"Morey's music, a ramshackle Salvation Army racket
of junkyard blues, rusty folk, and hard-bitten
country sung in a tar-and-turpentine voice that
recalls Howlin' Wolf and Tom Waits , refreshingly
bypasses fleeting fads or fashion statements. In
fact, his material seems to ignore the last 40 years
or so of pop, punk, and most every trend in between.
Morey cites Ray Charles and Roy Orbison as primary
musical inspirations and readily admits that his
taste pretty much tops out around the 1950s.
No wonder his fourth and latest CD, "Made in U S A
," with its assortment of tracks with titles such as
"This Ol' Life (Seems to Be Taking Forever)" and
"Lord Have Mercy (When I Lay My Burden Down),"
sounds as if it was made by someone born not during
the 1970s -- Frank got here in '72 -- but closer to
the 1870s." - Jonathan Perry, The Boston Globe (full
article)
"Much more than your run-of-the-mill coffee house
musician, Frank Morey’s Tom Waits esque bizarre
brand of storytelling has won him fans all over the
Northeast. With a gift for the ironic and a
weathered voice to match, Morey mirrors his
influences while adding his own unique twists. “Old
blues are a big inspiration to me. Artists like
Charlie Patton and Howlin’ Wolf and Lowell
itself—walking around late at night amongst the old
mill buildings.” Morey’s latest release is Made in
U.S.A., his fourth album to date, and it leans more
toward blues rock thanhis previous anti-hero folk
recordings. “I’ve been called jazz and country in
Europe, blues in Italy and a singer/songwriter here.
I used to get compared to Tom Waits a lot,” Morey
says. “It’s a wonderful comparison, better than
being comparedto Milli Vanilli.” - Rebecca Carter,
Relix Magazine
"...Morey’s roots trace back through a a diverse set
of
blues,
folk, and
honky tonk music, including some other musical
heroes, such as
Louis Armstrong,
Howlin’ Wolf,
Ray Charles,
Leadbelly,
Bob
Dylan, and
Leonard Cohen, all of whom have helped inspire
Morey to craft his own unique sound. In combination
with true skill at storytelling and singing, each of
Morey’s CDs has improved on the formula and brought
him to his fifth CD, the wonderful
MADE IN
USA." - Charlie McEnerney, Well Rounded Radio (read
article and listen to interview)
"MADE IN USA lives in
a world between blues and folk." - Bill Copeland,
Boston Blues Society (full
article)
"On several
tracks on "Made in USA," Morey introduces a
cacophony of horns that evokes all manner of
unsettling images (like freight trains and
elephants) as he revisits the blues from all angles.
Still, the more potent brews may be the
stripped-down ones: the wrenching title track, the
ironic "This Ol' Life (Seems to be Taking Forever)"
and the country based, eminently hummable "I Stopped
Believing in You Today." Morey's strides since his
second disc, "Cold in Hand," have been impressive,
interesting and unique. He's beginning to carve
quite a nice niche for himself in the realm of
musical Americana." - Fred Kraus, Minor 7th (full
article)
"Frank
Morey is
a mega-talent awash in respect. Convoluted
platitudes and the usual cacophony of critical
praise cannot capture the true essence of this man.
I have known and heard him for many years, and he
has never sold out to convention or to the mundane.
He is quite simply the best as a musician and as a
human being, and represents excellence in its purest
form." - Tom "Wildman" Wirtanen, Brookside Press
Enterprises
"There is a type of singer-songwriter who
specializes in odes to the dark urban underbelly of
America. It has its roots in the cross-fertilization
between the beats and the folkies dating back to the
1950s, when poets hung with hoboes in trainyards and
dropouts hitchhiked lonesome two-lanes. "Cocaine" by
Dave Van Ronk. Bob Dylan's cover of Blind Lemon
Jefferson's "See That My Grave I Kept Clean"
established the prototype. Tim Hardin, Lou Reed and
Tom Waits kept the thread going as the sixties
became the seventies.- Frank Morey has been handed
the torch and is handling it well." -B.Quick
Indie-Music.com
"It's easy to picture Frank Morey making
the London Skiffle Scene with Lonnie Donegan in the early '60's...but Morey's
sound has a more timeless quality...would sound right at home in a Chicago
pre-electric blues band."- J. Johnson Chicago Sun-Times
"Frank Morey wraps his gutter rhymes in
arrangements that veer from coffeehouse blues to Salvation Army brass." -K.Convey, Boston
Herald
"In today's society the word 'genius' is
oft overused and consequently undervalued. But there are times when nothing less
will do, when any other term is quite simply inadequate. And I'd submit, without
reservation, that Frank Morey's "Cold In Hand" is indeed a work of unfettered
genius." -J. Taylor mnblues.com
"Listening to it you can almost feel that
you are in a smokey blues club, sipping a beer and being entertained by a group
that plays the music for love rather than money. Every track on this CD has the
potential to be a hit if the discerning audience out there could just hear them
on a regular basis." N. ROSSITER Rambles
(IRELAND)
"witty, gritty blues" - Hayley Kaufman, Boston Globe
"Morey relies upon the old-time tradition
of folk. Yet, in the spirit of an art that grows with time...Morey promises to
carry folk music into the next generation"- Boston Folk Festival
"From
something as small as the turn of an unexpected
phrase to something as big as understanding the soul
of a community, there's probably not a better
songwriter around." - Joshua Tanzer,
Offoffoff.com
"It’s Wolf and Waits, Louis and Leonard
(Cohen, that is). It’s thumping bass that could be behind Charlie Feathers or
J.B. Lenoir. It’s a trap set from a burlesque theater and it’s the kid who
wanted to sound like Bix Beiderbecke. It’s Route 66 taking you west and old
Route One bringing you up the coast and home. Frank Morey may not know it, but
he's about to invent the new American Folk Music!"- D Palmater WUMB
Boston
"This ain't blues- This is Honkeytonk bullshit!" - Irate Drunk Ayer, MA
Roadhouse
