James Morrison .Net

There is a lot of Buzz around James Morrison right now in the states, where James has spoken about his writing and his life. “I just wrote about what I know,” he says. “But I didn’t want to set the tone too sad. I wanted to write an album where people would know that I’d been through a hard time, but no matter. You can come out of it.”

Only two years ago, he was cleaning vans for a living, six days a week, struggling to book gigs, even open-mic nights, in his scant time off.

Fired from that dead-end job, he was ready slink home to his mother’s home in Cornwall. Not an attractive option, as he sings in “This Boy.”

Morrison had moved out at 17, with no regrets. His family didn’t have a lot of money. He says, “So we used to go to this bar where — if I’d play and sing — they’d give us food, square meals and stuff. I was 15 at the time, and I’d sit on a pub table and go ‘Mom, I don’t like this,’ but she’d say ‘Shut up and sing!’ And I’d do the Steve Miller Band, Van Morrison, old Beatles. I always loved playing, but I hated the fact that I was forced into it. So I ended up not wanting to play around my mom — I was always more comfortable on my own.”

Solo, it wasn’t much easier. While his girlfriend of five years, Jill, paid the rent, Morrison fought to be heard. As he was about to pack it in, he bumped into an old open-mic buddy, Ken Andrews, a guitarist who liked the youngster’s old-school style so much he offered to record him.