Maren Morris: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

Rachel Horn, March 6, 2017 It had been quite the week for Maren Morris: Four days before the 26yearold strolled into NPR s offices, she d pulled off a mighty duet with Alicia Keys during the 59th annual Grammys ceremony and taken home the evening s award for Best Country Solo Performance. It s no secret the Nashville songwriterturnedperformer has star power; her limber voice and the big, crossoverfriendly gestures on her majorlabel debut, Hero, let her easily dominate a huge stage like the Grammys. Our small stage suited Morris and her songs just as well. She s cultivated a soulful, irreverent popcountry aesthetic that trades in trucks, bros and beer for a vintage Mercedes, female friendships and boxed wine and which owes much of its charm to details that shine in a strippeddown setting. Take, for instance, the cashregister kaching that punctuates the chorus of the ohsosick burn Rich, or the intimate, afterhours raggedness in her voice as she sings of jaded heartache in I Could Use A Lo