Blair Morgan – Sunday River (Blair Morgan Music) (13th Floor Album Review)
Sunday River is Blair Morgan’s first studio album released under his own name and, you might ask, what took him so long?
His recording career to date includes a live album released in 2024; Sarah’s Room, a co-lab with English musician Dominic Halpin recorded and released in Sydney in the early ‘90s; and featuring on an EP with Wanganui/Christchurch funk band Glider.
Morgan also has the only copy of his original songs recorded at the Great Goose Haven studios in Sydney in 1993.
Despite this lack of published material, however, he’s delivered a collection of 10 songs that show a maturity in writing and performance and a reverence for his subjects you’d expect from a veteran with a substantial back catalogue.
Morgan’s love for and immersion in the musical arts goes back further than those Sydney days and a quick look at his website details the music that inspires him (mostly the greats from the 1970s). He’s also a keen observer and writes extensively about recordings, live gigs, musical happenings and movements in his blog.
His knowledge appears encyclopedic in those musings and he cites many of the great names from rock and roll history as influences on his music.
Referencing The Beatles, Bowie, Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac, Bryan Ferry and many others as guides on his journey Morgan reserves hero status for Split Enz and Bruce Springsteen which definitely raises expectations for what’s to come.
But it’s closer to home that you’d find an immediately recognisable influence on Morgan’s music with The Warratahs springing to mind with music rooted in the country and folk traditions.
Sunday River’s journey takes us first to Denniston. Morgan relates a story of Jordan Luck walking past his motel in the west coast’s largest town using the incident to suggest that any visit to the coast is incomplete without a visit to the high country soaring heavenward a short distance inland.
You are above the clouds looking down
With ghosts in the hills of bottles drowned
Arriving in Denniston
A wailing harmonica welcomes us to Dennsiton over a steady country song full of interesting guitars and a steady rhythm section. It’s a bright, hooky opener to the album and an arrangement so full of musical references from this genre that you’ll be searching the memory banks for the true source.
But, just as the Buller river that flows through Westport has it’s origins up on that high plateau, it’s a convergence of many streams, rivulets, brooks and gullies, a one, true origin never to be identified and nor is it necessary.
But origin does suggest tradition and there’s plenty of traditional folk-influenced stories on this album.
The Daily Light is an impressionistic view of the world. From the wisteria illuminated by the early morning sun to the campfire aglow in the shadows of pines it’s a scene redolant of Aotearoa and the rural life.
Was the Daily Light, where work fulfills purpose
A Daily Light, that becomes a circus
The Daily Light…
Morgan says the refrain should be daily life but was influenced by George Harrison’s Inner Light suggesting “ the hope that whatever takes up most of your time fulfils whatever you want to be doing.”
Beckenham Blue takes us on a trip around the suburb of Beckenham in Morgan’s now home of Otautahi Christchurch during the Covid lockdown.
If the lockdown gets to you
Take a stroll around the block
Do the Loop the loop, up and down
Figure 8, tumble drop
Morgan sings over a swaggering blues. The almost relentless upbeat and bright feel to these songs seems to get in the way on this track. Again, there’s a rich and complex mix of instruments on this track which seems to counter the closing refrain So bored, so bored, so bored…
But Morgan’s feel for mood is not altogether wayward and the switch to the other side of the world to Lisbon has plenty of lovely influences from that part of the world inspired by a trip to escape a cold New Zealand winter.
A release in Lisbon away from here
A relief in Lisbon to find the winter cheer
Will this time ever be had again
When Lisbon has been my friend.
The complexity works on this track. The European influences evoke that place half a world away, the nostalgic tones are reminiscent of Leonard Cohen. The contrast of that bright, poppy folk and sad intonation conjures a myriad of emotion that we all feel when travelling and returning home.
That nostalgia is prevalent in the song Richmond Ranges, reminiscing about visits to a family property near Nelson that held strong and grounding importance as Morgan hints at difficulties experienced by the man tempered by the memories from childhood.
Fast forward to see a different point of view
Of a mid line crisis and finding something blue
A child never wondered about his lot
Just wanting to take another everlasting shot
Oh the Richmond Ranges have a lot to see things through
This is John Denver-inspired story-telling, sad in the present but filled with that warm glow of summers past. Morgan does this well.
The title track, Sunday River, carries on the melancholy with a lament for the Christchurch Cathedral that stands as a broken testament to the earthquake of 2011 and the failures to restore this grand old dame while a new city emerges from the dust.
No cross no crescent, masses or peasants
No ashes no dust or sermons all rust
Will cathedral bells ever ting in Sunday River
This is about a political as Morgan gets on this album, surprisingly for someone that holds The Boss in such high regard.
Morgan’s adventures are not all in the physical realm and he pens some beautiful tributes to past heroes. For some reason they’re bunched together as if the journey takes us to the RIP section or, perhaps, chapels within the Morgan cathedral.
John and Warren praises the work of two fabulous songwriters that deserved more recognition in Morgan’s eyes, John Prine and Warren Zevon. You can hear their influences interwoven through the lyrics and music in a skillful piece of work that brings the band in gradually for a respectful memorial.
John & Warren once roamed this place,
With an eye for the detail of the human race
May as well as been from out of space
No John & Warren are gone.
A eulogy to his grandfather Len has Morgan waltzing through the life of a man that fought in two world wars yet still managed to build a life and family in the sunny hills of Richmond.
From Westport to Egypt via Dardanelle,
Who was the enemy, who could tell?
When he was too young for the first, too old for the second,
But never a question the empire was beckoning.
It’s classic folk music reverencing the great men that built not just families and towns, but nations and civilisation but had to stare down the monsters of war in the process.
Senor Senior is a love-filled recognition of Morgan’s friend Blair Allchurch who passed away in November 2022. “Easily recognised by his fabulous hair do, giant smile and formidable sense of humor” a tribute to Allchurch aka Blair Senior read on Facebook to the man who was a large part of the Christchurch music scene.
But here we are with you now playing on your song
And we know our love is stronger than an early death
So we look up at you now and pay our life’s respect
Senior Senor, Senor Senior.
An anthemic track Senor Senior has Morgan’s backing band Florida Man in full flow honouring their mate with a rousing send off.
Sunday River closes with Goodnght Tonight a song Morgan penned while on a bus between Seville and Lisbon.
“Was thinking about a song to always end a long gig with,” he writes in the press notes. “Often you get to the end of a night and have got past the point of being able to think.”
It’s time to say goodnight
To send you in your way
There’s not much more to olay tonight
We are on our way home tonight
It’s a fitting end to the journey, although straying a little to close the parody line for comfort. It’s easy to imagine Morgan finishing up a long night on this track in an encore, but it’s not his best work.
As mentioned before, it’s surprising Morgan has taken so long to coordinate an exploration of his world. He is obviously an accomplished musician who is complemented by some fine players in Quinn Mannix on guitars and backing vocals, Caleb Barlow on electric slide guitar, Dominic Benedict James on bass, Kalanii Fogalele on drums and the strings of Jackson Watkinson.
Morgan’s songwriting is good, and his voice has that lovely slight waver that hints of overpowering emotion that could be used to better effect in sparser arrangements than used on this album.
A journey is sometimes made with a crowd on a bus or train, sometimes a smaller group in a car, sometimes on a bicycle or a horse and sometimes on foot. On Sunday River it seems Morgan is happier riding in the car.
Alex Robertson
