‘Not Just a Tragedy’ (Exclusive)

Maren Morris is on the road again — and leaving heartbreak in her rearview.

On Monday, Aug. 25, the singer-songwriter hit the stage for a one-night-only show at Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett, N.Y. The concert was a Hamptons one-off of the exclusive, N.Y.C.-based Soho Sessions concert series and raised money for Music Will, a charity that benefits music education throughout the U.S.

“I’ve always worked with giving back to music education, especially in public schooling because there’s not a ton of funding. I know personally, because our choir and our theater in our high school never had, like, proper costumes that are of this century, instruments of this century, so that’s always been a passion of mine because I know how much it means to those teachers and the kids, having new instruments,” Morris, 35, told PEOPLE after soundcheck ahead of her show at the 250-person-capacity venue.

“It’s a good way to give back, and it’s a very intimate setting, which we don’t really get to do much anymore, so it feels like I’m at the Bluebird Cafe [in Nashville].”

Indeed, Morris’ Soho Sessions set — which she played for a star-studded crowd, including Jason Biggs, Bobby Flay, Don Lemon, Christopher Meloni and Howard Stern — was a brief respite from her Dreamsicle Tour. The outing, which wraps in Cincinnati before Morris heads overseas, highlights her acclaimed latest album, Dreamsicle, which she wrote following her divorce from ex-husband Ryan Hurd and after taking a step back from the country-music business.

“The crowds have been amazing. It’s just grown and grown as we’ve been out here this last month. It’s gotten more and more loud. A ton of new fans have discovered me through this record, and the OG fans from like 10 years ago, so it’s a really cool mix,” Morris says. “It’s just cool; it’s a very intimate record, very vulnerable, not the easiest to make — so the fact that people are receiving it this well and healing from my healing is really special, to get to see the live form of that that place now.”

The title track — which features lyrics about being present, like “I overthink a moment right down to the minutе / Will I ever enjoy anything whilе I’m standin’ in it?” — has struck a chord with fans on tour, Morris says.

“That lyric particularly hits us all. It’s definitely an understated song, but I think that it just centered the record in my brain and kind of encapsulated — well, my whole life, but the last few years, just being tougher with personal events and professional changes and then coming out the other side and being able to make, truly, the record I wanted to make and say what I wanted to say without putting a film over it,” says Morris of the album, which has songs touching on her sexuality (“Push Me Over”) in addition to her divorce (“Cry in the Car,” “This Is How a Woman Leaves”).

Adds Morris: “It’s not like a concept record; to me, there’s no delineation from my life. It’s all a little too real, but I like s— like that because it makes me feel connected to what I’m writing.”

Since launching the Dreamsicle Tour, some fans have pointed out that the set list doesn’t include any material from her last album, Humble Quest. But Morris insists the decision was simply a practical one.

“I love Humble Quest! I think I just wanted to be able to put the entire new record in the set list and also have songs that are familiar, and by the end of it, I was like, ‘This is gonna be a two-hour show, and I don’t have the stamina of Taylor Swift!’ She’s doing three!” she says. “But no, someday we will introduce Humble Quest back into the set list, but it just felt like, I want to be able to play all of Dreamsicle, so I have to make some sacrifices.”

At the stripped-down Stephen Talkhouse show, English singer-songwriter Yola opened for Morris and debuted a new song, “Amazing,” off her forthcoming project, which she told PEOPLE will follow her past “rock-meets-soul” projects.

After Yola’s electrifying set, Morris took the stage, opening with “Too Good,” a twangy kiss-off from Dreamsicle.

“It’s a gift, I’ve learned, not just a tragedy,” she told the crowd of her divorce. “I kind of learned to just write through it, whatever I was going through, which is the point of songwriting, but I never really wanted to write about those things — but I’m so glad I did because I learned about myself and what I actually love writing about and just being very [un]filtered.”

Speaking about “To Good,” Morris added: “This one was actually after I started dating a little bit and just met some f—in’ bums who couldn’t pay the tab. So I brought to my cowriters this idea, and I was like, ‘I’ve been dating a few losers, I think it’s just a stroke of bad luck, it’s gonna end soon. I want it to feel like Delta Dawn plus Irish drinking song.’ And my friends I was writing with that day, they were like, ‘Okay, you take the wheel on that one.’ This song is what we birthed that day. This is called ‘Too Good.’”

During her set, Morris also played beloved hits (“80s Mercedes,” “The Bones”) and a classic cover (John Prine’s “Angel from Montgomery”) before inviting Yola back onstage for a show-stopping duet of her breakout smash “My Church.”

The Soho Sessions are produced by Greg Williamson and Nicole Rechter and have become a coveted experience in N.Y.C. nightlife over the past two years, thanks to shows by Paul Simon, Gary Clark Jr., Kate Hudson and others. So far, Williamson and Rechter — who also co-founded the Love Rocks NYC benefit concert — have raised more than $75 million for various charities.

“We love bringing the show out to the Hamptons,” Rechter told PEOPLE before the show. “We’re excited to have Maren Morris, we’re excited to be working with Music Will Again and bringing a highlight to that incredible cause, and we’re just psyched for a really powerful evening — very intimate, very powerful, that’s what the Soho Sessions are all about.”

Music Will, which Soho Sessions has raised money for before, is the largest nonprofit music program in the U.S. public school system and has served 1.8 million students, supported 6,000 schools and provided donations of more than 1,000 instruments and equipment. (For more on Music Will, click here.)