If you dig a little deeper than the mainstream, you’ll find that country music has been experiencing a boom in talent these days with artists like Sturgill Simpson, Margo Price and Chris Stapleton (to name a few) who are rooted in throwback sounds of country’s golden eras. One of the artists making a mark as of late hails not from Texas or Nashville, but from the working class city of Flint, Michigan. Whitey Morgan and the 78s have been chugging away for quite some time now, but it seems their brand of outlaw country is finally reaching the fans who appreciate it. This was evidenced by their sold out show at the Wonder Ballroom in Portland, Oregon on February 1.
Fellow Midwesterner Alex Williams kicked off the night with an exhilarating set of tunes that signaled to the crowd that he is a country music force to watch out for. With a road-weary baritone and a big driving rock sound, Williams and his band charged through a set that at times sounded like the lovechild of ZZ Top and Waylon Jennings, then switching on a dime to quieter, more tender moments. The band treated the crowd to songs off their upcoming album, but also got into more well-known numbers like the soulful ballad “Old Tattoo”. The crowd was exceedingly chatty throughout Williams’ set, but by the end his band was able to grab the audience’s attention by locking into some heavy jams with plenty of guitar shredding that pushed the country music boundaries.
When Whitey Morgan hit the stage with his merry band of revelers, it was clear we were in for one hell of a party. His set felt less like a performance than it felt like a loose and lively honky tonk revue. Opening up with the rebel outlaw tune “Bad News” and jumping into the chugging, 70s boogie of “Buick City”, Morgan and his band let everyone know exactly where they came from and what kind of trouble they like to get into. The party really got going when the whole band jumped into a swaggering cover of Johnny Paycheck’s “(Stay Away From) The Cocaine Train” that had a touch of the Grateful Dead with a stony hippie groove. “Low Down on the Backstreets” slowed things down for a more heartfelt, twangy ballad that blossomed into a damn fine drinking anthem. More rough around the edges than peers like Jamey Johnson or Sturgill Simpson but no less talented, Morgan was every bit the outlaw country troubadour as he kept his fans hootin’ and hollerin’ along with songs like “Another Round” (dedicated to the band’s dive bar days playing Portland club Dante’s) and “Honky Tonk Hell”, the kind of freewheeling tunes that hearken back to a time when country music was dangerous. Morgan channeled the likes of George Jones and Merle Haggard with the kind of deep and commanding yet smooth as hell vocals that were made for singing this kind of music.
There’s no denying that Whitey Morgan’s appeal lies partly in the way he seems to be a living amalgamation of country music greats, and in Portland he didn’t hide this fact by covering a slew of classics from the likes of Paycheck, Dale Watson, ZZ Top and the Marshall Tucker Band. But he also covered songs that showed a little more depth, offering poignant takes on Tom T. Hall’s “That’s How I Got To Memphis” and two Bruce Springsteen songs with “I’m On Fire” and “Atlantic City”. Moments like these offered a nice contrast to the raising hell drinking tunes that made up much of the set, showing that Whitey Morgan is far more dynamic of an artist than he may seem. Along with a band as sharp as a Bowie knife, Whitey Morgan’s show in Portland signaled that he is one of the most impressive acts in country music right now and will only keep getting bigger.
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Whitey Morgan and his band are as good as country gets.