Bill Morrissey

Bill Morrissey
Folksinger
1951-2011

Bill Morrissey

Here is a live performance of Bill on tour in April 1993 in Italy with Johnny Cunningham on fiddle and Top Topham on guitar. Huge thank you to Theirry Goulesque for coming all the way to Cantu, Italy to be at this performance and to record it from his seat in the audience and for sending to me. And yes, I remember him asking permission first.

Thanks also to Carlo Carlini and his lovely family
for bringing us over to Italy more than once.

Here is their rendition of the classic Slim Harpo song,
I'm a King Bee.

And here is the Bill Morrissey song, Robert Johnson from that night.

Click here for Direct Link to purchase tickets.

For immediate release September 21, 2011

All-star tribute to the late singer-songwriter Bill Morrissey

NOVEMBER 17^TH AT Somerville Theatre

TICKETS ON SALE FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23

Profits to benefit MusiCares

Peter Case, Shawn Colvin, Barry Crimmins, Mark Erelli, John Gorka, David Johansen, Peter Keane, Fred Koller, Patty Larkin, Cormac McCarthy, and Pete Nelson will share the stage at the Somerville Theatre on Thursday, November 17 at 7:00PM to pay tribute to friend, mentor, and fellow troubadour Bill Morrissey who passed away from heart failure on July 23. Singer-songwriter Cliff Eberhardt and David Dye, host of the nationally syndicated NPR radio show, World Café, will co-host this very special event.

Reserved seat tickets to “Friend of Mine: The Bill Morrissey Tribute Concert” are $37.50 and go on sale at 10:00 AM Friday, September 23 online at http://feitheatres.com/somerville-theatre/events/ and at 4:00 PM at the Somerville Theatre box office, located at One Davis Square on the Red Line. Box office hours are 4:00PM-8:00PM daily.

A limited number of “Friend of Mine” tickets which include preferred orchestra seating and a signed poster commemorating this very special gathering will be available for $75.

Profits from the event will be donated to MusiCares, a not-for profit division of the National Academy Of the Recording Arts and Sciences. MusiCares provides a safety net of critical assistance for music people in times of need. MusiCares' services and resources cover a wide range of financial, medical and personal emergencies. “Friend of Mine: The Bill Morrissey Tribute Concert” is co-produced by Great Northeast Productions, Inc. and Ellen Karas.

Bill Morrissey was a songwriters’ songwriter. He was loved by many of his peers as a truly literate writer whose hard scrabble characters and fast wit won him critical acclaim from such national media outlets as Rolling Stone Magazine, National Public Radio and The New York Times.

Stephen Holden, for the New York Times, once wrote, "Mr. Morrissey's songs have the force of poetry...a terseness, precision of detail and a tone of laconic understatement that relate his lyrics to the stories of writers like Raymond Carver and Richard Ford.”

Between 1984 and 2007 Morrissey released 12 highly acclaimed albums and published the novel, “Edson” (Knopf). His live performance schedule took him from small coffeehouses to major concert venues like Carnegie Hall to prestigious festivals including Newport and Kerrville.

November 25, 1951 - July 23, 2011

Bill Morrissey has passed away in a hotel room while taking a break from driving home. It is fitting, though, that this last week he was staying with his dear friend, Fred Koller and his wife and he had chosen to stay in their airstream.

He loved it.

And, he spent a day or two admiring Fred's bookstores and the incredible first and second editions of books that Bill has admired for years. He was at the motel as a stop before driving up to the Philadelphia area to visit his Mom. And he was happy and upbeat about all of these things.

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