Throughout the sequence of "Harbor Lights", "Hot House", and "Spirit Trail", Hornsby's piano playing steadily gained further complexity, taking on a more varied array of musical styles and incorporating more and more difficult techniques, as evidenced by his two-hand-independence on "Spirit Trail" "King of the Hill". During this same span of solo album years, Hornsby made several mini-tours playing solo piano gigs for the first time in his career. The shows allowed Hornsby limitless possibilities for seguing songs into other songs, often blurring lines between classical compositions, jazz standards, traditional bluegrass, folk, and fiddle tunes, Grateful Dead songs, as well as reworkings of Hornsby originals. Hornsby reflected on these periods of intensive solo performances, stating that the solo tours helped him "recommit to the study of piano" and "take [his playing to a whole new level", explorations and improvisations that would not be possible in a band setting. He finally released his first entirely live solo album, simply titled "Solo Concerts", in August 2014.