A poet and singer whose lifelong obsession with fellow Knoxville native James Agee has fueled his work, R.B. Morris may share Agee’s thirst for experience, but the great novelist and film critic never married his prose to the kind of stealthy funk rhythms Morris employed on 2007’s fine full-length Empire. Morris is a writer who understands excess, so that means he can get away with lines on the order of “Some tatterdemalion cloud-pisser/Gone a-huntin’ for a grace note.” Sharing the bill is Matt Urmy, another literary musician whose music leans more toward country-rock and whose gruff vocals and air of self-parody suggest a fusion of beat poetry and novelty songs for truck drivers. Also appearing are the blues-oriented folkie Tom House and Jonathan Sexton & the Big Love Chorus, whose optimistic lyrics ride easily over a variety of imaginative post-jam-band settings.
Sat., Sept. 12, 8 p.m., 2009
Sat., Sept. 12, 8 p.m., 2009
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