MUSIC PREMIERES
Maren Morris can speak from experience: No other concert crowd holds a candle to Taylor Swift‘s.
While on The Jennifer Hudson Show Wednesday (May 7), the Texas-born singer-songwriter opened up about performing her Fearless (Taylor’s Version) collaboration, “You All Over Me,” with Swift at one of the pop superstar’s 2023 Eras Tour shows in Chicago. “I’ve never seen a crowd like that, and there’s not a crowd like hers,” Morris raved.
“They’re so supportive, they’re listening to all the lyrics, they want to hear every nuance and breath between words,” she continued. “They’re truly locked in. It was a real treat to experience on that plane.”
The duo sang together at the “Fortnight” musician’s second of three Soldier Field shows in June 2023, which came two years after they first teamed up for the re-release of Swift’s blockbuster 2008 sophomore album. The performance marked the first time they’d ever played “You All Over Me” — a From the Vault bonus track on the revamped Fearless — live.
But Morris and Swift had been friends long before that, performing the former’s smash “The Middle” together in Arlington, Texas, on the latter’s Reputation Tour in 2018. In November 2023, the “Circles Around This Town” singer told Jimmy Fallon that her onetime collaborator has “been so supportive of me and my career over the years,” adding, “We’re the same age, but looking up to her since I was a teenager, and watching her navigate her country music to pop career so gracefully, and the way she treats her fans is so kind and generous … she’s setting a high bar.”
Morris echoed those sentiments on Hudson’s talk show, telling the host, “I fell in love with [Swift’s] songwriting back in high school, and I just turned 35, so I feel like even before I met Taylor, I had this friendship in my mind with her.”
The interview comes two days ahead of Morris’ fourth studio album, Dreamsicle, which features the five tracks she previously dropped in August on EP Intermission. The new project is also preceded by two singles, “Carry Me Through” and “Bed No Breakfast,” released in March and April, respectively.
Watch Morris gush about Swift on The Jennifer Hudson Show below.
MUSIC PREMIERES
Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso are a Latin/hip-hop/multi-genre duo who are superstars in their native Argentina and much of Latin America, but until recently were little known in the U.S. outside the Latin music genre. That began changing first with their NPR Tiny Desk Concert last fall, then with their incendiary appearances at Coachella earlier this month.
The duo’s 2024 debut album, “Baño María,” featured their strong singing and rapping over largely electronic instrumentation, and although their new EP “Papota” has live instrumentation from their band, it does not prepare you for what an explosive and exciting live band it is — and not only because the group brought the same set to New York’s 575-capacity Bowery Ballroom that they played at Coachella and in stadiums on the recently completed Lollapalooza South America tour. On Tuesday night, they practically erupted off of the Bowery stage.
The duo — who have comic, antic stage presence that belies their serious musical chops — are accompanied by nine top-flight musicians: a three-piece horn section, two backing singers, a keyboardist, percussionist, bassist and a powerhouse drummer (who, astonishingly, has a tattoo of the logo for ‘70s progressive rockers Emerson Lake & Palmer on his arm) — while Ca7riel played guitar on several songs.
All of the musicians’ formidable skills are on full display in their live set, which finds them changing direction in a head-spinning but still fluid manner: They’ll be playing a Latin-flavored song and then make a hard left into hip-hop and then serve up a smooth ‘80s R&B-flavored number that actually had my companion saying, “This reminds me of Bone Thugs N Harmony”; a couple of others veered into cool-jazz territory found the horn section evoking mid-‘70s Stevie Wonder and Earth Wind & Fire (and featured a stinging jazzy solo from keyboardist Javier Burin).
In just one example of the group’s versatility, Ca7riel — who happens to be a blazing guitarist — peeled off some tasteful, jazzy licks on one song, even scat-singing along with his solo a la George Benson, and on the next was rapping loudly while pulling elastic faces and jumping up and down. Even though the joyfully enthusiastic audience knew the words to all of band’s songs — nearly all of which were from the album and EP — and sang along passionately, you truly never knew what was coming next.
But for all of their musical expertise and undeniable chops, most of all Ca7riel and Paco are fun, playing with the audience, making faces, doing a comical exercise routine to their latest single “El Dia Del Amigo” (which they took to even more comical ends on “Jimmy Fallon” earlier this week). And the musicians all looked like they were having a great time too: Clad in more or less matching outfits — white shirts with black shorts, which bassist Felipe Brandy customized with hilarious oversized sunglasses and sock garters — they were laughing, goofing around and cheering each other throughout the set, all without missing a single beat. There were even lasers.
Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso will be on tour in North America for most of the spring, and come back in the summer for Lollapalooza in Chicago and presumably more dates. Even if you don’t speak Spanish or have little familiarity with Latin music, you’d be hard pressed to find a more entertaining live show.
