One more former Mousketeer takes the stage

“He’s like Ray LaMontagne meets Elton John meets Stevie Wonder meets Rufus Wainwright,” said Timberlake, who signed Morris to his label Tennman Records in May 2007, in a release.

Morris’ 22-date tour brings him to Annapolis barely a week after the release of his first Tennman effort, a five song EP titled “Backstage at Bonnaroo and other Acoustic Performances,” co-produced by Sexton.

As a preteen, Morris sung and danced beside a young Timberlake and other Mickey Mouse Club budding talents like Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears. But unlike the future pop stars, he chose to return to his home in Denver and finish high school when the final MMC season wrapped.

“Stepping away from the industry did me good,” he said over the phone from Denver, the day after kicking off his tour with a hometown concert. “It would do anybody some good. In this business, you can easily lose perspective — young people do often and I think adults especially do when they there’s a lot of success swirling around them.”

“And I feel like I write better songs now [because of that break,]” he continued. “There’s a lot of fantastic songs to be found in the everyday moments in our lives. That’s where I find most of my inspiration. If you spend your entire life removed from ordinary, how are you ever going to get to that?”

Local Morris fans will relish the tidbit that Morris applied to and was accepted at St. John’s College in Annapolis, where he would have attended if not for his music, pulling against his personal desire to go to school, he said.

It seems Morris made the right decision. Before embarking on this 2008 fall tour and releasing his EP, he crafted the top 10 hits Kelly Clarkson’s “Miss Independent” and Aguilera’s “Can’t Hold Us Down.”  


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IF YOU GO

Joan Osborne’s “Little Wild One” tour featuring Matt Morris