Neal Morse

CHECK OUT THE NEW NEAL MORSE MYSPACE COMMUNITY Neal Morse (born August 2, 1960 in Van Nuys, California) grew up in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. His father was a choral director. Morse started to play the piano at the age of 5 and started to learn to play the guitar soon after that. During his twenties he wrote 2 musicals (including Hitman), did some session jobs, tried to get a deal as a singer/songwriter in Los Angeles, and recorded a few country and western demos with his brother Richard.
In 2002 (just after the release of Spock's Beard's album Snow) Morse abruptly quit both bands because he felt that God had other plans with his life. The period leading to this decision is described on the solo album Testimony (2003), which features Kerry Livgren of Kansas and Mike Portnoy. One part of his conversion to Christianity omitted from Testimony, but described in Testimony Live, was that his daughter Jayda had been disagnosed as having a hole in her heart that required open heart surgery. After prayer, Jayda is now well and the heart is normal.
On May 18, 2003, Morse also took part in Portnoy's Yellow Matter Custard, a Beatles cover band, which was later released on double CD and DVD.
In 2004, Morse wrote and recorded a new concept album featuring Portnoy and Randy George (on bass guitar). Guitar virtuoso Phil Keaggy makes a guest appearance on guitar and vocals. The album, titled One is about man's relationship with God from his Christian perspective and was released on November 2, 2004.
In 2005, Morse released two non-prog Christian album. In January, Morse recorded Lead Me Lord with the Christian Gospel Temple Choir, his children, and other friends. Morse wrote about half of the tracks. This was released in February and is available for a donation. In July, Morse released God Won't Give Up which was written around the Snow period. This is a pop album similar to It's Not Too Late, but with Christian lyrics.
In the summer of 2005, a member of his church approached Morse to tell him that he should make an album based on the Tabernacle and that he should keep it a secret. Morse mentioned that he was working on a secret project before he had written a note or was convinced that he should do the project and mentioning that during a radio interview created enough buzz that he made the album. There was a contest on his message board to guess the participants, theme, and meaning of the album based on a series of clues. The secret project was finally revealed to be ? and is about the tabernacle in the wilderness and the tabernacle of the heart. The main band is Neal, Mike Portnoy, and Randy George with guests Mark Leniger, Alan Morse, Roine Stolt, Steve Hackett, and Jordan Rudess.
In early 2007 Morse released his latest Christian Progressive rock album entitled "Sola Scriptura" which is a concept album detailing the life and struggles of the German theologist Martin Luther. Mike Portnoy and Randy George once again teamed up with Morse for this album, and were also joined by guest musician Paul Gilbert (of Racer-X and Mr. Big) who played guitar parts for a few of the songs from the album.
With Morse's christian progressive rock albums along with new christian progressive rock albums from Glass Hammer, Ajalon, Proto-Kaw, Salem Hill, the CPR anthologies, and others there is now a new sub-genre of progressive rock forming called 'Cprog'. While mystical and secular humanist themes have been common in progressive rock music, explicitly Christians themes have been rare (with Rick Wakeman being a notable exception). SOURCE: From Wikipedia , the free encyclopedia.
DISCLAIMER: This site is currently managed by a fan. Neal may look at this site from time to time, but he is very busy with his life (work, recording, beliefs). So if you want to reach Neal, feel free to post a comment, because he will not be checking private messages. Either that or head over to his official website nealmorse.com -Thanks!