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 26-year-old 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 songwriter-turned-performer has star power; her limber voice and the big, crossover-friendly gestures on her major-label 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 pop-country 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 stripped-down setting. Take, for instance, the cash-register ka-ching that punctuates the chorus of the oh-so-sick burn “Rich,“ or the intimate, after-hours raggedness in her voice as she sings of jaded heartache in “I Could Use A Lo