In late January, GRAMMY® Award- and Dove® Award-winning singer, songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist, Morton Records founder, and Maroon 5 keyboardist PJ Morton called his live band, The Matt Jones Orchestra, and a bevy of high-profile special guests to Power Station Studios at Berklee NYC. The next day, his critically acclaimed 2017 opus, Gumbo [Morton Records], would compete in the categories of “Best R&B Album” and “Best R&B Song” for “First Began” at the GRAMMY® Awards—yet everybody focused on the magic of the moment at hand. In just one take over the course of forty minutes, these musicians performed the nine songs comprising Gumbo live. The result would be the artist’s 2018 offering, Gumbo Unplugged. “What you hear on the album is what we did that night,” he beams. “That’s a very old school concept. We brought in the orchestra because the strings figured so prominently on the original. I wanted fans to see and hear how it’s really done in the studio though. On stage, it’s a different expression for me. There were so many special nights on the tour. I needed to capture that and give it to audiences. I’m really proud of what we did. This was all the real thing.”

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