Bledsoe: RB Morris' latest album is well worth the wait

R.B. Morris

R.B. Morris

"Spies, Lies and Burning Eyes," RB Morris (Rich Mountain Bound)

It's been 12 years since Knoxville's RB Morris released his last full-length album . At that time, Morris was on a roll. Fellow artists, including Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle and John Prine (who had released Morris' debut disc on his own O Boy Records), were all touting Morris' talents. Critics were equally enthusiastic and Morris seemed destined to achieve at least the level of popularity of those who championed him.

Yet plans for another disc fell through. Morris rejected the long-accepted artist-record company arrangement that gave the company ownership over the artist's work and watched the business implode in the digital age. He continued to tour, write songs and occupy himself with other things.

Morris' new album, "Spies, Lies and Burning Eyes," gives us only one song for each of those 12 years, but it's hard to begrudge the wait. "Spies, Lies and Burning Eyes" is more than a collection of songs. It's the sort of album that demands to be taken in full - its lovably nasty guitars (courtesy of Hector Qirko and Kenny Vaughan), its odd recitations, sweet melodies and sentiments, its optimism, its suspicions all flow into a whole that's complicated and complete like a human being.

The most powerful moments come toward the end of the disc.

Preceded by "Child," a short poem backed by spooky guitar ("You become a child/Your hand is out there in the sky/You forget why you rolled over and started singing/and then grew old"), the song "That's How Every Empire Falls" explores the sort of moral compromises that truly do make us, and our societies, old. "That's How Every Empire Falls" is arguably Morris' most powerful creation to date. First recorded by John Prine, and earlier released as part of Morris' EP "Empire," it's only five simple verses, but it's like a firm hand laid on your shoulder:

"Padlock the door and board the windows and put the people in the street, 'It's just my job,' he said, I'm sorry, and draws a check, goes home to eat. At night he tells his woman, 'I know I hide behind the law.' She says, 'You're only taking orders and that's how every empire falls.'"

As in one of Morris' other great songs "Maybe the Soul," characters are willing to sell or ignore bits of their humanity - whether it's a father who can't bare his heart to his family or a society that won't take the time to ask why it's being attacked.

Morris knows. Sometimes asking "Why?" is the first step at regaining what you've lost.

Wayne Bledsoe may be reached at 865-342-6444 or bledsoew@knoxville.com. He is also the host of "All Over the Road" midnight Saturdays to 4 a.m. Sundays on WDVX-FM.

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