Songwriters Celebrate The Music Of Bill Morrissey, 3-9-25

Mike Berman and Amilia K Spicer

Bill Morrissey was an important voice in the New England folk scene. He established himself a few years before the really big folk explosion happened in Boston, and so was someone that the younger singer/songwriters looked up to and took inspiration from. If you were into folk music at all, you certainly knew Bill’s work. Bill Morrissey not only inspired the younger group of songwriters, but in some cases helped them by producing their albums. He did that for Ellis Paul, producing Say Something, which was Paul’s first album to be released on CD (Urban Folks Songs and Am I Home were only available on cassette at that time), and also for Peter Keane, producing both The Goodnight Blues and Walkin’ Around. His music got an incredible amount of airplay on the Boston stations. But I didn’t know what, if any, sort of audience he had in other parts of the country. I suppose in my teens, if I had thought about it at all, I would have assumed that he was known in all corners. Our brains worked like that: if I knew him and loved him, then people everywhere must be the same. I remember in high school when people started talking about how they loved Morrissey, I assumed they meant Bill. I wasn’t all that aware of The Smiths at the time and certainly couldn’t name anyone in that band, and that led to some confusing, jumbled conversations. But the main confusion for me was in wondering how my classmates could not be fans of Bill’s music. And when I moved to the west coast in the 1990s, I found Bill wasn’t really known there, at least not by many people. So what a delightful surprise it was to learn that a group of Los Angeles singer/songwriters were going to perform a tribute show. Of course, these folks weren’t always based in L.A., and so brought their appreciation of Bill’s music to this great city from elsewhere. The show was held at Jeweled Universe in South Pasadena as part of the Acoustic Jewels music series, hosted by Mike Berman, and featuring Christopher Lockett, Arielle Silver, Steve Key and Amilia K Spicer.

Mike Berman

Mike Berman kicked off the show at 2:30 with “Barstow,” a song from Bill Morrissey’s self-titled album. You know it. It’s the one where he sings, “I can’t believe I pissed my twenties away/But if you take me back this time, baby, I promise you I’ll stay.” Mike mentioned hearing that song for the first time in Princeton, New Jersey, and also seeing Bill in concert in 1986 around the time of the Red Sox/Mets World Series. He followed “Barstow” with “Grizzly Bear,” also from that self-titled album. It’s a delightful song, with lines like “She’d spent so much time in the mirror, she could not tell left from right” and “I‘d never seen a girl with so many names written on her clothes.”  He wrapped up his set with a gentle, sweet rendition of “Summer Night,” playing harmonica on this one. This song comes from Standing Eight, which was released in 1989. Christopher Lockett was up next, and while he was setting up, Mike Berman told the crowd that it was Chris’ idea to do this tribute show. Chris leapt right in with “Birches,” perhaps Bill Morrissey’s most famous song, and delivered a good rendition. He then talked a bit about Bill’s first album, which was released in 1984, then picked up by Philo and re-issued, and then re-recorded and released again in 1991. He followed “Birches” with “Love Song/New York, 1982,” saying in his introduction to the song that it “has one of the most devastatingly existential lines.” I’m guessing he was referring to the line “But everyone must die alone.” But the lines in which the woman says goodbye and he says that to this day he pretends he never heard her also always strike me. He then wrapped up his set with “Robert Johnson,” a song from Inside, and one that was featured in Robert Mugge’s Hellhounds On My Trail: The Afterlife Of Robert Johnson.

Christopher Lockett

Arielle Silver

When Arielle Silver took the stage, she joked about how she had gotten so caught up in enjoying the other artists that she forgot she was next. It’s great that music has that effect, that power on performers as well as audience members. She talked a bit about getting into Bill Morrissey’s catalogue of music, and about her time working at Club Passim in Cambridge, and then opened her set with one of my favorite Bill Morrissey songs, “Inside.” These are the song’s first lines: “This ain’t Hollywood/It never really gets that good.” Arielle delivered a beautiful rendition of a beautiful, sad song. She then mentioned that she likes doing tributes because it gives her an opportunity to really dive into another songwriter’s material and psyche. She followed “Inside” with another song from that same album, “Man From Out Of Town.” This one begins with these lines: “The house burned down on a rainy night/And they never did find out why.” Arielle had chosen songs that spoke in some way to present-time Los Angeles. The song’s final line is “This house is fireproof.” But my favorite line is “There were curses in the shapes of old men.” Arielle Silver concluded her set with an original song, one that Mike Berman requested she play for it has that lightness coupled with heaviness that Bill was so good at. The song is titled “Asteroids And Chaos,” one of my favorites from her Watershed album. The line “Hold each other through the panic” nearly had me in tears yesterday. Steve Key then started his set with “Letter From Heaven,” a fun number with lines like “It’s a great life here in heaven/It’s a great life when you’re dead.” The song contains references to several deceased musicians, but the line about Lincoln finally getting to see the end of the play is the one that makes me laugh the most. Steve mentioned how he opened for Bill once. He then played “Long Gone,” a song from Inside (that really is one of the best Bill Morrissey albums), first mentioning how Bill’s headstone contains that song’s opening lines: “I’ve been long gone/From the stage to the highway/To the night grille/And everywhere I went/Time just stood still.” And as for a Los Angeles connection, this song’s lyrics mention Malibu. He wrapped up his set with a really nice rendition of “Small Town On The River,” a song that was originally on a Fast Folk compilation in 1982 and also included on his self-titled album.

Steve Key

Amilia K Spicer

Amilia K Spicer was the tribute’s final performer, and she is someone who toured with Bill Morrissey and recorded with him. She talked a bit about that at the beginning of her set, mentioning playing on the new material recorded for the compilation The Essential Collection. She opened her set with “Handsome Molly,” a song from the Standing Eight album. She delivered a beautiful rendition, playing guitar on this song, and joined by Mike Berman on guitar. She then moved to keyboard for “She’s That Kind Of Mystery,” also from Standing Eight. This is a song that John Gorka recorded for his Bright Side Of Down album, and Amilia K Spicer sang on that recording. Mike Berman accompanied her on guitar for this song as well. He then left the stage, and Amilia performed her last song solo on keyboard. This song, “Delayed Effect,” was an original number, a song that Bill Morrissey liked. It was included on her Seamless album, released on 2003. She said that Bill especially liked the song’s opening lines: “He’s got his hands in his pockets/Like it’s keeping him balanced/And he looks like a page nobody read.” Who wouldn’t love those lines? It’s a great song. After her set, all the performers got on stage for one last song, “He Was A Friend Of Mine,” a traditional number that Bill Morrissey and Greg Brown recorded together for their Friend Of Mine album. For this song, Mike Berman played guitar and Christopher Lockett played harmonica. Mike, Steve Key and Arielle Silver each took a verse. It was a wonderful way to wrap up a beautiful tribute to an incredible songwriter. By the way, Mike Berman mentioned that the theme of the next Acoustic Jewels concert will be Bob Dylan’s lesser known material. That will be in April.

"He Was A Friend Of Mine"

Jeweled Universe is located at 1017 Mission St. in South Pasadena, California.