For the uninitiated, listening to “The Soul & The Heal”, the new Gurf Morlix album (eighth in line), might sound like Tom Waits gone Americana (as if Waits himself hadn’t gone that route before). Ok, it could be said that the reasons for comparisons are there - both musical and lyrical. From Gurf’s gruff voice to his great guitar licks a la Marc Ribot to lyrics that are filled with “darkness and humor” as somebody wrote on Morlix’s personal website.
But on the other hand, Morlix has been around for more than 40 years, and is not only his own man but has had quite in hand of shaping the sound of other well-known names - hi produced Lucinda Williams, Ray Willie Hubbard, Robert Earl Keen and Mary Gauthier, among others and has played guitars and other instruments for more or less everybody, from again Lucinda to Blaze Foley and Warren Zevon.
And like the whole lineup of The Band (the original lineup), that can be felt in the sound of his albums, particularly this new one. “Love Remains Unbroken” and “Bad Things” can fall into any book of classical Americana, particularly The Band’s, with the added touch of Steve Earle.
Morlix was another almost mortal victim of a heart attack that struck him last year, and you can feel that brush with death throughout the album (“Cold Here Too”, “I’m Bruised, I’m Bleedin’”). As he told Jody Denberg, the album is a part of: “the healing of the soul from all the damage we inflict on ourselves”.
And that process works. Forget all the comparisons. Gurf Morlix is a unique and original voice that has picked up all the influences from the people he worked with but has also had an obvious influence on them too. Hopefully, he’ll continue making albums as good as this one.
