MORGAN BRACY

How Other People Describe Morgan Bracy:
'Bracy is an MTSU alumna who displays admirable individuality on her debut CD. Its title tune is a gently sung meditation set in a simply exquisite track with swirling dobro and acoustic guitar notes. Folk for modern ears. She co-wrote all 10 tunes, and they mark the start of what I hope will be a brilliant career.'
- Robert Oermann (Music Row Publications Review)
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'Morgan Bracy has written a great selection of songs here, her vocals are expressive, engaging and soulful and I think along with her group of players, has created a rather special disc.'
- Alan Cackett, Maverick Magazine, UK
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"Not only is Morgan a singer who can deliver a strong vocal, she is also a writer who is not afraid to be vulnerable and honest in her lyrics...Morgan Bracy has a sound all her own and is certainly an artist worth watching."
- Broadtexter
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
2000 Finalist- Ed McMahons Next Big Star National Online Competition
2002 Finalist- Embassy Music’s 7th Annual Songwriter Competition
2002 - "Lift" music video chosen for Interlinc's nationally-distributed youth DVD, making Morgan the only independent artist selected.
2004 USA World Showcase's Winner of Best Original Song for "You Don't Love Me" It was chosen from 33,000 entries. Morgan performed in Vegas for a national audience on PAX TV.
2006 Kerrville Folk Festival New Folk Competition Finalist, joining the names of past participants Lyle Lovett, Shawn Colvin, and Nanci Griffith.
2006 - Acknowledged by Positive Pop Contest for original song "In Between".
2007 - "Hang On" placed on Pop Novella's Five Minute Thought Grenade Video.
Morgan's Auto-Bio:
Someone recently asked me a few probing and fun questions, so I though what better way to have you get to know me than by answering them here…
Who are you?
I am a girl in love with life ...all of it - sadness, joy, anger, excitement, peace. Expression is powerful. I want to use it to ignite life through lyric and song. I’m in love with all of life, because I’ve pretty much (pretty much) experienced it all…major loss - like, “I’ll see you on the other side”; minor loss – like, “Crap, I dropped my ice cream cone and I just paid $6 for it!”; love and feeling on top of the world; rejection and carrying the world on my broken shoulders; being the underdog and wanting to be admired; being admired and wanting to go and hide; loosing a lot; winning more than I deserve, ever; surprise – like when you think you know someone and they completely shake you by doing a 180; and amazement – like when you know, you just know, something is NOT going to work out…and then it does :’). So, why only write happy, happy love songs? I have a romantic view that everyone’s life is a beautiful story that ends with a lovely bow wrapped ‘round it like a gift, and I hope that’s true. Living it in the process, though, doesn’t feel so pretty and intentional. Sometimes it sucks, plain and simple.
Where did you grow up?
I guess you can’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been. I grew up smack dab in the buckle of the Bible Belt in a town called Cleveland, TN. My family and some friends still live there. I was raised thinking dancing and drinking were bad, bad, bad and that you just go to church…that’s just what you do. The majority of people around me, I’d say, practiced being very polite and did not encourage confrontation. I did eventually learn how to be assertive and that it wasn’t a sin to confront someone… or have a drink or dance for that matter. :’) Don’t get me wrong – it was a good place to grow up with many amazingly wonderful people. But I needed new places and new thoughts and some freedoms I didn’t think I’d ever have before. So I went to college two hours away (for me at the time 2 hrs away was like moving to the West Coast or something) at MTSU. I began as a Vocal Performance major, and although I LOVED studying voice, I realized that I never wanted to be an opera singer, so I changed to Recording Industry Business and got minors in Mass Comm – journalism and Music. In college, I met up with a friend from high school and we began writing and playing shows under the name of Broken Pottery. We won accolades in a few songwriting competitions and made a music video. All this encouraged me to continue writing and singing and expressing. Where did I grow up? Well, I still feel like I’m growing up, so this answer is unfinished.
Who do you sound like and what’s your style?
I find it harder and harder to define genre these days. I‘ve defined myself as folk rock for some time, but I began hearing people say smart or quirky pop was my style. Today, I think I’d call it Organic Pop. As far as who I sound like, I’ve been given the honor of being compared vocally to Stevie Nicks and Leigh Nash (Sixpence None the Richer). People have also said Sarah McClachlan, Jewel, Emmylou Harris, Mindy Ripperton, and Norah Jones. My influences range from Amy Grant to Mariah Carey (early 90’s) to Karin Bergquist of Over the Rhine (GOT to love that voice!). Still, I’d like to hope I bring something original to the table as well.
Who are you taking with you?
Jane Austin, Jesus, and a few close friends. Acquaintances abound. Good friends are few and hard to find. I treasure my few good (good) friends, and they are the ones I know I’ll never loose. Jane Austin wrote some of the most lovely stories and characters I’ve ever read, and I hope to be half the women Eleanor Dashwood and Jane Eyre were. Strong, intelligent, full of grace. And I’d take Jesus, because despite models of human imperfection, he breaks the mold and is still the most real thing I know.
What was your first album? What's in your CD player now?
Amy Grant, The Collection, was my first album...a tape. I wore it out. But I also think back to my mom’s old record player and Lionel Ritchie’s smooth vocals sailing through the house. Right now, Over the Rhine's Drunkard's Prayer, Mindy Smith's Long Island Shore, and Damien Rice's 9 are taking turns riding shotgun in Ele (my Element).
What do you think about when you're singing?
Truly, I think about leveling with the hardest heart in the room...the one that was dragged there by a friend. My songs are stories and those stories are real, whether they are sweet or sad.
Which is more important, fantasy or reality?
I guess it depends where you live most of the time. No seriously, I use to think that when I dreamt at night, I was literally transgressing the line into another world, my other life. There, I was the heroine and afraid of no one and nothing. Over time, I think that feeling and those sentiments have crossed over into my "awake" life. So for me, both are equally important. As the famous quote by Descartes goes, "I think; therefore, I am."
If you weren’t you, who would you want to be?
Eleanor Roosevelt. She was a strong woman on a mission to help other women and people groups as an advocate for human rights before these ideas really got off the ground.
How do you think about your audience?
I think of them, think of them fondly…I value them and want to thank them for listening and coming back. I see them as people like me, who get lost in a deep spiritual moment in music and want more of it. People who like to be on top of the world and who also don't mind a good cathartic cry.
You most embarrassing moment?
You think I’m ever going to tell?! Yes, it's that bad!
One interesting fact we’d like to know?
I use to wear a green sash with sewn on badges.
So, What’s going on?
I released my first independent album, Dirty Laundry, in early 2007. It is a compilation of about a year and a half of thoughts and writing. I used Nashvegas (Nashville, TN) studio musicians on half the album, and the guys from my band on the other half. It was a fun and eye-opening project. I exposed a lot of myself in it, and I hope you will take the time to purchase and listen to it.
I had not so much as released Dirty Laundry when I met John Merchant (Barbara Streisand, The BeeGees, Celine Dion, etc.), producer/ engineer extraordinaire. He contacted me again after listening to the album, and we began working on a whole new project…of which you can hear three songs on myspace completed to date. It’s been a whole lot of fun, and I’m extremely excited to see what we come up with for the rest of the project. The idea behind it is that we are told stories that portray the “perfect” life and set the pattern for our little minds as children. Bless our hearts, we begin to believe our lives have to follow this mold in order to be great. The truth is, they don’t. Things don’t work out the way we plan always, or ever. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the way you behold your life is the only judge of whether you view it as beautiful at its end. Man-made patterns never compare to the grandeur of nature and its art of surprise. So go our lives. This project is going to have a grand sound, much like a soundtrack. I hope you like it. I think you will! :’)
So, let me know what you think, and I hope to see you around! There you have it!
~ Morgan :’)
Morgan Bracy on CDBaby