Amazon.com In the '70s the word outlaw came to define a genre of country that mixed rock and honky-tonk with some folk lyricism and more than a little hard and fast living. R.B. Morris, a Knoxville singer-songwriter (and published poet and playwright), updates the Outlaw approach with an ambitious concept album that often roars like a resurrected junkyard V-8 (thanks to roots-rock producer R.S. Field and guitarist Kenny Vaughan) but mostly meditates soulfully on the human urge for freedom, whether in the form of moonshiners, prophets, bandits, poets, or lovers. Though woven together by a common thread of lawlessness, each of Morris's songs stands well on its own, especially the radiant "Lest We All Lose" (which sounds like a fine, lost country-soul single). Morris deserves a wider audience, not only from fans of gutsy singer-songwriters like Ray Wylie Hubbard and Bruce Springsteen, but from anyone interested in the best that alternative country has to offer. --Roy Kasten
