This Is A Photograph
In late 2020, Kevin Morby holed up in the then-quiet Peabody hotel in Memphis to escape a pandemic-burdened winter in his hometown of Kansas City. There, he wrote *This Is a Photograph*, a folky, left-of-the-dial rock album and a particularly reflective entry in his catalog. Its sound is sometimes earthy and gospel-inflected, sometimes lush and symphonic, with lyrics tinted by existential reflection and the specter of death. The sinewy title track was inspired by family photos that Morby and his mother went through after thinking they’d just seen his father die following an accidental double dose of heart medication. The lived-in duet “Bittersweet, TN,” about the loss of a friend, features vocals by Erin Rae and floats along on its banjo lines. And the sparse but upbeat “Goodbye To Good Times” doesn’t offer any resolution, but instead presents a eulogy for better days as the songwriter strums his acoustic guitar, simultaneously nostalgic and grounded in the difficult present.
The story begins with Kevin Morby absentmindedly flipping through a box of old family photos in the basement of his childhood home in Kansas City. Just hours before, at a family dinner, his father had collapsed in front of him and had to be rushed to the hospital. That night Morby still felt the shock and fear lodged in his bones. So he gazed at the images until one of the pictures jumped out at him: his father as a young man, proud and strong and filled with confidence, posing on a lawn with his shirt off. This was in January of 2020. As the months went on and the world dramatically changed around him, Morby felt an eerie similarity between his feelings of that night and the atmosphere of those spring days. Fear, anxiety, hope and resilience all churning together. The themes began twisting in his mind. History, trauma and the grand fight against time. Having the courage to dream, even while knowing the tragedy that often awaits those who dare to dream. While his father regained his strength, Morby meditated on these ideas. And then, he headed to Memphis. He moved into the Peabody Hotel and spent his days paying tribute and genuflecting to the dreamers he admired. In the evening, he would return to his room and document his ideas on a makeshift recording set-up, with just his guitar and a microphone. The songs, elegiac in nature, befitting all he had seen, poured out of him. Produced by Sam Cohen (who also worked on Morby’s Singing Saw and Oh My God), This Is A Photograph features musical contributions from longtime staples of Morby’s live band, as well as old friends and new collaborators alike. If Oh My God saw Morby getting celestial and in constant motion and Sundowner was a study in localized intent, This Is A Photograph finds Morby making an Americana paean, a visceral life and death, blood on the canvas outpouring. As Morby reminds us early on, time is undefeated. So what do we do while we’re still here? This is a photograph of that sense of yearning.
The singer-songwriter’s seventh record is a Memphis vision quest—an earnest, ambitious collection that touches on family, nostalgia, and mortality.
The Kansas City troubadour’s seventh album is an epic ode to the fragility of life and the consequent need to cherish love, joy and family
Kevin Morby scales new heights of inspiration on the exceptional This Is A Photograph
Usually content to stay in one lane per album, Morby gracefully exhibits the breadth of all his capabilities on his seventh.
So, when it came time to begin work on his introspective seventh studio record, singer-songwriter Kevin Morby ventured off to Memphis, holed himself up in the city’s historic Peabody Hotel, and began his search for not only artistic inspiration but also a sort of metaphysical reawakening.
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This is a Photograph by Kevin Morby album review by Greg Walker. The singer/songwriter's full-length drops on May 13, 2022 via Dead Oceans
Morby’s seventh album was inspired by sickness and mortality but his elegiac songs focus on life’s transience and joys
For Kevin Morby, emotion sharpened after his father had collapsed and been rushed to the hospital, it was a photograph of a younger version of his father, shirtless and confident.
Kevin Morby - This Is A Photograph review: 1) Reads album title, 2) Dusts off Chad Kroeger impression