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Singer-Songwriter-Composer, Keyboard/Piano Player Carrie Morrison

50Plus
17 hours ago
4 min read

Local Music Makers

By Peggy Ratusz

I have admired this month’s featured artist, singer-songwriter-composer, keyboard/piano player Carrie Morrison for more than a decade. After our recent conversation, I’m heartened to convey that we are on the fast and warm track to becoming even closer friends.

I always reach out to stalwarts in Asheville and surrounding communities when I learn of their upcoming music releases. Because Carrie is one of our area’s finest songwriters, I was eager to profile her and to encourage readers to attend her record release concert at the Grey Eagle on Sunday, June 1st.

You’ll get two concerts in one, since she is essentially dropping two recording projects at the same time. ‘Balladeer’ is the 12-track full length album that was recorded locally, and ‘Crosswalk’ is the 5 track EP recorded at Abbey Road Studio in London last year.

“I started Balladeer 2 years ago because I wanted to record a full-length album with producer Chris Rosser (Free Planet Radio). He gets me. It took time. I didn’t want to rush it.”

There are new songs on Balladeer and ones from Carrie’s archives she says deserved a “different treatment” or a “glow up.”

“Having access to Chris and other great musicians on the record allowed me to ‘dress them up in their best clothes’ as Chris likes to say.”

There’s a faint theme running through Balladeer that husband Mike Newberry heard, inspiring him to put the 12 tracks in an order that might help the listener find it. We reminisce how back in the day, we’d listen to albums from start to finish in the order the producer or artist intended.

The flow Newberry heard topically and style-wise made his choice for the last tune, all the more intriguing. “Mike said his choice for the last tune would make the listener want to right away, go back and listen again, to discover more.”

Because both projects intertwine a mix of styles: Celtic, Torch ballads and Rock, there is something for everyone. The strengths of Morrison’s originality are captured inside the lyrics that are sometimes obvious to the modes of the songs and sometimes juxtaposition.

Here’s a glimpse into her trajectory thus far, giving us a birds-eye view of her writing sensibility.

A Louisville Kentucky native, Carrie’s love of writing and journalism found her freelancing for newspapers and publications there. She was a public relations consultant at a non-profit for a while and during a time of great reflection decided to give substitute teaching a try.

“I had a bachelor’s degree in Russian and Eastern Studies from the University of Kentucky that I’d intended to do something with that didn’t turn out the way I’d planned. As I was drifting, I started substitute teaching. I was at the bottom of a deep pool of more experienced subs and former teachers and so I was not first pick.

"The classrooms I got were mostly middle school assignments that were behavior problem classrooms. The first day of substitute teaching, I walked into the class and introduced myself and asked them to please have a seat. This young girl looked me dead in the eye and called me an ugly ‘b!’ By the end of the day she and I were coloring together.

"She was asking me questions about my life and told me ‘I like you because you don’t yell at us.’ Something clicked and I discovered a love for kids who no one believes in. I wanted; I needed to be a special education teacher.”

She started teaching in a behavior classroom at East High after moving to Hendersonville in 2004. This spurred her to go back to school to attain her teaching certificate. After twelve years, she moved to Brevard and started teaching high school there.

With this fresh look at Carrie’s journey, the songs from Crosswalk, recorded last year at Abbey Road Studios during a trip she and English Native husband, Mike, took to countervail his homesickness, gives us insight into her personal reflections on life and love.

After listening to all 5 tracks, I came away with a melancholy feeling. To me it expresses sadness and hope at the same time.

The song “Mother” is Carrie’s promise to mortal beings and spiritual mothers, to do better. “It’s feeling spiritually adrift,” Carrie explains, “and because I identify God as a woman, it’s a nod to the Divine Feminine. I tell my goddess ancestors and Mother Earth that I’m imperfect and I need guidance. ‘Mother! Green goddess! Solstice has come and gone. I forgot to light my candles, pour honey on the lawn. Your earth is such a bounty, but I do not treat you right. I promise I’ll start recycling, after tonight.’

“Native Son,” beckons her lowest vocal register to express the sadness in this hymn. Mike is the backing vocalist and the song is inspired by the grief he felt so deeply when Queen Elizabeth passed away. ‘Home is ever true.’

“Fire” was recorded with reverb and doubled lead vocals, expressing desire and desperation. ‘I’m Never finished with a fire like you’ repeats throughout. It’s got a 70’s rock vibe and conjures up Pat Benatar.

Bandmate Andrew Thelston, who also produced the track, provides an incendiary guitar solo. “It’s about a female stalker who’s convinced that the object of her desires feels the same even though it’s not true; still she’s consumed with desire.”

The title of the next track, “Back Together” had me already trying to figure out what it was about before I even pushed play. Rolling arpeggio piano over the lyric “I’ll bloom for you.” To me it’s a song of perseverance and commitment in the face of challenges.

“Seems that we’re always and forever, putting ourselves back together.” When Carrie tells me the story about how this one wrote itself, I am near tears.

I’ll let her tell you the backstory. She’ll be revealing it when she performs it at the Grey Eagle on Sunday, June 1, 2025.

To learn of other music groups she’s part of and to follow her on social media, to listen to tracks and view live videos, visit her website at www.carriemorrisonmusic.com