The award-winning Marysville Jazz and Blues Weekend is back in 2017, this year featuring ARIA-winning blues and roots legend Russell Morris. There’ll be food, wine and a host of musicians from across the country.
“Lloyd Spiegel, Geoff Achison – I’m looking forward to seeing those guys,” Morris says, examining the young festival’s lineup. At just three years old the festival might be young, but Morris has been around the scene for quite some time. He’s seen and done a lot over the years.
“The shows now are ones where people really listen. They’re paying attention to what people are saying. It has changed quite a bit. Some of them used to be a bit crazy. Some of the festivals were good but some of the rock venues were just crazy,” he says. “Sometimes you look back at something you were wearing or doing and just think ‘Why did I ever do that?’”
Although a bona-fide legend of Australian music, Morris hasn’t always enjoyed success. His breakthrough came with the longest pop single ever recorded in Australia at the time, 1969’s psychedelic sensation The Real Thing. This single set Morris up as a key player in Australian music throughout the ‘70s.
This was at the height of Molly Meldrum’s career as a music guru, and Meldrum was firmly in Morris’ corner. But by the release of Turn It On in 1976, Morris was no longer in favour with Australian audiences, and the albums simply stopped selling.
It wouldn’t be until the release of the bluesy Sharkmouth in 2012 that Morris’ resurgence would take hold. Even then, it almost didn’t happen. “No one took any interest,” Morris says. No major label would release it. “In the end a small label called Ambition gave it a go. I thought we’d sell 1,000 copies. Five-thousand if we were lucky. I was really trying to manage expectations.” It was certified Platinum on the ARIA charts and notched up six-figure sales shortly after.
“People forget it hasn’t always been like this,” Morris says. “I think it seems like I’ve always been around, but for a long time no one was listening. I kept recording but there just wasn’t a flicker of interest. It got really bad. I lost my house at one point.” Sharkmouth would see the audiences return, more than 40 years into his career. The album focused on Australia’s Depression years and told stories of colourful characters such as gangster Squizzy Taylor and boxer Les Darcy.
Morris continued drawing inspiration from Australian history with his follow-up Van Diemen’s Land, and 2015’s Red Dirt – Red Heart, which won the ARIA Award for Best Blues and Roots Album. The former featured guest artists including Midnight Oil’s Rod Hirst, Joe Camilleri, Vika and Linda Bull, and Scott Owen of The Living End, and continued to tell the stories of great Australian characters and events. The latter rounded out the trilogy, focusing on Indigenous Australia, the continent’s vast interior, bushrangers and swagmen. Together the three albums have relaunched Morris to the status of Australian music royalty.
In the meantime, the record labels were delving in Morris’ back catalogue and releasing compilations of his most famous songs. “I wasn’t involved at all but I don’t mind,” Morris says. “I’m not embarrassed by anything I’ve released, and if people want to listen, then that’s great. Even though I’m doing something very different now, it’s all me.
“I’ve told the stories I want from history now,” Morris says. “I’ll leave it to others to continue.” The next record, he says, will continue in the blues tradition. In the meantime, he’ll be hanging out in Marysville one weekend this October, sharing five decades of Australian music.
