Tom Morrell

From the Blogs

• Gonzo Country: How to Write a Hit Country Song (Tractors,Trucks, Fishing, Beer and Jesus)
  Turnstyled Junkpiled's How To Write A Hit Country Song Tractors, Trucks, Fishing, Beer and Jesusby Courtney Sudbrink, Editor Many of today’s young,up-and-coming Country 
songwriters may be scratching their heads, wondering why Nashville isn’t biting. Bobby Bare once sang of the “Sure Hit Songwriter's Pen,” but unless that pen bleeds… […]
• Interview: Singer/Songwriter Keith Betti
  For all the bittersweet twang and folksy melodies on singer/songwriter Keith Betti’s latest album,
Company Loves Misery, the ghost of George Harrison haunts the premises like no other. Harrison isn’t named-checked on Betti’s biography and nor is he mentioned on his store page.
 Nevertheless, the soaring melodies of “Found a Love” and the sunny warmth of “It’ […]
• The Birth of British Folk Rock - 45 Years On
  It is always dangerous to claim the birth of a particular genre of music, but a case can be made that 45 years ago on May 27 there was a major delivery -- the arrival of British 
folk rock. The midwives at this event were the members of  Fairport Convention, a group that is still wildly popular among aficionados of the genre and which spawned many others fro […]
• Stackridge, Farncombe Music Club (UK, 5/18/12)
  I first started going to live gigs in my early teens. I was underage. I lied about my date of birth so that I could become a member of Friars, a music club based in Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire. Life membership was 25p. I still have my member’s card. Wild Turkey in June 1971 was the first live band I saw and some forty one years later I am still occupyin […]
• Bonnie Raitt, John Prine & Tom Waits at Opryland (circa '74)
  Bonnie, Johnny & Tom Visit Opryland, USA — an interview-article by W. Conrad for Buddy Magazine (March, 1976)

 
 
Backstage and on stage at Nashville's Opryland, Ben Fong-Torres, rock journalist from 
Rolling Stone, was shadowing Bonnie Raitt, the star of the evening's attraction. In the shadows, lurking inside his cheap suit and a cloud of to […]
• The Last Time I Saw Gram Parsons
  By Bill Conrad (His Prep School Pal)

 Summer of 1969, I was in London when I saw a flyer advertising the Byrds at Royal Albert Hall. Melody Maker, the local music news, suggested that a few Beatles and Stones might attend. That was incentive enough for me.
  The Byrds took the stage and launched into "Turn, Turn, Turn."  Other than band leader Rog […]