Grace Morrison
Grace Morrison is on a roll Her new album Daughter is racking up rave reviews and. The new album bring out emotions that the singer-songwriter wanted to share. It’s a 12 track album with which she surprised herself, as she initially had intended a shorter recording with just herself on acoustic guitar. Daughter ended up being a fully realized album produced by its guitarist Jon Evans.
Morrison’s path toward a full length with all the bells and whistles of a full band recording was an indirect one. Morrison has originally played in bands for years and with a trio for a while. After a while, she forgot she could do and band thing and wanted to. Yet, the pandemic forced her to play by herself with just her guitar in her basement. Not having any songs for a band, she started out writing songs for solo acoustic EP.
Grace Morrison’s Daughter album cover
“I was five songs in. I called my produced. I said ‘Hey, I want to record this stripped down five song EP like Lori McKenna’s style,” Morrison said. “But, then I kept writing. It didn’t turn out like a five song stripped down CD.”
Opening title track “Daughter” has Morrison singing “When I was a child/I was the good lord’s daughter.” Morrison is referencing her childhood growing up in a very right wing, evangelical church and home. It left her with a guilt complex.
“It gets into your head,” Morrison said. “Even when I was a kid going to church. I always felt like a sinner. That’s where that line came from.”
Grace Morrison; stunning, extremely talented
Morrison’s plan or vision for her new Daughter album was by no means limited to her title track. Morrison has 11 other songs on Daughter and her team of pro players helped her flesh them out. Her songs practically told her to write them differently from the stripped down vision.
“Actually, no,” her songs seemed to be saying. “That’s not what we need.” After Morrison started recording them, it was apparent the songs wanted pedal steel and they wanted drums.
For this go round in the studio Morrison had some new tricks up her sleeve. She has pedal steel on her Daughter album and she has Lloyd Maines playing that pedal steel. Maine, father of Natalie Maines, lead singer of The Chick, e-mailed his pedal steel parts to Morrison’s producer and they were subsequently recorded onto the Daughter album.
Grace Morrison
“Having pedal steel and having it be Lloyd Maines was a pretty mind blowing thing for me,” she said. “He and I both played the virtual Philly Fest Festival. We were both on the same virtual stage. I had this moment where I was ‘Oh my God. If this were in person, I could have actually met him back stage’. So, I sent him an e-mail saying as much. I’m so bummed we didn’t get to meet in person. I’d say it just sort of happened for that.”
Morrison’s “Put The Bottle Down” depicts the issues that arise when in a relationship with someone dealing with an addiction. The person in the relationship with the addict also has a struggle.
“I have a lot of people in my life who struggle with addiction. I had been in a relationship with someone who really struggled and it was hell.”
Grace Morrison
Morrison, who considers herself a sensitive and compassionate person, reached a point where she could not continue being sympathetic “especially when the person doesn’t want to help themselves,” she added. “Put The Bottle Down” begins with Morrison playing a driving, grungy electric guitar
“That was me and that was the first part of the song that was written,” she said. “I wrote the song around that line. When we were in the studio, Jon played all the guitars. He kept trying to play that line. It was such a simple thing, he could technically do it. He wasn’t quite hitting it right. So, I did it.”
Morrison’s fans might get to see her play more electric guitar in the future, but maybe not the near future. “It’s one of those things where I know I could,” she said. “I think to become a technically proficient guitarist, I would have to sacrifice the every day writing. When you’re a mom you have to pick and choose because your time is so limited.”
Grace Morrison
Morrison used to whip out her electric back in the day when she was playing bar gigs and cover gigs. There were songs she could play guitar to, like “All Right Now” by Free and other rockers. “People were surprised I could do that. It’s like a party trick,” she said.
Morrison said it’s partly that she is female people were surprised to see her wailing on lead guitar. It is also about her demeanor. “When people look at me,” she began, “I don’t think they expect me to sing loud or energetically. People have always said to me ‘Wow. I so surprised that came out of you’, kind of a backhanded compliment.”
Grace Morrison
Morrison seems too nice a person to have any personal enemies. So, her song about a “Woman Like That” might surprise her long time fans. The song is about her husband’s ex-wife.
“I’m a pretty demure person. I always have been. To my own detriment. I never stand up for myself.” The pandemic gave her time to think about that aspect of her personality, and so “Woman Like That” was her first step in the direction of learning how to fight back.
In her online photos and videos Morrison does not seem gratuitously unkind but she does not seem like a pushover either, as she talks with an energy that makes it possible to picture her telling someone off.
“I have,” she said, flatly. “But, it’s new for me. I spent my childhood hiding under my mother’s skirt, or behind her. I think the reason for performing has been doable for me is because there’s this feeling of safety when you have a microphone. It’s almost like there’s a fence between you and other people and you can control it”
Grace Morrison
Morrison first in person confrontation was when a very dangerous person was hurting her mother. It was a person with a criminal history. It was just the three of them in a house. “I had to kick them out,” Morrison said. “When tiny little me was able to kick this person out and save my mom, there was just this awakening. Nothing bad’s going to happen if you stand up for yourself.”
Speaking of courage, Morrison recently played a homecoming concert in Wareham, Massachusetts. At the time of the housing crisis, her family, while living in Wareham, lost their house to the bank. It was a complicated situation in which her father was paying but the bank was not getting paid, a convoluted problem involving a third person. Morrison attended the auction because her family was still living there.
“An auctioneer comes and stand in your driveway and is auctioning it off. It was so surreal,” Morrison said. “My parents had lived there since the 60s. People we had known our whole lives were driving by slowly and staring; not to offer support but to gawk.”
Grace Morrison
Morrison was traumatized by the experience. The auctioneer was just out of college and Morrison wondered what kind of job he had, auctioning off someone’s pain. In her 20s, Morrison was old enough to get a loan to buy her family’s house. Yet, rules prevented family members from being the one to buy it.
“I couldn’t even save it. It was an awful, helpless feeling,” she said. That experience has not yet come out in her songs. Yet, Morrison’s drive to be successful as a songwriter was born out of that sense of family failure.
“My dad was always a big dreamer. None of his ideas ever worked out. He was really pushing for me to be something. I think for me but also partly for him. We’re OK now. We’re vindicated.”
Grace Morrison
Morrison’s song “Small Town Lament” discusses how everyone in a small town knows everybody else’s business and how that could be uncomfortable. Having trouble sleeping for six years, Morrison needs to visit her local dispensary to purchase marijuana. She eventually came to grips with it.
“Why is there suck stigma around this and why do I care if people know I’m using this,” Morrison said. “My mom is 78, and she has a stigma about it. I imagine it’s a generational thing to some extent. I’d rather do that than take anxiety pills or sleeping pills.’
Morrison had been a step mother to two teen girls before she became a mother to her own son. Yet, meeting family obligations did not stop her from reaching her goals as a regional performer. She also had 65 students per week. After she had her son, she could not carry three jobs. She kept her performing career and her motherhood job.
“Right after he turned one, we hit the road,” she said. “We drove from here to New Mexico and back with my son. So, he’s always been part of the plan.”
Many might not be able to keep up with this singer-songwriter’s schedule, plans, goals, and vision. Morrison’s ultimate goal is to get into publishing, selling her songs to established artists. For next year, she’ll be releasing a single every other month with a marketing campaign for each. She is already seeing an uptick in bigger festivals she’s been asked to play, and she’s got some exciting co-writes she’s looking forward to. If that’s not enough, she’s got some music videos coming out soon too.
“People can just keep an eye on my social media pages,” she said.
