Daniel Romano w/T. Hardy Morris & Jonathan Stone Phillips

Far from being the trap many music fans and critics accuse it of being, genre is a liberating concept in popular music. On his 2018 full-length Finally Free, Canadian pop-rock-country-folk singer and songwriter Daniel Romano shifts his focus from the weird country rock he favored on his 2011 release Sleep Beneath the Willow — not to mention the equally strange countrypolitan he investigated on his 2013 album Come Cry With Me — to delve into circa-1970 folk rock. Finally Free reflects the influences of The Incredible String Band, Bert Jansch and, for all I know, Mickey Newbury. It’s a fascinating record that contains many moments of beauty — Romano understands how the combination of Beatles-style songwriting and folk-guitar tricks produced its own micro genre, one that has continued to color the music of many contemporary Americana, country and rock performers. Also appearing this week at Mercy Lounge is singer-songwriter T. Hardy Morris, whose latest release is 2018’s fine Dude, the Obscure.  EDD HURT