Craig Morrison

Craig Morrison is a Montreal ethnomusicologist and musician. Raised in Victoria BC, he bought his first guitar in 1966 and played in coffeehouses see the article "I Was a Teenage Music Head in the Land of the Newly Wed and Nearly Dead". As a teenager, seeing concerts of blues (beginning with Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee), jazz (including Louis Armstrong), and rock (including Janis Joplin) led to an interest in music history. Playing in bands gave him a deeper appreciation of music styles. He sings, plays guitar, keyboards, and lap steel guitar, and has also recorded on mandolin, clarinet, harmonica, and electric and upright bass. After researching rockabilly for a master’s thesis at York University (Toronto), eventually expanded and published in 1996 as Go Cat Go ! Rockabilly Music and Its Makers by the University of Illinois Press, Morrison moved to Montreal in 1984. He formed Craig Morrison and the Momentz, a band specializing in roots rock. He also wrote articles for the Encyclopedia Britannica and several other reference books, until he was asked to write a whole one by himself : American Popular Music : Rock and Roll, published in 2005 by Facts on File of New York. Morr... more...