Photo courtesy of Myles Morgan Music via Facebook
Hoover native and former Spain Park High School student Myles Morgan will headline a show at Iron City in Birmingham on July 18. He's a rising performer in country music.
Myles Morgan grew up on Hoover ballfields, not Birmingham stages. For three years, he starred on Spain Park’s baseball team, a standout player with no public hint of the music career to come.
Then, his senior year, his family moved to Gulf Shores. He picked up his dad’s neglected guitar on a whim and started teaching himself to play.
“I had absolutely no idea where that would lead,” Morgan said. “He [my dad] had been saying, for the past few months, hey y’all, get me a guitar. He was thinking to himself it’d be cool if he knew how to play, so he went and bought one for himself because we didn’t. And I was just looking at it one day like, man, that looks kind of fun. I think I want to play, too. So the next day, I went and bought one for myself and started learning how to play.”
Within weeks, he was performing at restaurants around Orange Beach. By the time he was in college at the University of Alabama, he was playing regular gigs in Tuscaloosa and at the famed Flora-Bama.
Now, just three years later, he’s headlining Iron City.
Morgan will play the popular Birmingham venue Friday, July 18, at 8 p.m. Tickets are available at ironcitybham.com.
“It is actually really a full-circle moment for me,” he said. “It’s awesome to be able to come back and play there. I played my first headline show in Mobile in April, and I got an opportunity to open for Brother Cane about a month ago at Iron City, and that was a full-circle moment because that’s where it all started. But this is going to be really full circle, because I’m headlining my own show now at the same place where it all got started. So yeah, it’s really special for me to be able to do that.”
Morgan’s path to Nashville began at Iron City, too. Last year, he stood in the crowd at a Larry Fleet concert holding a handmade sign asking to play Fleet’s biggest song. Fleet noticed, and after the show his photographer came to get Morgan out of the crowd and introduced him backstage. That photographer connected Morgan with members of Morgan Wallen’s team, and within months he was recording in Nashville with Wallen’s guitarist Dominic Frost.
Since then, his rise has been fast. Morgan has released several singles, including “Nobody’s Fault But Yours” and “Is This Seat Taken?”, had a song hit 1 million streams on Spotify, signed with WME talent agency and started recording his first extended project in Nashville.
He said fans at Iron City can expect an energetic, high-engagement set, with some unreleased material alongside his most popular songs.
“We’ve got a lot of good stuff planned for Iron City,” he said. “I would say expect a lot of fun, a lot of engaging, high-energy type of energy over there. That’s the main thing I want people to leave saying — obviously, I want them to say he’s really good, but ultimately I want them to say this is the most fun concert I’ve ever been to. They’re gonna get a sneak peek to the future if they come, and yeah, they’re gonna enjoy it.”
Morgan said the past year has felt like a blur — but one he wouldn’t change.
“It has changed dramatically, but I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he said. “A year ago, I was just a college kid at Alabama, just in a fraternity, playing the guitar. And now I’m going all around the country. We’re freaking opening for Muscadine Bloodline in August and Miranda Lambert in West Virginia and doing a bunch of crazy stuff I never thought we’d be able to do. But here we are.”
And for July 18, he has one simple goal:
“Let’s freaking sell out Iron City,” he said.
Iron City is located at 513 22nd St. S. in Birmingham. Doors open at 7 p.m., and the show starts at 8. General admission tickets are $20. The venue features a full bar and on-site parking.
For tickets and more information, visit ironcitybham.com.
