Kevin Morby at the Raccoon Motel -- April 9.
Sunday, April 9, 7 p.m.
Raccoon Motel, 315 East Second Street, Davenport IA
With Pitchfork magazine deeming his most recent album This Is a Photograph "an earnest, ambitious collection that touches on family, nostalgia, and mortality," indie-rock and -folk singer/songwriter Kevin Morby headlines an April 9 concert at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, the artist's prolific output over less than a decade encompassing seven studio albums, 13 singles, and 11 music videosto date.
Born in Lubbock, Texas, in 1988, Morby learned to play guitar when he was 10, and formed the band Creepy Aliens while in his teens. At age 17, he dropped out of high school, earned his GED, and moved to Brooklyn, where Morby himself by working bike-delivery and café jobs. He went on to join the noise-folk group Woods on bass and also became close friends and roommates with Cassie Ramone of the punk trio Vivian Girls, with whom Morby formed the side project The Babies, which released albums in 2011 and 2012. 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 Harlem River became Morby's debut as a solo artist, and was followed in short order by 2014's Still Life, 2016's Singing Saw, and 2017's City Music.
Morby's fifth studio album Oh My God was released in 2019 and was met with wide critical acclaim, with 19 of 20 positive published reviews aggregated on Metacritic. The album was featured in the the Wall Street Journal and deemed Morby’s best, and Oh My God eventually reached number two on Billboard's Heatseekers chart. Following an equally well-received sixth album in 2020's Sundowner, which AllMusic said boasted "some of Morby's gentlest and most captivating songs," Morby returned with last year's This Is a Photograph, and received some of his most glowing notices yet. Erin Osmon of Uncut awarded the album a 9-out-of-10 rating, writing, "With This Is a Photograph, (Morby) offers the wisest and most assured rendering of the Middle American vision he's been honing of late, one where Dylan-esque anti-singing narrates impassioned, earnest and earthen tales of family, place, love and heroes, and a crack band shakes the rafters."
Kevin Morby headlines his Davenport engagement on April 9 with an opening set by Erin Rae, admission to the 7 p.m. Easter Sunday concert event is $45, and tickets are available by visiting TheRaccoonMotel.com.
