Whitey Morgan, who plays the kind of gritty barroom country tunes you almost never hear on the radio, is outspoken about his disgust with the state of today’s bland, corporate country music.

“It’s kind of a disgrace, I guess you’d say,” said Morgan, the Flint-based singer-guitarist and songwriter who will bring his band, the 78s, to Savoy in Ypsilanti Saturday night. “I can’t stand that stuff. I don’t know who the hell is buying it, but those people need to rethink their musical tastes.”

It’s a sore subject Morgan returned to frequently during a recent phone call from a tour stop in Austin, Texas.

“I don’t even tell people we’re a country band because then that’s what they think we’re doing. … (Radio) has saturated the market with that crap. If I think that people will get it, I tell them we’re kinda like a ‘70s honky-tonk band. Otherwise I would say we’re a ‘60s-‘70s-style country band.”

The group recently released its second album, a self-titled CD that mixes originals by Morgan with tracks by some of his musical heroes, including Johnny Paycheck and Waylon Jennings. Recorded at Levon Helm’s Woodstock studio, it has an authentic, gritty, honky-tonk sound that reflects Morgan’s roots growing up in the days when Flint’s massive automobile assembly lines were grinding to a halt. Listen to Whitey Morgan and the 78s "I Ain't Drunk" (MP3).

“Three generations of my family all worked for General Motors … I was the first one to not go and sign up at 18 to work for GM. The jobs were on the decline at that time and it wasn’t as easy to sign up and make $18 an hour putting ashtrays in Buicks. It wasn’t happening.

“I love where I’m from, but you can only sit around broke for so long,” he said.

Influenced by his grandfather, from whom he inherited his first guitar, and after spending time as an auto mechanic and as a truck driver, Morgan started the band nearly a decade ago, after a Southern rock outfit he was playing in fizzled.

“I met some guys from around Detroit. Jermey (Mackinder, who also played in the Chelsea-based South Normal) the bass player has been with me for some time, there’s been kind of a revolving door of pickers and drummers. This is the happiest I have been with the lineup in a long time and it’s showing. I definitely smile a lot more on stage than I have in a long while,” said Morgan.

Among the covers on the new album, Johnny Paycheck’s “Meanest Jukebox in Town” is one of his favorites. “Hopefully some people will dig up some old Johnny Paycheck and realize that guy’s been around for a hell of a lot longer than most people think he has. He’s recorded what to me are some of the best vocals I’ve ever heard,” Morgan said.

Of the originals, “Turn up the Bottle” has the most interesting story behind it.

“It’s one of my favorites,” Morgan said. “I have two places I write songs — I write ’em on my riding lawnmower or on the commode. That’s the only damn privacy I have in my house. That one I wrote on my lawn tractor and that’s perfect because it’s about George Jones getting in trouble on his riding mower (the country legend once rode his John Deere 10 miles to get to a bar after his wife had confiscated his car keys). I didn’t even put that together until I was watching one of those TV shows where they were showing old clips of crazy stuff that happened and that came on and it was Jones getting arrested on his lawnmower.”

Given his disdain for the country music coming out of Nashville it’s no surprise Morgan would rather stay in Michigan than move there.

“I have no desire to live in that town. I don’t want to be another fish in a giant school. I’d rather be almost the only fish. … You’ve got the same five pickers who play on every record so you wonder why everything sounds the same. The same producers are making every record. It doesn’t make any sense to me. You need a variety, otherwise everybody is going to be pigeonholed into the same sound.”

He said he follows Waylon Jennings' advice when it comes to Music City.

“Don’t go running to Nashville — sit down and make them come and find you. When you come to Nashville, the doors are never open. When they come to you the doors are always open. I’ve been kind of sticking to that over the last couple of years and it seems to be doing pretty well. I know a lot of guys who have been in Nashville for years and they are still playing for tips. They aren’t getting their record spun on Sirius (satellite radio) 50 times a week, which is what we’re getting. Some of them bands are a hell of a lot better than our band, they’re just going about it the wrong way I think. Trying to fight the big Nashville machine from Nashville just doesn’t work that way.”

Nor does he feel compelled to sing much about hard times many of his listeners face.

“I’m not Bruce Springsteen, I’m not going to write about the plight of the common man,” he said. “I’m not going to dwell on that. I try to give them an outlet every night after they get done living and working in that s---. I’m not going to remind them of it in a song. I give them something else to think about, going out and having a good time. … We all know how bad it is, I don’t need to remind you of that when you are out trying to have a good time.”

Roger LeLievre is a free-lance writer who covers music for AnnArbor.com

Whitey Morgan and the 78s performing live last month: