Nick Morrison is a French-American guitarist, singer, and composer. His passion for West-African string music is already audible on his first recordings (My Poor Kingdom, 2012), which predate the experience of jamming backstage with Tinariwen and learning how they tune their guitars. In 2014 he spent two months in Sénégal, and on returning released two colourful ‘globalfolk’ EPs as Pallet of Leaves, in collaboration with his wife Maike Novák.
He was a member of the Charity Children and Soul Thrivers, and he has played on numerous records as a sideman. Through his association with the Polyversal Souls and the Philophon label, he shared the stage with such luminaries of African music as Alemayehu Eshete, Stella Chiweshe and Lee Dodou. Throughout the next decade, he continued to refine his unique, Kora-influenced
approach to the guitar, creating a body of songs that range from the melancholic to the ecstatically joyful. His music blends influences from American folk music and songwriters like Nick Drake, Robert Thompson and Paul Simon with the rhythms and sound of African bands like Thomas Mapfumo’s Blacks Unlimited and Malian artists like Ali Farka Toure and Oumou Sangare.
On ‘Mountain Goat’, his début single as a leader, he is backed by Ekowmania &
the Rhythmers, an afro-highlife band lead by the Ghanaian drumming legend Ekow
Alabi Savage.
Listen to “Mountain Goat” below
