Older, wiser, and back in the middle of the road
James Morrison has endured a lot, but the prodigal has returned and is stronger than he knew...
After a few tough years, both personally and professionally, James Morrison returned with his fifth album earlier this month. Taken from a lyric in the track, Power, the title You’re Stronger Than You Know is the English singer’s message to you, me and everyone who will listen. On 12 soulful ballads and midtempo rockers, the 34-year-old, who first hit the charts in 2006 with You Give Me Something, lays bare the details of past troubles in his marriage and the near tragic outcome to his wife’s last pregnancy.
‘The only reason I’ve come back is to let the world hear these great new songs,’ he says. ‘The theme for me is about persistence, working at a relationship, getting through the tough moments that are ahead and reminiscing about the good times.
‘It’s all about my life with my wife Gill and how we struggled to stay together. We had another baby and it was a difficult pregnancy, a difficult birth and getting through each day was a struggle.’
They named their second daughter Ada Rose after a TV character renowned for her battling qualities.
‘I named her Ada after the girl in Peaky Blinders. Ada in Peaky Blinders is strong and our Ada is strong. We were told she was going to be disabled, but she has come out unscathed. I feel blessed. I know what I need to do now and, at 34, I ain’t got time to be anything other than myself. I see all these stars in interviews and you can tell that they self-edit. I just think “f*** off,
say it like it is”.’ While Morrison has been away, we have seen a slew of singer-songwriters appear that, it could be argued, owe a debt of influence to him. The straight-talking performer from the town of Rugby isn’t ashamed to admit he worried if anyone out there cared about his existence any more.
‘Yes, it did, 100% it did, but all these new singers are valid. James Bay is a really good guitar player. Rag’n’ bone Man has a really deep distinctive voice. George Ezra, he’s got…’ but his voice trails off before choosing a word of praise.
‘I think there’s still room for me to go in there somewhere, because everyone has their place. I’ve had people say, “oh, they’re inspired by you”. I don’t see it like that.’
He was inspired himself to contact soul siren Joss Stone to add her considerable presence to My Love Goes On, an admirable banger that, surprisingly, didn’t set the charts alight the way it might have done in years gone by. Perhaps that bandwagon really has moved on. Morrison returns to talk a little more about some or other of his peers and this time he is much more scathing.
‘I actually got dropped by my label after the last album. They were trying to make me something that I wasn’t, and I stopped believing in myself,’ he says.
‘There also seemed to be a lot of male singers singing moany, sentimental songs about heartbreak, and I think they wanted me to be one of those. That was just not going to happen.’
Morrison also sings of an, at times, troubled relationship with his mother on the song Slowly, and being a father to Ada and Elsie, ten, has given him a new insight into his own mother’s struggles as a parent.
‘I never got to know my mum much as a kid because she had so much stuff going on. Now I’m older, not so angry, and just very grateful for everything she has done. I look after her now as much as a son can look after a mum. I bought her a house, paid her mortgage off, even paid for her to have her teeth done.
‘That was something I was able to do. She was a single mum and did what she could. I know that now as a parent.’
He ends on a philosophical note. All that matters to me right now is how good I feel about the last song I wrote or the last show I played.’
James Morrison plays the Olympia this Thursday. The album, You’re Stronger Than You Know, is out now.