image courtesy of Jimmy Lee Morris

The Backstory

Diamond Rain is yet another dependably enjoyable collection of well-written songs. I’ve reviewed so much of Jimmy Lee’s music that it’s almost hard to figure out how to describe it again. So that fact, along with the realization that I was falling behind on my reviews, prompted a discussion with Jimmy Lee – who writes for this Blog under the name James Morris. Or does James Morris perform as Jimmy Lee? Regardless, James offered to write about this record himself. (And he answers my question at the start of his write-up, by the way.)

I had planned to preface that with a brief intro, sharing a couple of my favorite songs on the new disc along the way. With apologies to Jimmy Lee, despite having the album for many months before its November 25, 2022 release date, I didn’t get my part written. Of course, I wrote nothing between December 2021 and July 2023, so many artists have received long-delayed reviews in the last few weeks. I’m actually skipping over a few delayed reviews in the queue right now, in part because I just need to write a short intro to be able to share James’ exposition about this very well-crafted, dependably cool collection of songs with you. So, without further ado, I’ll begin with a brief…

Album Review of Jimmy Lee Morris: Diamond Rain

If there’s one thing you can count on from Jimmy Lee Morris, it’s lyrically and musically thoughtful, folk-influenced mostly-light pop that’ll provide an interesting listen while bringing a smile to your face. As always with Jimmy Lee, Diamond Rain sports a great deal of song-to-song melodic variety within a rather tight sonic window, perhaps a surprising feat, but he’s an artist who has delivered it dependably across multiple album releases.

The songs on this release feature the same signature sounds you’ll find on many recent Jimmy Lee Morris releases. But each song is crafted well enough – and Jimmy Lee has a broad enough set of musical influences – that each new album is a welcome new friend.

Personal favorite songs on this disc include the whimsically-musicked opener “Fiction Is The Truth Today,” the fun, funky-tempoed nostalgic “Seventeen,” the encouraging ditty “Talent is Timeless,” the movin’-along, journey-styled song “Wipe the City Dirt from Off our Face,” and the almost Renaissance festival-styled heartfelt strummer “She Is So Precious To Me.” Finally, the album closes with “Don’t Make It All About Something,” leaving the listener to savor the full-on Jimmy Lee Morris experience, exiting with a song that’s joyfully on-brand.

Of course, you’ll have your own favorites, as the disc is solid beginning-to-end.

Now, I’ve promised you more than just yet another Geoff Wilbur review of a Jimmy Lee Morris record. So here’s what you (and James) have been waiting for, written nearly a year ago, it’s a runthrough of Jimmy Lee Morris’ Diamond Rain, in his own words, penned nearly a year ago. Not to give too much away, but it’s a cool peek into his process, and it’s much more interesting than my breezy review.

James Morris‘ Review of Jimmy Lee Morris: Diamond Rain

Today I sat down and had a chat with myself, about my alter ego Jimmy Lee Morris’s new album Diamond Rain which is out 25th November 2022.

The new album was written and recorded towards the end of 2021 and then I’ve sat on it for a year to let the tracks settle. I am always too impetuous with new songs, and once they are done I always seem to rush them out and then want to go back to them and fix all the stuff I hear later that I wish I had done differently.

This time I was determined just to let things lie, and in that way I have routed out the songs that didn’t quite stand the test of time. As a result, four tracks from the recording sessions were left out, and the final release ended up a nice tight little nine-track album that I am not tempted to skip through.

I thought it would be good to take you through each track starting with the opener, “Fiction Is The Truth Today.” In November 2021, I sat and absorbed the brilliant multi-hour documentary Get Back by Peter Jackson, showing for the first time in decades how The Beatles’ recording sessions for their album Let It Be unfolded. It was fascinating from a songwriting perspective to see songs like “Get Back” come to life, created out of the ether over a few days jamming in the studio. I thought I would like to try to approach writing a few songs in that way. Starting with a riff and stringing a few chords together, I started singing any words that created a tune to go over the top of what I was playing. I wasn’t fussed what they were to start with and figured something would come together out of the chaos process.

“Fiction Is The Truth Today” was one of those. I recalled some of the events happening in the news, and of course we were coming out of two years of lockdowns and the COVID pandemic. I thought how strange life had become and how it was more like a bizarre story than reality. I had a song back in the ’80s that was called “Fiction Of Truth,” written from headlines in the papers, and this idea gave me a start to the new song. I remember walking ’round the park in the cold winter months with the tune in my headphones just making up anything that came into my head, which led to some odd lyrics that I then hung current events and references to.

“Seventeen” is the next song on the album and tells the story of events from my younger days. It has verses on my art college days, first band, and first job. All of which happened when I was 17 or maybe 18, but I used a bit of artistic license.

When I get into a groove of songwriting, a few often come out over a very short space of time. This one and the final two songs on the album, “She Is So Precious To Me” and “Don’t Make It All About Something,” were all written in a couple of days sat in front of the fire with my guitar and a note pad. The latter song was inspired by my son sitting behind me on the drum kit, and we started jamming a riff and rhythm which turned into that song. Again, I was singing anything that fitted with the groove and let whatever came out stick and then tinkered with it to finish it off. Once you have a first verse idea, the rest falls into place to suit the mood you have started.

Track three, “Talent Is Timeless” was written earlier in the year as part of a songwriting competition I entered. I was part of the Facebook group and one of the challenges was to write a song on the theme that talent is timeless. I like the discipline of having to write from a given subject. I first did it when I was 16 and was commissioned to write a song about communications breaking down. This was for a local youth theatre group, and I got paid my very first money for making music for that song. I also did it for the title track on my album Wilderness Wood. A local woodland centre had asked the album’s producer whether he would come up with a song for them, and he gave the idea to me. I remember writing it on my journey back home from the studio that evening. So that is how I wrote “Talent Is Timeless” and also discovered that I hated songwriting competitions, as you soon realise that you can’t judge which song is the best; it is too subjective and therefore a waste of time. Never again. I should say that my son plays the Cajon on this one.

The next two songs on the album were written by a performer and songwriter, Roger Brooks, back in the late ’70s and early ’80s. He released them on a tape cassette album to sell at gigs, but they are now also on streaming services for all to hear. I knew Roger back then when I was only 13 or 14, and he kindly took an interest in my early first efforts to write songs, having had a guitar for Christmas shortly before that. He was a gigging musician on the UK folk circuit and mixed in those famous folk circles including the likes of Ralph McTell. I remember playing football on Barnes Green in South West London with them both. As I grew up and life moved on we lost touch, but in 2021 I sadly learned that Roger had passed away quite a few years before. He was only in his 50s, and it shook me up a bit. Things I had forgotten about those years came back to me, and I realized what an influence he had been on me as I started my musical journey. I discovered his music again on Spotify and listened to his songs. I started to play a few of them on my guitar and soon decided to pay a small tribute to him and his memory by recording “In The Diamond Rain” and “Special Reservation.” I would have loved to share stories with him now and for him to see how my music turned out, thanks in some part to him all those years ago.

“Woke Up This Morning” is a bit of a tongue-in-cheek reference to all those blues songs that start with that line. In actual fact, though, I did wake up one morning and saw the light creeping in through the curtains, which made me guess at what time it must be to decide if I was getting up or not. The song wrote itself there and then. It was at the end of making my lockdown album Truth Is The Talisman in 2020, but it was too late to be included on that one. It hung around a while and then came back out for this new album.

The only one left to mention is “Wipe The City Dirt From Off Your Face.” I had to take my car to Exeter for a service just before Christmas 2021. It was going to be there the whole day, so I had to kick around and fill the time. I walked from the industrial estate where I left the car and went via the riverside over bridges past rusting old boats and run-down warehouses. I climbed up the hill to the cathedral and explored the city for the day. The castle ruins, the parks and the Christmas market. I watched as the place filled with people and eventually wandered back to pick my car up the way I came in. All these pictures in my head were so poetical that when I got home I wrote down the journey as it came back to me, and it all streamed out to create a musical picture of events, pretty much as they had happened. Another one that wrote itself. Like I said earlier, when you are lucky enough to get in that songwriting groove, magic can happen. It’s a real folksy acoustic song with just a touch of festiveness about it.

The whole album needed a theme, and so I roped in my lovely other half to play flute across all the tracks. This gave the whole album a “sound” and created a folk feel which permeates throughout. I kept the production simple, restricting myself to acoustic guitar, bass, and drums to fit the flute around. It has, I hope, made for a spacious soundscape. Room to listen to the words and enjoy the stories being told.

I always like to do something different with each record, and so next up after this will be an ’80s style synth album inspired by my first ’80s band À La Tienne. I recorded it hand in hand with this new album to always have a different perspective to keep things fresh. That one is due out in May 2023.

I always seem to be a couple of albums ahead of myself but this new one, Diamond Rain, is out on November 25th, 2022.

Since the Release

Jimmy Lee Morris has released three recordings on his bandcamp site since the release of Diamond Rain. Synthesis, an instrumental pop release, and Eighteen Ok, marking the 40th anniversary of Jimmy Lee’s synth-pop band À La Tienne, both hit the platform in May 2023, and The Mojo Filter, sporting a melodic bluesy influence, was added in July 2023. The man is prolific!

Looking Ahead

You’ll find live dates occasionally mentioned on the Jimmy Lee Morris Facebook and X pages. Plus, Jimmy Lee has a Facebook page for hat no hat, a duo with his son.