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R.B. Morris isn't watching the stock ticker across the bottom of CNBC, waiting to see how his shares have done.

He isn't suiting up every morning for some corporate job in one of downtown Knoxville's glass towers, spending his days in meetings and boardrooms. He doesn't wax the Benz on the weekends or jet down to Aruba for a summer holiday or make plans to upsize his current Fort Sanders residence to a mansion in Sequoyah Hills.

His life is made of much simpler stuff, and for East Tennessee's unofficial poet laureate/playwright extraordinaire/Beat poet-born-20-years-too-late, it's a fine life indeed.

“I got checks in the mail today from Lenoir City and from California, and I got one last week from The Netherlands,” Morris told The Daily Times this week, ticking off the recent contributions to his household from the sales of his art — specifically, a new album — “Spies Lies and Burning Eyes” — that he'll celebrate on Saturday night with a CD release show in Knoxville's Old City.

It's his first full-length record since 1999's “Zeke and the Wheel,” and Morris readily admits it's been a long time coming — not for lack of effort on his part, however.

“I was, at times, getting lined up to do much the same record with a different producer or different musicians, and I don't know what that would have ended up being,” he said. “The material might have been somewhat different, but certainly there would have been some of the same stuff. In a way, I've been making it all the while with musicians I've played with over the years — people here and in Nashville, too.

“I've been getting together with them periodically, booking a day in a studio here and there, going in and laying down some songs. There was a lot of material covered in those sessions; some of the stuff was written in the studio, and we arranged it and tried it different ways and with different approaches, for sure. Some of those we must have done three or four different ways.

“It all just came together slower because some of the people I wanted to work with couldn't come together quick enough,” he added. “It could have come quicker or sooner and should have, but it just didn't.”

Not that anyone is complaining — after all, Morris has always moved at his own methodical pace, somewhere between a shuffle and a purposeful stride, all the while intent on the destination but not blinded to life unfolding around him. His eye for detail, and more importantly his gift in translating it into the written word through poetry and songs, has made him an East Tennessee treasure, although he'll be the first to deny any such honors.

Poetry, stage plays, albums, papers — all make up his body of work over the last 30-plus years, and the 57-year-old Morris is as hard to pin down and categorize today as he was when he took his first tentative steps into the local music scene. He's been a writer-in-residence at the University of Tennessee; on the other end of the spectrum, he's mesmerized audiences by wallowing on sticky barroom floors, caught up the ecstasy and agony of the emotions he channels into his story-songs.

Many East Tennesseans may have a passing knowledge of Morris as a musician, but most don't realize just how much he's respected by his peers. Singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams calls him “the greatest unknown songwriter in the country,” and country-rock maverick Steve Earle says Morris “is the reason I started writing poetry.” Born at Fort Sanders, Morris has always made Knoxville his home, despite his occasional wanderings. He's spent time in San Francisco, collaborating with the biographer of Jack Kerouac, and in Knoxville he's considered an expert on novelist and Knoxville native James Agee.

In concert, he's a force of nature. His songwriting, and his spoken-word poetry, is starkly beautiful and haunting, and his solo acoustic shows usually hold audiences spellbound. There's a melancholy sadness to his acoustic songs, and a shot of adrenaline to his rockers, all of which make up his three previous records, “Take That Ride,” “Knoxville Sessions” and “Zeke and the Wheel.” And, he admits, “Spies” won't do fans attempting to describe him any favors.

“Some of these songs are a little bit different than what people would think of as Americana or roots material,” he said. “In a way, it is a follow-up (to ‘Zeke and the Wheel') — it's an extension; the next step, so to speak. There are some threads of continuity between my first two records and this one.

“But a lot of it is quite different. This one stretches the spoken-word aspect a little further, and using the band I work with live, I was very much interested in seeing what we could come up with. Obviously, if I had put out a record shortly after ‘Zeke,' it would have been different than this record, because except for a song or two, none of this record was written then.”

The goal, he added, is to create a work of art that functions like a book or a film — something that tells a story from front-to-back. At the same time, it was important to maintain some continuity with his previous works; that was one of the reasons he took so long in making it. Add to that the state of the music industry and the sour deals that he was offered (one offer wanted Morris to sign over rights to his song catalog), and it was hard to maintain enthusiasm for the ancillary details when other projects beckoned.

“I was pushing pretty steady, but I got involved in different projects that were just as vital, and maybe more vital at the time,” he said. “I passed on a lot of opportunities, even though there were a couple of offers I could have moved ahead on. But it's my life, and it's my art, and I'm not so desperate that I can't tell somebody else no.”

With “Spies” already available for purchase (he did a “soft” release last year at The Laurel Theater) and so long in the making, Morris already has his eyes on future projects. He's interested in putting out a live album (several live bootlegs of his performances, predominantly in Europe where he enjoys a measure of popularity), and he has a new book of poetry on the way.

The biggest project on his horizon, however, will be of the flesh-and-blood kind — he and his wife, fellow artist Karly Stribling, are expecting a daughter. For a man who wrestles with the idea of family throughout much of his art, it's an event that resonates on all sorts of emotional levels.

“It's a stirring thing for sure,” he said. “Any family is happy to see the legacy go on, and it's a show of confidence for life itself. Karly is a big influence and inspiration. She always says to me, ‘Art and love, baby — art and love.' And we kind of live that way. We live our days by the stuff we make and beat into shape and send out into the world, hoping that it gives us enough sustenance to keep us going.

“A lot of times, when people find out you're a recording artist and that you play music live, they automatically wish you fame and fortune — and if some of it comes to you, you're elevated in their minds automatically. Very rarely is it about the work; it's all about the business and the culture. The whole ‘American Idol' culture is so omnipresent in our lives, but the truth is, there's basically nothing there that I want.”

Depending on the day and his mood, Morris might rail against the pop culture landscape as a vapid wasteland, or he might express disinterest altogether. Certainly he doesn't concern himself with the comings and goings of celebrities whose artistic contributions couldn't fill the toes of his boots; at the same time, he doesn't elevate himself to some lofty perch from which he denigrates and criticizes those same figures.

Instead, he wants to fill the void he sees with his own mark — something worthwhile and good, that makes a statement, stirs the mind and touches the heart. And in the end, as long as those things provide enough money for rent and food and formula, he considers himself a blessed man.

“I would gladly take all of the sheer power of having an influence on the world, of getting my hands up in the tree of the world and shaking the hell out of it, but I'm not about to change a thing to get it,” he said. “The thing is, everybody's standing in line, asking, ‘What do I need to do to get me further? Do I go this way or that way?' That's OK, but it's not my game. I hope I have something to contribute outside of that.”