Weekend forecast: Maren Morris at the Mahaffey

Coming out as bisexual during 2023 Pride Month, singer/songwriter Maren Morris told People, was an eye-opening experience. “I have heard the term ‘Shut up and sing’ more times than I can count – that’s always the cutesy little threat that they like to make.”

Morris, who performs Saturday at the Mahaffey Theater, is a charter member of the Nashville supergroup the Highwomen. She has been veering steadily further afield from the pop-flavored country of her early records (“My Church,” “I Could Use a Love Song”) and into broadly indefinable pop and dance music, with tendrils of Americana and hip hop.

Last September, Morris publicly announced that she was through with country music, because of the growing sociopolitical divide within it. She vehemently disagreed with the backwards sentiment of Jason Aldean’s already-controversial “Try That in a Small Town,” and talked with disgust about Nashville’s racism and misogyny. Morris is also a longtime advocate for the LGBTQ community.

She has put Nashville in her rearview mirror (interestingly, Taylor Swift, one of Morris’ BFFs, was originally marketed as a country singer).

“The further you get into the country music business, that’s when you start to see the cracks,” Morris explained to the Los Angeles Times. “And once you see it, you can’t unsee it. So you start doing everything you can with the little power you have to make things better. That doesn’t make you popular.”

Speaking one’s mind, she believes, is necessary. “If you truly love this type of music and you start to see problems arise, it needs to be criticized,” Morris told the paper. “Anything this popular should be scrutinized if we want to see progress.”

Tickets are available here.

“Push Me Over” is the first single from Morris’ recently released EP Intermission.

Band or brand?

In the latest round of “Is it the band or the brand?” let’s look at Saturday’s big outdoor concert at the Mid-Florida Credit Union Amphitheatre (also in Tampa).

The artists are Chicago and Earth, Wind & Fire, who began doing these summer tours together in the ‘00s. Original member count: Chicago 2, Earth Wind & Fire 3.

Chicago keyboard guy and sometime songwriter Robert Lamm (“Beginnings,” “Does Anybody Really Know What Time it is”) remains from the days of those great ‘70s hits, as does trumpet player Lee Loughnane. Walt Parazaider (sax) has retired; James Pankow (trombone, and also one of Chicago’s great songwriters) does not perform at every show.

The rest are “new guys.”

As for Earth, Wind & Fire, singer Philip Bailey, bassist Verdine White and percussionist Ralph Johnson remain from the R&B powerhouse’s hit-making era.

The rest are “new guys.”

Caveat emptor.

Tickets for this show are here.

Deep Purple and Yes are performing on the same bill tonight at the Seminole Hard Rock Event Center in Tampa.

It’s an odd pairing of British bands, that’s for sure. But there must be somebody out there who thinks the world of both “Smoke on the Water” and “Roundabout.”

From Deep Purple’s early ‘70s glory days, lead singer Ian Gillan remains out front, Ian Paice is still playing drums, and Roger Glover is on bass.

Deep Purple’s thundering hard rock will be preceded by the progressive rock of Yes, with guitar great Steve Howe the sole original member from the classic era. Keyboard player Geoff Downes, who first entered the revolving door of Yes members in the 1980s, played the Hard Rock Live less than a month ago as part of the reconstituted Asia.

Tickets for tonight’s show are here.

More concerts

Iconic acoustic guitar player Leo Kottke is back at the Capitol Theatre (Clearwater) tonight, with another acclaimed guitarist, Julian Lage, opening. Tickets.

1990s country singer Collin Raye (“Love Me,” “I Can Still Feel You”) performs at the Suncoast Broadway Dinner Theatre in the town of Hudson (in Pasco County) Friday. Find tickets here. Phil Vassar will sing at the venue Sept. 6.

Friday brings the Florida blues super-band Southern Hospitality to the Palladium Theater. Read all about it here.

Saturday’s Side Door Cabaret show with bay area trumpeter James Suggs and his group playing the music of Miles Davis is sold out.

At the Seminole Hard Rock Live Event Center Sunday: The rock band 311 (albums including Uplifter, Transistor, 311, along with the hits “Down” and “Beautiful Disaster”) with AWOLNation and Neon Trees. Tickets.

“Fable” at freeFall Theater. Image: Thee Photo Ninja.

On theater stages

On the Shimberg Playhouse stage, in Tampa’s Straz Center, Jobsite Theatre has opened a two-week run of Thrice To Mine, written by and starring Roxanne Fay. The one-woman show features Fay as the ancient Scottish queen Gruoch, who was the real-life model for Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth. Tickets are here.

Fay is Friday’s guest on our Arts Alive! podcast.

And Doug DeVita’s Fable is entering its second weekend at freeFall Theatre in St. Pete. It’s the story of sisters June Havoc and Gypsy Rose Lee, and the backstage politics that went into the making of the 1959 musical Gypsy. Tickets are here.

Your weekend arts forecast appears every Thursday in the Catalyst. 

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