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Ken Will Morton –
"King of Coming Around"
New CD Available Now!
Get it for only $9.98 at
JoeRockhead.com!
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May 2006
Ken Will Morton’s résumé includes
the pop crunch of Wonderlust and the roots-punk
verve of the Indicators, but it was his roots-blues
2004 debut solo album, In Rock ’n’ Roll’s Hands,
that had critical tongues wagging and musical palm
readers predicting bigger things for the
singer-songwriter. For his sophomore album, King of
Coming Around, Morton delivers on his debut’s
potential by simply painting his proven material in
progressively deeper shades of his influences and
experiences. With a gritty, Dylanesque rasp and a
passionate understanding of the common threads of
roots-rock, blues and country, Morton triangulates a
position between the Bottlerockets’ full bore
Americana ("Vainglorious"), Steve Earle’s edgy
country ("Fit to Be Tied") and the Drive-By
Truckers’ similarly toned and tuned neo-Southern
rock ("Make Believe Love"). Like a translator
enamored of all of the nuanced languages he’s
learned, Ken Will Morton taps into the very essence
of the genres he knows and loves.
By Brian Baker
Georgia Music Magazine
Winter 2006
By Holly Gleason
Ken Will Morton has a voice like
an old raincoat worn over a baggy pair of pants with
a taped-up pair of old boots. Broken-in to the point
of almost decay, nothing feels so good, so broke-in,
so much an article of one’s life – and it’s in the
depth of willing to be what he is, settle in and
honor the life experience that’s left him dented and
a little crippled that the golden hope of getting
through it shines through.
With chiming acoustic guitars
surging through a pretty classic Americana garage
band set-up and throaty harmonica darting through
the waves of pastoral crunch, King of Coming
Around is the bitter(sweet) harvest of a
progressive rock/punk songwriter crawling from the
wreckage with enough grace to make Tom Waits and
Paul Westerberg proud.
With the loping "Fit to Be Tied"
opening the set with its good-natured jettisoning
expectations in the name of one’s own true inner
compass, Morton succumbs to love’s draws, lust’s
tug, friends’ foibles, demons that drag you down,
telling the truth even when it stings, only to close
the circle with the surviving into thriving title
track that’s offered up with a twinging rasp and the
smile stoicism of one who’s seen the worst and has
no concern about the bottom.
In today’s world, hope grounded
in how it is rather than honest portraits, rather
than polaroids of unicorns, and emotions that’re
cracked and patched together can offer more thrills
– especially when delivered with serious downstrokes
on the acoustic, sweeping melodies and chorus hooks
that capture – than your garden variety pop record.
Evoking the best of Nick Lowe, Morton’s King of
Coming Around delivers with a bruised and
battered heart on his sleeve.
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