Kevin Morby | |
---|---|
Background information | |
Birth name | Kevin Robert Morby |
Born | Lubbock, Texas, U.S. | April 2, 1988
Genres | Indie rock, folk rock |
Occupation(s) | Musician, singer-songwriter |
Instrument(s) |
|
Years active | 2008–present |
Labels | Woodsist, Dead Oceans |
Kevin Robert Morby is an American musician, singer, and songwriter. A former member of Woods and The Babies, Morby has released seven solo studio albums: Harlem River (2013), Still Life (2014), Singing Saw (2016), City Music (2017), Oh My God (2019), Sundowner (2020), and This Is a Photograph (2022). [1] [2] [3] [4]
Kevin Morby was born in Lubbock, Texas. His family relocated around the U.S. due to his father's employment with General Motors before settling in Kansas City, Missouri. [5] Morby learned to play guitar when he was 10. In his teens he formed the band Creepy Aliens. [6]
At the age of 17, Morby dropped out of Blue Valley Northwest High School, got his GED, and moved to Brooklyn, supporting himself by working bike delivery and café jobs. [6] Morby has stated he had "loved New York from the movies" he'd seen, "I just wanted to experience it". [7] He later joined the noise-folk group Woods on bass. While living in Brooklyn, he became close friends and roommates with Cassie Ramone of the punk trio Vivian Girls, and the two formed a side project together called The Babies, who released albums in 2011 and 2012. [8]
Following his move to Los Angeles, Morby recorded a collection of songs with Babies producer Rob Barbato that were intended to be an homage to New York City. Released in 2013 by Woodsist Records, the eight-song collection was called Harlem River and became Morby's debut as a solo artist. The album also features drummer Justin Sullivan (The Babies) as well as contributions from Will Canzoneri, Tim Presley (White Fence), Dan Iead, and Cate Le Bon.
While on tour, Morby wrote songs that were later featured on his second album, Still Life . The album was once again produced by Barbato and released on October 14, 2014. [9]
Morby worked with Sam Cohen (Apollo Sunshine, Yellowbirds) on his third album, titled Singing Saw , which was released on April 15, 2016. [10]
In 2016, Morby wrote Beautiful Strangers, a protest song in remembrance of Paris 2015 attacks, Orlando 2016 shooting, and death of Freddie Gray. [11] After various live performance that year, [12] it was released as a single in October 2016, with the proceeds benefitting Everytown for Gun Safety. [13] [11]
Morby's fourth studio album was recorded with his live band, with guitarist Meg Duffy noting: "We all worked on the next record together, pretty collaboratively in terms of arranging and playing. We spent a week in a beautiful studio, up near Stinson Beach." [14] The album, City Music , was released in June 2017.
Apart from City Music he also released in 2017 a cover version of “After Hours,” from the Velvet Underground’s 1969 self-titled album, in duo with Waxahatchee. [15] As a tribute to Jason Molina, the duo covered in January 2018 two Jason Molina tracks for MusiCares, an American charity supporting musicians’ health. The digital single, also available as 7” vinyl through Dead Oceans, contained the two songs, “Farewell Transmission” and “The Dark Don’t Hide It”. [16] The longtime private and musical relationship later led to touring and shows together, among others SXSW shows and a successful Australia tour (Sydney, Melbourne) in November 2018. [17]
Morby's fifth studio album, Oh My God , was announced on February 27, 2019. The first single off the album, "No Halo" was released on the same day. The album was released April 26, 2019, via Dead Oceans [18] and was met with wide critical acclaim (19 of 20 published reviews aggregated on Metacritic were scored positive). [19] It was featured in the April 24, 2019 The Wall Street Journal print edition headlined “Devine Intervention” and called Morby’s best. The album reached number 2 on Billboard charts Heatseekers albums. [20] In September 2019, Morby reunited with Woods for a special performance at their Woodsist festival. [21]
Morby's sixth studio album, Sundowner , was announced on September 1, 2020. The first single off the album, "Campfire", was released on the same day. The album was released on October 16, 2020, via Dead Oceans. [22]
On May 1, 2020, Morby released a live version of Beautiful Strangers & Harlem River on an album titled On Mon Dieu: Live à Paris. The recording came from Morby's sold-out performance at the Cabaret Sauvage in 2019. The album was released on Morby's Bandcamp through Dead Oceans. [23] In October 2020, Morby released a standalone single, "US Mail", with an accompanying music video as well as sharing his own P.O. box number as a way to promote the USPS. [24]
In February 2021, Marc Maron mentioned several times on Instagram Live that he doesn't know who Morby is, which Morby responded to on his own Instagram page, eventually leading to Maron posting an interview with Morby on Instagram Live. [25]
On October 12, 2021, Morby and Hamilton Leithauser, who toured together in the fall of 2021, released the single "Virginia Beach". [26] On October 8, 2021, Morby released A Night at the Little Los Angeles, an album of 4-track demo versions of songs that were originally on his 2020 album Sundowner. [27] On December 13, 2021, Morby released "I Hear You Calling", a cover of the Bill Fay song, as a part of Dead Oceans' Bill Fay tribute 7" series. [28]
On March 3, 2022, Morby announced that his seventh studio album, This Is a Photograph , will be released on Dead Oceans on May 13, 2022. The lead single of the same name was released on March 3, 2022. [29]
On January 25, 2023, Morby released Music from Montana Story , the official soundtrack to the 2021 drama film Montana Story , through Dead Oceans. [30]
On April 25, 2023, Morby announced More Photographs (A Continuum), a companion album to This Is a Photograph which will be released on Dead Oceans on May 26, 2023. It features three reimagined versions of songs from This Is a Photograph, as well six new songs. [31]
In June 2017, Morby officially launched his new label imprint, Mare Records, with the signing of Shannon Lay and announcement of her new LP, Living Water. Mare will operate as an imprint of the Woodsist label, which also released Morby's first two solo albums. [32] Anna St Louis' debut album, If Only There Was a River, was scheduled to be released in December 2018 on Woodsist / Mare. [33]
Morby cites Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Nina Simone, and Simon Joyner among his favorite artists. [34] [35]
Morby's live backing band consists of the following:
Former
Studio albums
Compilation albums
Soundtrack albums
Demo albums
Live albums
In 2017, Morby moved from Los Angeles to Overland Park, Kansas, near where he grew up. [36] He is in a relationship with Katie Crutchfield (of the band Waxahatchee). [36] [37] Together they have covered songs by Jason Molina, [38] Bob Dylan, [39] The Velvet Underground [40] and Everclear. [41]
Jason Andrew Molina was an American musician, singer and songwriter. Raised in northern Ohio, he came to prominence performing and recording as Songs: Ohia, both in solo projects and with a rotating cast of musicians in the late 1990s. Beginning in 2003, he garnered a further indie following for his releases with the band Magnolia Electric Co.
Naomi Yang is an American musician, graphic designer, photographer and filmmaker. She was a member of the dreampop band Galaxie 500, psychedelic rock band Magic Hour and is half of the psychedelic folk duo Damon and Naomi. She has also made videos for a wide number of artists including Future Bible Heroes, Waxahatchee and Julia Holter.
Screaming Females is an American rock band from New Brunswick, New Jersey comprising Marissa Paternoster on guitar and vocals, Jarrett Dougherty on drums, and Mike Abbate on bass. They released their debut album Baby Teeth in 2006. The band have been featured on NPR, Last Call with Carson Daly, and MTV. They have played with bands such as Garbage, Throwing Muses, Dinosaur Jr., The Dead Weather, Arctic Monkeys, Ted Leo & The Pharmacists and The Breeders.
Woods is an American folk rock band from Brooklyn, New York, formed in 2005. The band consists of Jeremy Earl, Jarvis Taveniere, Aaron Neveu (drums), Chuck Van Dyck (bass), and Kyle Forester. The band's former bassist, Kevin Morby, left the band in 2013.
The Babies was an American rock band from Brooklyn, New York City.
Waxahatchee is an American indie music project, formed in 2010 by American singer-songwriter Katie Crutchfield, previously a member of P.S. Eliot. The band is named after Waxahatchee Creek, in Alabama, where Crutchfield grew up. Originally an acoustic solo project, her recordings now tend to involve a backing band, and the music has increasingly been performed this way. Crutchfield, as Waxahatchee, has released 5 albums to date: American Weekend (2012), Cerulean Salt (2013), Ivy Tripp (2015), Out in the Storm (2017) and Saint Cloud (2020).
Run the Jewels, also known by the initials RTJ, is an American hip hop super-duo composed of Brooklyn-based rapper and producer El-P and Atlanta-based rapper Killer Mike. They released their critically acclaimed self-titled debut studio album as a free download in 2013 and have since released the follow-up albums Run the Jewels 2 (2014), Run the Jewels 3 (2016), and RTJ4 (2020), all of which have been released for free and received critical acclaim.
Caroline Elizabeth Polachek is an American singer, producer, and songwriter. Raised in Connecticut, Polachek co-founded the indie pop band Chairlift while studying at the University of Colorado. The duo emerged from the late-2000s Brooklyn music scene with the sleeper hit "Bruises".
American indie rock musician Kevin Morby has released seven studio albums, thirteen singles, and eleven music videos.
Whitney is an American band from Chicago, which formed in 2015 and is signed to Secretly Canadian. The band was formed shortly after the breakup of members Max Kakacek and Julien Ehrlich's band Smith Westerns in late 2014. They released their debut album, Light Upon the Lake, in June 2016 and have toured internationally.
Alex Cameron is an Australian singer-songwriter from Sydney. He is best known for his solo career, a high-concept act in which Cameron initially adopted the persona of a failed entertainer. During live performances, Cameron is often joined by saxophonist and "business partner", Roy Molloy. Before making music under his own name, Cameron was also a member of the electronica act Seekae, releasing three studio albums with them.
Japanese Breakfast is an American indie pop band headed by musician Michelle Zauner. Zauner started the band as a side project in 2013, when she was leading the Philadelphia-based emo group Little Big League. She has said that she named the band after seeing a GIF of Japanese breakfast and deciding that the term would be considered "exotic" to Americans; she also thought it would make others wonder what a Japanese breakfast consists of.
Meg Duffy is an American musician and guitarist who has played as a studio musician on records by The War on Drugs, Weyes Blood, Perfume Genius, Sasami, and William Tyler, among many others. Duffy was also a longtime member of Kevin Morby's live band, and is the sole member of indie-rock band Hand Habits.
Azniv Korkejian, known by her stage name Bedouine, is a Syrian-American musician. She has lived in a number of cities and countries, including Saudi Arabia, Houston, Syria, and Boston.
"So Hot You're Hurting My Feelings" is a song by American singer Caroline Polachek from her third studio album Pang (2019). The song was released on September 16, 2019 through Perpetual Novice. It has been described as a new wave and indie pop track. While it did not chart at the time of its release, the song became a sleeper hit after it went viral on TikTok in early 2022.
Shannon Lay is an American folk and punk musician. She has released four solo albums and was a member of the band Feels.
Sundowner is the sixth studio album by American indie rock musician Kevin Morby, released on October 16, 2020, on Dead Oceans.
Nation of Language is an American indie pop band that formed in Brooklyn, New York, in 2016. The group consists of Ian Richard Devaney, Aidan Noell, and Alex MacKay. Michael Sue-Poi was the bassist prior to the band's 2022 tour.
Samia Najimy Finnerty is an American singer-songwriter from New York City.