Jess Morgan interview

“That's a very poor quality notebook you've got there”.

I attempt to explain that it’s because of a technical hiccup with my organiser but I’m not getting away with it, despite her phone throwing a similar hissy fit and waking her up constantly throughout the early hours to remind her about the gig. She takes her notebook out and flicks through it, past pages and pages of stylish cartoons and notes; “I’m tempted to draw on it” she says, indicating the sparse, minimalist cover “but I won’t”.

I’m sitting with singer/songwriter Jess Morgan in the Orange Tree tent at Leicester’s Big Session festival. Jess is a rapidly rising talent across the country and folk scenes, but this is the first time she’s played this particular event;

“It's wicked here, I didn't really know what to expect. I've been to a few festivals but none of them really compared. This is done seriously, it sounds good, everyone’s friendly… I've got a parking space!”

This appreciation of the little things may be part of what makes Jess’ music, and character, so endearing. Her debut album ‘All Swell’ is picking up great reviews across the spectrum of the music press, and judging by the appreciative nods and applause from the sizeable crowd during her set a few minutes ago, it’s just the beginning of a success story that’s gaining momentum. Jess has recently toured her raw, soulful take on Americana-tinted folk across the northeast of the US, from Massachusetts, through Vermont and Maine, then back down to Connecticut, New York and New Jersey. I wondered how the music scene would react to an English singer bringing her stateside influences back full circle.

‘There were so many different people and different things, and not once did anybody say 'why are you trying to be American… they thought the English thing was quite cool and a lot of the music is quite influenced by British folk as well. I think I got away with it!”

“The best thing was being in New York and playing in Greenwich Village. There's a big singer/songwriter tradition there and I really like Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, and Carly Simon. It was amazing to walk around. I went to the Cornelia St. Cafe, where Suzanne Vega was discovered, and I just sat in there and looked at the stage where she would have been playing”

Jess has already professed her love of Springsteen and John Martyn among others, and this blend of influences threads effortlessly through her music... at least, it does for the listener. Jess hasn’t always been so sure but the US trip helped to clarify a few things;

“For a long time I've been trying to decide if I want to go down the country route or the folk route - whether I want to go on Bob Harris’ or Mike Harding's show - but coming back from America really made me believe I could be a singer/songwriter and I could play whatever influences I like.. and I may get radio play on neither of those two shows, but I'm just going to do it the way I want to do it. I think I never really knew that before, until I went to America where the music scene and the camaraderie are so rich and they support the musicians. There's just more enthusiasm for doing the kind of music that you want to do”

For someone who comes across as so passionate and self-assured on her records, the suggestion that she might have lacked belief in her own abilities comes as a surprise. Does she ever feel torn between what she wants to do and what she feels people might expect?

“I'm kind of at a point where I know there's no turning back now. I'm not very good at anything else, unless I want to draw silly cartoons for a living, or do administration.” She pauses for a moment. “I am pretty good at that to be honest (laughs). I need to try to anticipate what people like about my music and not necessarily change it, but make it more acceptable. It doesn't bother me, but it's a difficult fact to accept that the way you want to do things is not always the way that you'll make a career”

The thump of a kick drum breaks up that sober reflection as we find ourselves struggling to be heard over the next band’s soundcheck. Jess wrinkles up her nose, and mouths ‘I hate drums’ across the table. When the bombast is over, she looks over the band as they sort themselves out and wonders what it would be like to have a band of her own. Why doesn’t she?

“Because I can’t stay in time. I want to tighten up my guitar playing because it can be a bit clumsy and there are days where I feel like I'm doing really well and days where I'm not so good… I kind of want to reach a level of consistency. I'll never be a virtuoso like Gren Bartley, but I just want to tighten it up a bit - people bother to listen to me, so I should make what I do the best it can be.”

Jess’ timing does flow and change with the lyrics, granted, but that’s a large part of what makes the music so captivating. Using shifts in the melody and volume of the notes to convey feeling is taken for granted, so why can’t we use timing as a tool of expression too? I offer the observation that her songs feel fundamentally about the story and the delivery, and that the guitar tends to flow around that, bending and shaping to the emotion of each moment - she’ll often drag the beat for something dark or reflective, or push ahead during the more uplifting moments. The instrument supports the story in the purest way.

“No-one’s ever picked up on that before. I don't write music and then put lyrics over the top - I write lyrics and then put music around them. I just write... I pick up my guitar, and I'll say something then play something and it always happens like train tracks (gestures ahead)… never one and not the other. So I guess it does happen that way, but I suppose for the purposes of recording for the odd song where I want to play in time because maybe there's going to be another instrument over it - not talking about a drum kit or anything, maybe some double bass or something - it just makes their job a little bit easier if I play reasonably in time (laughs)”

“I wouldn't rate myself as a singer either. I'm a self taught singer, I started doing it when I was 19 and my voice is very inconsistent, you know? It's here, there and everywhere. I think I'm more like a writer who happens to do it through song. I'm just a purveyor of ideas (laughs)”

While we’re talking about the writing process, I mention that her songs always seem to communicate perfect cameos of situations, with the sort of detail that’s both poetic and utterly convincing. It feels like old wisdom on young shoulders, as if she’s lived far more lives than just this one. How does she visualise and capture these scenes?

“I just try my best to imagine it. Sometimes I research things as well and a lot of my songs come out of family history, so the research is kind of on-hand. My imagination used to get me into trouble when I was little. I used to write stories and school and the head teacher had to ring up my mum and dad to see if I was having problems at home because they were so vivid (laughs). But I wasn't having any problems at home because I've got a great family life, but you know… imaginary games were always my favourite. The minute I started writing songs, it came from that perspective - it seemed to fit.”

“I can't really do anything else unfortunately. If I'm trying to write something from my own experience it kind of ends up not being. I want to put myself somewhere else, put a different act on and be a different type of person”.

I think the crowd here today would suggest there's nothing wrong with the type of person she is. On stage, Jess holds the audience's attention effortlessly; petite and softly spoken, she takes on the role of raconteur and commentator between songs - one minute telling us about how disappointed she was to discover that her car horn sounded 'like a vicar farting' when she had the presence of mind to locate and thump it during a near miss on the road, the next musing on tiny medieval villages with huge churches built by people who believed they could buy their way into heaven through bigger buildings. She comes across as thoughtful and humble, yet when she sings she captivates the crowd with the disaffected voice of an angel sick of being good all the time.

As for being somewhere else - even though the US tour was a success and Jess recorded ‘All Swell’ in Bergen, Norway, where she’s a well respected part of the local music scene, she still holds a special regard for -and draws inspiration from - her home county of Norfolk.

“I think Norfolk is somewhere I don't really want to move away from because it's so magical, in that you can be in the middle of the flat land with golden fields either side, or you can go through the fields where the flax is completely yellow, or you can be on the coast, it'll be a rugged coast with jolly old fake seaside glamour... it just changes every minute. When you get lost in the country as much as I do you can't help but let your mind wander through what's going on here, there and everywhere. It's so similar to America and I think that's what draws me to American music”

Capturing your own version of the great American road movie must be tricky when getting from A to B presents a bit of a challenge? Kerouac probably wouldn’t have been as successful with ‘On the hard shoulder, trying to work out the map’. Jess contemplates this for a moment.

“The great Norfolk road movie… maybe I'll do that! There are so many cool places. You've given me an idea!”

Assuming this doesn’t result in getting horribly lost, what are the plans for the immediate future?

“I'd like to do a bit more touring, a bit more travelling... and I think I want to do this Norfolk road movie now. I've got an idea for a funny music video that I'd like to make because I don't really have anything exciting on Youtube and I think the visual side to music is getting more important now. I might be able to do a vinyl release, probably in the studio for the end of summer, and maybe out mid-fall or after Christmas. A couple of songs I wrote while I was in America.. I don't know why I didn't play one of them tonight actually. It fell out of my head a bit.”

Continuing to promote the album is going to factor as well, and she says she’s happy with the feedback she’s received so far, but then her face clouds over briefly - “I got a terrible review”.

She tells me about a two star review in a magazine where they picked apart her timing and suggested that the songs were too wordy. That seems like a remarkably shallow criticism and kind of misses the point - almost like slating someone for what they’re not rather than appreciating them for what they are. As ‘All Swell’ is one of my favourite acoustic albums of the year, I point this out.

“That's nice of you - I feel a bit better about it now.”

She brightens up a bit - “If you're near a newsagent and they sell it, pick it up and look for the CD reviews in the back, and just have a read of it - it's funny and they spelled some of my song titles wrong as well”.

I’d recommend keeping a very close eye on Jess in the near future. It’s rare to find someone who can bring a new voice to a well established genre, with the charm and individuality to stand out bright and clear among their contemporaries. Folk and country purists can all too easily tie themselves up in traditionalism so anyone who can shake off those limitations as if they never existed is to be cherished.

http://www.jessmorgan.co.uk