stand the coppers

(a brief, solidified jeer went up from the Sinclair crowd, which I happily joined in on. Sure, it was a safe place for an upper caste white man like myself to get in on some anti-police sentiment, but it did feel cathartic to do it in public when many a liberal cause is co-opted and cleansed by corporate America)

Up in their choppers

Oh, flying overhead, forty-nine dead"

Valley

It's his voice, stupid. You may find it patronizing or reaching for something. But once you see him perform live you kind of get it: his laid back, enlightened country swagger; a blue island in a red sea. It inspires dread and remorse but also hope and optimism. That, yeah, we're in bad times. But there were once good times (maybe) and maybe there's a light to follow. He's not sure but he sure hopes so.

This is a Photograph

Morby writes songs about America. He knows it's not a perfect place, far from it. But he writes about real places and real people in those places. Morby loves the places he writes about, be it his homeland of the panhandle of Texas, the metropolises of New York and LA, the blues-stained soil of Memphis or the prairies of Kansas. It's a big country, and Morby knows none of us truly grasp its breadth and diversity and power. His work is attempt to do this, and leaves us with a patriotic sense of mission. Not aggressive decals on pick-up truck rear window patriotism. But the patriotism that deals in duty to your fellow humans. To care and make better the places we love.

A Random Act of Kindness

"Sun came up, sun came up"
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Thanks for listening and see you in a week!
​
Ned

​https://oldfiltersnewlight.com/​