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Morrison tries to live up to hype
TORONTO – Practically every music biopic has a scene where the protagonist picks up a guitar or slides behind a piano and, cue the John Williams score, everything falls into place.
And when it unspools for 22-year-old U.K. soul sensation James Morrison, those few moments are bound to be replicated, but for now, he tells it a little differently.
“Music for me happened over a period of like four years,” he says, perched up on a bar stool in the Pantages Hotel, just around the corner from Yonge-Dundas Square. “As a kid, I used to sing into my pillow at night. Then, I began taping my voice. And when I finally started singing, I would tape a song, listen back to it, listen to the bits that were s***, and do it again.
“The first time I performed onstage I was probably nine and I sang ‘(Everything I do) I do it for you’ by Bryan Adams from that ‘Robin Hood’ movie. And by the time I got to 16, I knew for sure that all I wanted to do was play music and sing.”
In town for a sold-out show at the Mod Club in support of his platinum-selling debut, “Undiscovered,” Morrison has ridden the disc’s European popularity onto North American shores, galloping through a 13-city tour, notching appearances on Jimmy Kimmel and the Tonight Show, and landing an opening spot on the U.S. leg of John Mayer’s summer tour, in a little under a month.
Signed to Polydor U.K. after a demo CD he’d recorded with some borrowed music equipment fell into the hands of a one-time A&R rep, Morrison entered a West London studio with Martin Terefe (KT Tunstall, Ron Sexsmith) in 2005, releasing “Undiscovered” to great fanfare overseas in July of last year.
“It’s been surreal,” he says, gulping down a can of Red Bull. After the album went platinum in England and gold in Australia and New Zealand, “It didn’t feel real at all.
“I couldn’t comprehend the switch in my life from struggle and things not being the way they should to, ‘Hey you can get anything you want now.’
“The only thing that keeps me grounded is the fact that I’ve always played music. It’s nothing new to me; it’s just that now people know who I am.”
Named Best Male Singer at February’s Brit Awards, Morrison says his wide-ranging sounds are a direct result of the music he heard growing up in England’s Warwickshire County. “It kind of started with Van Morrison,” he says.
“My mum used to play Van Morrison a lot. In the house or in the car, he was always going. My dad was into folk singers like Paul Brady, Cat Stevens and old stuff like Michael Jackson, the Eagles, Steely Dan, and so it ended up that I listened to anything I could get my hands on really.”
With Glen Scott gently massaging the keys, giant handclap sounds bathe Morrison’s soulful Stevie Wonder-like rasp on the album’s opening number, “Under the Influence,” before settling into an 11-song routine that shows he has one of the most elastic voices in pop music.
“One Last Chance” and “Call the Police” clothe their crisp acoustic rhythms and exuberant percussion with gently grooving vocals that call on Justin Timberlake’s chill-out track “What Goes Around…” and Gavin DeGraw’s smooth punch-up, “I Don’t Want to Be.”
“In the beginning, I knew I wanted to have a band, but it was all about getting it to have the right sound,” he says. “I didn’t want it to sound too American and I didn’t want it to sound too pop produced. But as soon as I made my album, it kind of felt right.”
Sometimes, strings play strong supporting roles on the ballads, like the sugary ‘70s-sounding, “If the Rain Must Fall.” where Morrison sings, “Oh well dreams can come true if you know inside you really want them to or you can sit and wait.” Other times, they linger in the background, as on the haunting “The Pieces Don’t Fit Anymore.”
“That kind of backfired on me, writing a break-up song and then staying together,” he chuckles. “That was (written) at a time when I was really busy, my deal was kicking in, and I felt like I was going to have to leave all of my old world behind, including Jill.
“But,” he continues, “I’m still with her.”
Currently on tour without his full band, after he finishes up this brief North American jaunt, Morrison heads Down Under, then returns to the U.K. for a run of the summer festival circuit, before hitting up North America again for an opening slot on John Mayer’s “Continuum” tour this July and August.
“I think I’m going to miss his dates up here though,” he says, as an assistant wades into the conversation. Extending his stay in Toronto for another day to shoot his next video (for “One Last Chance”) in Hagersville, Ont., the boyish looking Morrison apologizes to try on a jacket for tomorrow’s shoot.
“This isn’t the one that I was thinking of,” he says, as he slides a bluish, grey cord jacket over a KISS tee. When he’s told that he’ll freeze if he shows up in the black coat he wants to wear, Morrison laughs. “I might have to get some long johns then.”
The recording of his next record on hold as he works “Undiscovered” stateside, Morrison’s well aware that he’s bridging two pop-friendly musical genres – blue eyed, Motown flecked soul and infectiously hooky folk-rock – but looking forward, he’s still not sure whose career he’d most like to emulate.
“I dunno; Stevie Wonder, Van Morrison…Cat Stevens?” his answer becoming a question itself. “I kind of like the idea of f**king off for a bit and not being around for years and then coming back with something that’s really good.”
If this is the first act of Morrison’s biopic, then right around here his director will be fast-forwarding to the scene where “Undiscovered” walks off with heap loads of statuettes at next year’s Grammys. But the singer-songwriter wants to slow things down.
“I don’t want to rush any of my albums and if there’s ever a time I feel like I’m rushing an album, I won’t put it out. I’ll just disappear, for however long till I come up with something good.”
Written by Mark Daniell
