In a melting pot of musical styles, PJ Morton blends pop with positivity
PJ MORTON
At Emerson Colonial Theatre, Oct. 25 at 7:30 p.m. $44.25-$129.25. www.emersoncolonialtheatre.com
The last time PJ Morton visited Boston, in December 2019, it was a different world. The artist played to a standing-room-only crowd at Brighton Music Hall just a few months before COVID silenced venues and sidelined artists from the touring circuit. While many musicians used that time to pivot and embrace digital media during the nearly two years of pause, Morton took a different approach.
Though he continued his forward momentum on multiple projects, releasing a Grammy Award-winning album (”Gospel According to PJ”) and, earlier this year, “Watch the Sun,” the artist also spent plenty of downtime with his family and reflected on the best way to use his music as a narrative vehicle — and as a tool to inspire, a vibe that he carries over to his live shows. Back on the road again to promote his new album, Morton visits the Emerson Colonial Theatre on Tuesday.
In an era where singles-driven online streams can drive an artist’s creativity, Morton swims against that tide. “I am really intentional about [album] sequence and how the songs work together and flow together and feel like one cohesive thing. So I absolutely am old school in the sense that, yes, I want you to experience it from the beginning to the end straight through, because that’s the way it was intended,” says Morton, who is the keyboardist for Maroon 5 when he isn’t making his own music. “I love bodies of work. I mean, it’s why I spent so much time trying to connect these songs. I wouldn’t say a total concept thing, but it’s a cohesive musical story.”
“Watch the Sun” emphasizes the theme of journey, which first emerges in the album’s opening track, “Love’s Disease.” “I can’t promise it’s gon’ be easy/ It’s gonna be a journey/ But as sure as the sun sets and rises again, so will you/ Just watch the sun.” The album’s title serves as a leitmotif and mantra of positive affirmation throughout the record.
Even the most mournful song lyrically, “So Lonely” (featuring Wale), offers an Afrobeats-infused and calypso/ bossa nova vibe, the latter making sense after Morton notes his affinity for Frank Sinatra’s 1967 record with Antônio Carlos Jobim. And lest listeners descend into despair, “So Lonely” is followed by “Still Believe,” an uptempo R&B number featuring transcendent harmonies and a soaring bridge with the talented
Alex Isley.
Reflecting on his intentionality of form and willingness to meld styles, Morton goes back to his childhood and his hometown where he was exposed to a true melting pot of musical influence.
“I think my caring about the album format and taking people on a journey is because of the era in which I came up. And my father pastored an all-Black church, and so I was getting all that music,” he says. “I also lived in New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz. I had so much around me, and I think that definitely speaks to why I don’t see a bunch of boundaries when it comes to influences or what I want to put into my music.”
In addition to his upbringing, Morton credits his diverse musical taste with his genre-crossing sound; listeners will hear them all in this project. Gospel,
R&B, soul, hip-hop, and more are tightly woven through the 11 tracks on “Watch the Sun.” And as fans have come to appreciate, a number of high-profile collaborators appear: Stevie Wonder, El DeBarge, Nas, and Jill Scott, to name a few. The lyrics also offer listeners positive affirmations, like the title track’s repeated “Just wait till the morning . . . watch the sun come shining through.”
“I was writing this album right in the midst of the pandemic, when it was looking really dark. We just didn’t really know what was going to happen. The whole record is meant to be a kind of inspiration,” Morton says.
“I’ve tried things, and I feel like I’ve been in my head too much, where I’m overthinking the process and putting too much of my marketing brain into the creation process, and that contaminates it. I have been there, and I never let myself get too far, but yeah, for sure, it can be a big distraction, trying to compete and win. But it wasn’t until my record ‘Gumbo’ [released in 2017] where I really just settled into myself and said I’m not going to overthink things, not when I’m creating. I’ve kind of been on that journey since then.”
Morton also acknowledges that his church roots gave him faith in the belief that things are always going to get better. “That’s why we watch the sun, because it sets and it rises every day, so whatever happens, it’s going to come right up again.”
Morton’s Boston stop on his tour is the first show in a Black music series that independent live production company The Sol Kitchen is developing. In fact, company owner Michael Kitchen was one of the first promoters to book Morton in the South nearly a decade ago — back when the artist was still borrowing his father’s church bus to travel to regional gigs.
Kitchen, a Northeastern University and Berklee College of Music alum, sees opportunity in Boston to showcase midtier Black artists that often skip over the city.
And for Morton, closing out his current album with the track “Better Benediction,” which echoes “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright” [from “Gumbo”], was no accident. “The two songs definitely speak to each other,” he says. “And a benediction is always a great way to send everybody home, which is why you’ve got to listen all the way through. It provides an ending. A happy one.”