The Kenn Morr Band w/ special guest Connor Zane Millican

Friday April 19, 2013 @ 9:00 PM

Kenn Morr’s songs have an elemental quality—water, earth, relationships, seasons, time, change, loss—like the great songwriters who inspired him early on: Dylan, Simon, Van Morrison, Graham Nash, and especially Gordon Lightfoot. He understands that when trouble comes, the trade winds bring an upside, and there’s always the redemptive power of music. “I’m not sure just how you do it,“ he addresses the muse on “Worth Imagining,” his sixth and latest recording, “but sweet music saves my mind. It can keep you cool in the summer sun and warm in the winter time.”

Devouring his heroes’ songs on his older siblings’ vinyl while pursuing a school boy career as an ace pitcher on the mounds of Long Island, he found other inspirations on his own, including John Dawson of New Riders of the Purple Sage and Toy Caldwell of the Marshall Tucker Band. Rex Fowler of Aztec Two-Step became his friend and supporter. Kenn’s college baseball scholarship didn’t work out, but he turned—appropriately--to Communications, a field for which he is well-suited. He’s got a radio announcer’s rich baritone and the kind of charisma that spellbinds audiences of all sizes, from an intimate coffeehouse to the stages of venues as demanding as the famed Bitter End in New York City or the International Festival of Arts and Ideas on the New Haven Green. He’s paid dues of every kind, played gigs of every stripe, including sharing the stage with artists like John Sebastian, Al Kooper, Eric Burdon, and John Wesley Harding.

Kenn trusts the universe to bring him what he needs. He left Long Island and found in Connecticut a home, new friends, and—eventually--the band that brings his music to life: violin virtuoso and multi-instrumentalist Tom Hagymasi, Berklee’s most melodic bassist Pat Ryan, and world percussion master Dr. Bob Gaspar. Known for its close three-part vocal harmonies and lively instrumental interplay, the group has been together for several years. On “Worth Imagining,” Kenn’s strongest work yet, the band creates a tapestry of moods and textures. The songs resonate with listeners because they come directly from the life Kenn Morr observes around him; they’re very much lived songs.

A masterful writer and soulful singer at the peak of his creative powers--as a listen to his latest Sandybrook Studios recording, “Worth Imagining,” quickly attests--Kenn is the real deal. With airplay across the country and in Europe (where his popularity continues to grow), Kenn Morr’s star is on the rise.

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Combining a wise lyrical sense of experience and time with the subtlety of his fingerpicked guitar style, Connor Zane Millican creates a powerful depth to his original music.

Links:

Tickets:

$15, $25