Nick Morrison

Dec 29, 2023 | knkx.org | Nick Morrison

As much as I’ve enjoyed the recorded output of New Orleans pianist, guitarist, singer/songwriter, Jon Cleary, this studio session marked the first time I’ve ever heard him and his band, the Absolute Monster Gentlemen, ‘live.’ It was an absolute, monster delight. The band consists of Cleary on piano, guitar and lead vocals, Cornell Williams on bass and vocals, A.J. Hall on drums and vocals, and percussionist Pedro Segundo. They rocked the house with New Orleans funk and blues.

Sep 9, 2023 | knkx.org | Nick Morrison

Soul singer, Otis Redding, was the booster rocket that finally launched me into the music I’ve loved all my life—soul music, blues, and rhythm & blues. I first heard Otis when I was a junior in high school. I heard him on a Sunday morning on a jukebox in a temporarily closed bar and gambling house owned by the father of a Black friend of mine.

Aug 22, 2023 | knkx.org | Nick Morrison

If any musician other than blues singer/guitarist John Lee Hooker, has had a longer career based almost exclusively on a ‘B’ chord, I sure-to-the-world don’t know who it might be. Hooker took ‘B’ and ran with it. It happened in 1948. At that time, Hooker, who was born on August 22, 1917, was one of many Black Americans who had migrated from the South for northern factory jobs during World War II.

Aug 7, 2023 | knkx.org | Nick Morrison |Abe Beeson

It's the end of a summer day, and the heat's been hammering you since you woke up. Now, at last, the sun has gone down, and it's time to seek a little relief. You go out into the backyard, or onto the porch or fire escape, in the hope of cooling off. You sit back under the night sky, take a sip of an icy beverage and kick off your shoes. All you need now is some music to help you chill out even more. Well, here it is: the sound of the cool at the end of the day.

Aug 5, 2023 | knkx.org | Nick Morrison

I first saw singer and guitarist Robert Cray in the late ‘70s at a joint in Seattle's Pioneer Square. He was a featured performer in a stunningly good blues and R&B band from Eugene, Oregon. The other front-man in the band was singer and harp player, Curtis Salgado. Those two, together, were a double-threat and a double-treat. But maybe having all that talent out front was too much because by 1980, Cray was fronting his own band and had released his first album, Who’s Been Talking.