It could have been a
disastrous beginning. My womanizing, alcoholic father
walked out on my mother and me when I was five years
old. We were living in a little white house on Bittersweet
Lane in New Lenox, Illinois. The vivid, terrible
memory of being awakened in the middle of the night,
my half-sister and I clinging to each other, screaming
and being pulled apart so my father could pack her
and my two half brothers (the only family I had
ever known) into the car and drive away is still
as clear and cold today as it was all those years
ago. While it was a great struggle, and money was
always in short supply, my mother was a hard worker
who never accepted charity, and we managed to live
a simple life in an upstairs apartment in Joliet,
Illinois. My mom eventually met a wonderful man,
fell in love, and when I was just turning 13, they
married. Things got quite a bit easier then, with
two incomes in the household, and they even managed
to buy property in a rural town called Plainfield
upon which we built our house with our own hands.
I grew up surrounded by all kinds of music. My
step-father, who I call my Dad, was a hard core
country fan and wasn't interested in having anything
else on the radio in his presence. My mother listened
to the lighter side of rock and pop (when Dad wasn't
around!) and I was a typical midwest teenager who
listened to all kinds of rock, pop, country, R&B,
even disco. Anything from Heart to Elton John, Ricky
Skaggs to Earth, Wind & Fire, The Go Go's to
Warren Zevon. I absorbed it all. Although I do remember
Dad actually banning my Kiss albums from the house!
The one thing that was missing from that period
is the blues. Even though Chicago was less than
an hour away, in our tiny little microcosm of small
town Illinois I was completely in the dark about
the musical form that would soon shape my very existence.
My best buddy Brendan had an acoustic guitar. I
played flute during concert season and drums during
marching season in the school band, but this was
totally different. Being curious, I gave it a try.
Oh my heavens, it was absolutely wonderful! I wrote
my first song after learning only three chords.
I was hooked. I can't tell you how many sweat filled
hours we spent up in his un-air-conditioned bedroom
in the hot, humid, Illinois summer heat literally
trying to make beautiful music together! We would
write songs and then go downstairs and play them
for his family who was always so sweet and would
cheer and clap. I could walk into his house any
time of day or night back then, the doors were always
unlocked. We were, after all, in good ol' Plainfield.
I was a busy kid in high school. In addition to
being in the school band, I was a 3 sport athlete
earning a total of 12 varsity letters during my
four years there. I gained a lot from my athletic
experiences, and was blessed with coaches who cared
about us as people as well as athletes. My track
coach, Kathy Kazmar, was a central figure in my
upbringing and always preached to us, “You
are ladies first, students second and athletes third.”
Then she would go on to demand the absolute best
of us in all three areas. I thrived in that kind
of challenging atmosphere. In February of 2000,
I was inducted into the Plainfield High School Athletic
Hall of Fame.
At 18, I went off to the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign to attend the School of Engineering
and get a degree in Electrical Engineering. I also
attended the Institute of Aviation earning private,
commercial, instrument and multi-engine pilot's
licenses. My sophomore year I was running out of
money fast and I was also missing playing sports.
I went to an Illini Women’s volleyball game
and approached one of the coaches and asked if they
“needed any more players.” She took
a sideways look at me, said noncommittally, “You’re
tall, you look coordinated, come on out and let’s
see what you can do.” I couldn’t believe
it! I tried out for the team and through a lot of
hard work eventually won a full-ride volleyball
scholarship. I now had a way to pay for my education
and I loved playing volleyball. I would always bring
my acoustic guitar on our road trips and it was
quite common for me to pull it out and get the whole
team singing while we were waiting for delayed flights
to and from our games.
I eventually bought myself an electric guitar,
a beautiful, white Les Paul Custom with gold hardware
and an ebony fretboard, that took everything I had
and then some to buy. Years later, it was sold for
rent money back home while I was out on the road.
I still miss that guitar.
After graduating from college I took a job in aerospace
and moved to Los Angeles. I figured I'd meet more
musicians there than in Plainfield, Illinois. I
joined a rock & roll cover band as a rhythm
guitarist and vocalist. It didn't take very long
before I wanted to play lead guitar. Once I started,
I progressed quickly due to my ability to practice
for long, long hours and never get bored. The guitar
is so fascinating to me, an unending source of inspiration
and wonder, something no mere human could ever master.
It was then that I got my first Stratocaster: it
was red and shiny and sexy, and I was home baby!
I quit my engineering job, never to return, and
joined a road band as its lead guitarist/vocalist,
doing Top 40 covers. We traveled around California
and Nevada playing 5 nights a week in clubs, casinos,
hotels, pretty much any place that would have us.
I would play guitar 4 to 5 hours every night at
the shows and practice 3 to 4 hours every day in
my hotel room. I was ravenous about that guitar.
I was in the very early stages of developing my
style, learning note-for-note parts off of CDs by
all the great rock & roll players of the time,
diving into their recordings like a starving woman
after a loaf of bread. I couldn't get enough! How
did the structure of the song work? Why did the
guitar player choose those notes to play at that
exact time? What notes from outside the key worked
to cause that beautiful tension? How on earth would
I get that impossible riff under my fingers? Most
bands had one person playing guitar and a different
person doing the singing, whereas I would have to
master the art of playing a complicated guitar part
while singing the vocal line. I loved the challenge.
All that intricate, detailed studying of some of
the world's greatest guitar players paid off, giving
me the dexterity and vocabulary which allowed my
guitar style to organically develop its own unique
voice. I'm as comfortable whipping off a rapid fire
sixteenth note chickin' pickin' riff as I am bending
a long held out note that begs for forgiveness.
Aggressive double stops come as easily as delicate,
single note, volume swell runs. Sometimes it's fat
power chords, sometimes it's one perfectly placed
note. Playing lead guitar is a lot like doing a
life-long dance of seduction with your true love.
It's just as important to know when to shut up and
listen as it is to hoot and holler, when to tease
and when to please, when to be tough and when to
be tender.
At times, it could be very difficult to get a gig
as a female guitarist in those days. I dealt with
agents who were far more interested in finding out
my height and weight and far less interested in
what I could do on the guitar. Club owners didn't
want to book a "girl guitar player" because
"they had one last year that didn’t do
so well". Hmmmm. Did they quit booking boy
guitar players after they "had one last year
that didn’t do so well"? I remember one
musician that I called trying to get an audition
with his band said, "Girls have innies and
boys have outies. It just doesn't work." How
do you argue with that logic? After many frustrating
and often disrespectful experiences, I decided to
start my own band and make the boys audition for
me. I've been a band leader calling the shots ever
since.
Like many people, I discovered modern blues because
of Stevie Ray Vaughan. My musical tastes had already
been turning to the guitar-driven blues rock of
the Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, 38 Special,
Marshall Tucker Band, the Eagles, and by now I was
playing lead guitar and singing in a power trio
I had formed doing covers of Hendrix, Cream, Heart,
Pat Benatar, Led Zeppelin, etc. Then I was introduced
to SRV (the music, not the man - oh I wish). My
whole life changed. I fell head-over-heels in love
with Stevie's powerful, electric blues! Stevie was
also the gateway, the portal if you will, through
which I was introduced to a world I'd never been
exposed to before. Through his shining the light
back upon those who had inspired him, I discovered
artists I had never heard of: Robert Johnson, Luther
Allison, Etta James, Big Mama Thornton…it
goes on and on. It was like being turned loose on
a feast!
Once I started creating my own brand of red hot
blues rock, I realized quickly that this was what
I was born to do. My guitar playing style sprang
forth as an evolutionary leap into life from that
primordial soup of electric blues, rock, and country
I was listening to. Nothing had ever felt so real,
so visceral, so expressive, so passionate, so sexual,
so nurturing, so spiritual, so painful, so healing,
so thrilling, so demanding, so all-encompassing
and so perfectly suited to me. I genuinely feel
most complete with my guitar in my hands and I don't
expect that will ever change.
The next step was to take the music I was writing
and get it recorded. Recording was expensive so
that meant raising funds which meant having to work
at something besides music while still pursuing
music. A terrible and painful sacrifice, but there
was no way to get around it. I got a Master's Degree
in Applied Mathematics from California State University
in Long Beach and taught math classes to raise recording
money. Who would ever have dreamed that Calculus,
Trigonometry and Geometry would become the rocket
fuel of red hot blues rock? But it worked!
My first album was Out Of The Woods in 1997, we
were called Backroad Shack in those days. I wrote
all 10 songs. Second, in 2004, came Find My Way
Home, I wrote 8 of the 11 songs. By then we had
changed our name to the Laurie Morvan Band. The
most recent and my proudest musical moment to date
is Cures What Ails Ya, released March of 2007. I
wrote all 12 tracks on this one.
Every recording process has been a learning experience.
Through trial and error and the school of real-life
experience, I learned a lot about what to do and
what not to do while working on my first two CDs.
My musical skills continued to mature, something
I will strive for my whole entire life, and I was
a much more experienced record producer., although
I still have a lot to learn. On Cures What Ails
Ya, for the very first time, I believe we've come
the closest to capturing the raw power, dynamics,
versatility and passion of a Laurie Morvan Band
live performance.
In addition to my own wonderful bandmates, I got
to meet and record with some of the industry's most
incredible musicians: Tony Braunagel, James "Hutch"
Hutchinson, George Duke, Sammy Avila, Doña
Oxford. These veterans have recorded and toured
with Bonnie Raitt, B.B. King, Walter Trout, Coco
Montoya, Shemekia Copeland, the Neville Brothers,
and many, many others. Several have Grammies to
commemorate their musical achievements…some
heady company for a small town girl from Illinois
who's come to the big city trying to make her way
in the world!
One of my most cherished memories of the recording
sessions for the Cures What Ails Ya CD is being
at George Duke’s studio while he recorded
piano on my most personal, revealing ballad, Family
Line. I felt at my most vulnerable when I wrote
that song and he captured it perfectly on piano.
George and his wife sat and chatted with us about
the music business and how much it has changed while
he has been it it. They were both warm and encouraging.
George’s humanity is as amazing as his musicianship.
I have always had confidence in myself. I know
exactly who I am and what I can do with that guitar
in my hands. The respect, compliments and encouragement
I got from these experienced, totally professional
musicians during the making of this CD was a really
beautiful, gratifying, and validating experience.
It was like getting to test my musical creative
waters, and finding out that everyone wanted to
swim!
Things are looking up. The band has great momentum
and it seems like every week we meet someone else
who takes an interest in us and steps up to help.
I'm doing radio interviews, making contacts with
industry professionals, and getting recommendations
from other respected industry professionals. A real
highlight for me was when Guitar Player magazine
interviewed me for a two page feature article in
their October 2007 issue (my name is even on the
cover – does it get any better?). I had been
reading that magazine for so many years and now
I was in it. Next came an interview with Vintage
Guitar magazine, a feature spot on Dan Akroyd’s
House of Blues Radio Hour with “Kickin’
Down Doors” as the Blues Breaker Song of the
Week, and a flood of great reviews in DownBeat,
Blues Revue, and many, many other national periodicals.
In October of 2007, I was asked to perform at the
Legendary Rhythm & Blues Revue concert in San
Juan Capistrano, CA. I joined all the headliners,
Tommy Castro, Ronnie Baker Brooks, Magic Dick and
Deana Bogart, for the entire finale set, with the
cookin’ Tommy Castro Band providing the rhythm
section. I got to trade blistering guitar solos
with Tommy and Ronnie. Ronnie and I got a little
crazy with our stage antics. The playing was hot
and heavy and the audience erupted in thunderous
applause. That moment will be galvanized in my mind
forever. Magic Dick was kind enough to share his
“ready” room with me and we had a great
time. Kudos to all of them for being classy people
and making me feel welcome on and off the stage.
In January of 2008, I got a call from Walter Trout
inviting me to sit in with his band at a show in
Huntington Beach, CA. It’s any guitar player’s
dream to be standing on stage next to such a tremendously
talented and accomplished player. And Walter is
as great a human being as he is a player. The magnitude
of these moments is not lost on me. As I reflect
on the good fortune that continues to come my way,
I try to drink in and savor every great moment like
a rare fine wine.
In February of 2008, we advanced to the finals
of the International Blues Challenge held in Memphis,
TN. Our new CD “Cures What Ails Ya”
made it into the finals of the Best Self-Produced
CD competition. Out of 160 acts, we were the only
one to advance to both finals. We met so many wonderful
blues fans and made a huge connection with them.
The intensity of our audiences at Alfred’s
on Beale Street during the semi-final rounds is
something I will never forget as long as I live.
For any band, this is the most important element,
that we are getting incredibly positive reactions
from audiences at our shows who are getting excited
about our music and buying CDs. This is exactly
how it is supposed to work. We are a made- in-the-USA
band striving to live the American Dream and I can
feel it coming like a firestorm racing up a kindling
filled hillside!
Laurie Morvan, Discography
Cures What Ails Ya, 2007, Laurie Morvan Band
Find My Way Home, 2004, Laurie Morvan Band
Out Of The Woods, 1997, Backroad Shack
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