In Memoriam: Bill Morrissey

Bill Morrissey: Handsome Molly

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Bill Morrissey: Birches

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His songs were like Elmer Rising's pen and ink masterpieces--you could admire each confidently executed lyrical brushstroke and melodic twist on the finest of scales, and never diminish the overall impression of their honesty and truth. At the height of his powers, on 1989's Standing Eight, 1992's Inside and 1993's Night Train, each Bill Morrissey record contained several songs that each would have been the life's work of a lesser artist. There may have been others writing songs equally detailed as "These Cold Fingers," "The Man From Out Of Town" or "Birches," but none were better.
- Mark Erelli, August, 2011

Darius and I have posted several tracks by Bill Morrissey over the years, including several duets of traditional folk numbers recorded with Greg Brown. But while I appreciate his handy coverage, and posted several of my favorites back in July over at Cover Lay Down, I'm partial to his more pensive songwriting - I count Mark Erelli's cover of Birches, for example, as one of the better covers in my vast collection, though in this case, at least, it's hard to outdo the original. And Handsome Molly was the very first track of his I heard, way back on Legacy, a 1989 folk compilation that perfectly captured the eighties folk movement, and my heart.

But I also owe that song an apology of sorts, one I hope to rectify by sharing it. Because at the time, I wasn't sure what to make of Morrissey's fragile, croaking tenor. It scared me a little, I think; the emotion was raw, and at sixteen, I wasn't ready. And so, although I treasured the album as a whole, I skipped over this track for decades, having not yet outgrown my penchant for the melodic.

Only in the least couple of years have I finally come to appreciate that the best music is most often wrung from a broken instrument, bringing me to Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, and through them, back again to Bill Morrissey, a man well admired by his songwriting peers even as they worried about his lifestyle. And so I rediscovered the genius songwriter, chronicler of pain, his lyrics still and hollow on the surface, yet possessed of intimate and universal depth, each song like a Raymond Carver story. And I shared what I had found, in the very first month of my foray into music blogging, in the form of a feature on his tribute to Mississippi John Hurt, which I highly recommend.

And then I filed him in my mind alongside a hundred other songwriters I admire without dwelling too heavily in their sounds.

And then, just like that, he was gone.

As I wrote on my own blog after his passing, Morrissey had his demons: he was known for his drinking, and the weariness of the solo road warrior which caused no amount of stress and desperation in his actions. The heart disease which killed him before his sixtieth birthday was a symptom of the hard life he led, to be sure. And as Cliff Eberhardt, who as a fellow Fast Folk alumni and friend served as pallbearer to this fallen giant of the folk movement, noted on Facebook after his funeral, “The casket felt so light. That’s when I knew he was really gone, because if his soul was in there with him, that casket would have weighed a ton.” I can offer no more fitting epitaph. May there be no more pain where he lies.

Call Me: Memphis, Tennessee

Bill Morrissey and Greg Brown: Memphis, Tennessee

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In 1993, Greg Brown and Bill Morrissey were big names in folk music, so the news that they had done an album together was big news. Friend of Mine has some traditional songs, songs by folk artists old a new, and some ringers, like this one, originally by Chuck Berry. But try finding more versions of this song. There are simply too many. Memphis, Tennessee has been done in country, punk, rockabilly, and rock versions. Tom Jones, Elvis Presley, and Sammy Kershaw have all done it. So this is a song that has become part of the culture. That’s because Chuck Berry expressed something universal here, the yearning of a father who has been separated from his daughter. So Memphis, Tennessee has become part of the culture and has a universal theme. Maybe that means that it is a folk song after all. And maybe it’s really not so surprising that Brown and Morrissey recorded it.

Public Domain: Star Maker Tradition Edition

It is the custom, here on Star Maker, to end the week with a multi-song post. In a week that has emphasized traditional music, I could hardly do otherwise. So here are songs from three albums I wanted to get to this week, and somehow never did.

Bill Morrissey and Greg Brown: He Was a Friend of Mine

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It would have been enough to have a track from either Bill Morrissey or Greg Brown. These two are among the finest artists in acoustic music today. But here they are together.

I first heard He Was a Friend of Mine in the version by the Byrds. The lyrics don’t quite fit, but the song always felt like a tribute to John F Kennedy, and I think the Byrds may have had that in mind. So I was surprised to find that this is a traditional song.

John Wesley Harding: Little Musgrave

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As far as I know, John Wesley Harding was only a folk singer for one album, but it is a fine one. Little Musgrave tells the story of a man of low rank who beds a lord’s wife. These stories always end badly. It is not surprising that a lord’s wife would stray, given that she was in an arranged marriage where love was not part of the deal. But the songs where the lord is the one who strays have very different endings. Completely unfair!

The New St George: The Mermaid

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I seem to be stuck on songs of the sea this week. But fear not, if we ever do a week of sea songs, I have plenty of material left. I wanted to make sure I included a tale of a sailor’s encounter with the supernatural this week, and this is one of the most beautiful examples I know. For the story of the New St George, go here.

Duets: Men’s Edition

I couldn’t help noticing that all of the songs posted this week were duets between a male and a female singer. Of course there’s nothing wrong with that, and the music has been great. But there are other possibilities. Here are two fine examples of duets between two male singers. There also many fine all-female duets, but I leave that thought with my fellow Starmakers. There’s still time!

Johnny Cash/ Willie Nelson: (Ghost) Riders in the Sky

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VH-1 Storytellers was a series that usually featured one artist talking about the craft of songwriting, and playing examples. Musically, the results were often spectacular.

But, for one episode, somebody had the idea of getting Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson together to talk about each others songs. Cash and Nelson are, of course, both country artists, but with very different styles. So this could have been a disaster. But, judging from the episode as aired, the two really hit it off, and the music showed it. (Ghost) Riders in the Sky is only one example of how wonderfully they were able to mesh musically.

Bill Morrissey and Greg Brown: Duncan and Brady

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Bill Morrissey and Greg Brown used to run into each other on the folk circuit, (they probably still do, for that matter). Over time, they became friends, and jammed together at festivals. Soon enough, they got the idea of recording an album together. What with schedule conflicts and all that travel, it took a few years before it finally happened. Both are fine songwriters, but by the time they went into the studio together, they had decided to record a set of songs by other writers. Duncan and Brady is a traditional song that they selected.

1984: Texas Blues

Bill Morrissey: Texas Blues

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The NYC folk revival was an underground hothouse of confessional acoustic music in 1984; many artists felt ready for major label attention, but recording equipment was prohibitively expensive, and demos were hard to come by. In support of this phenomenon, The Songwriter Collective, a long-standing Greenwich Village coffeehouse and songwriter's performing space, started recording and releasing compilation albums of their singer-songwriters once a month as an audio magazine. They called it Fast Folk, and it quickly became the breeding ground and first recording source for a whole new generation of singer-songwriters.

In its fifteen year run, Fast Folk spawned and sustained a comprehensive revival of folk music in America. Some star players who first recorded for Fast Folk -- Tracy Chapman, Lyle Lovett, Suzanne Vega and Shawn Colvin among them -- would go on to win broad recognition in a folkpop world to come. Others became staples of the coffeehouse and folk festival scene, revitalizing the folk scene for a new community of fans, and providing new blood to replace or replenish the aging folkstars of the sixties and seventies.

One of the first artists from this group to press their own wax, Bill Morrissey was an elder statesman of sorts, his sound a throwback to something older and wiser. Equal parts Mississippi John Hurt, early Hank Williams country, and pure New York/New England folk, he never rose as far as some of his peers. But he remains a respected coffeehouse performer and songwriter whose songs still get covered by new generations of folk musicians.

In his signature strangled tenor, this song is just the most lonesome thing ever. Here's a bonus cover of the same song, done a decade later by another Fast Folk alumni and one of my absolute favorite sweet-voiced women of folk, which comes pretty close.

Lucy Kaplansky: Texas Blues [purchase]

Bonus: Here's a closer look at Bill Morrissey's connection with Mississippi John Hurt, with a few more cover tracks to boot -- including a second cover from Cover Lay Down favorite Lucy Kaplansky.