Angeline Morrison is a British multi-instrumentalist musician, songwriter and academic.
Life
Angeline Morrison was born in
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...
to a Jamaican mother and a father from the
Outer Hebrides
The Outer Hebrides () or Western Isles ( gd, Na h-Eileanan Siar or or ("islands of the strangers"); sco, Waster Isles), sometimes known as the Long Isle/Long Island ( gd, An t-Eilean Fada, links=no), is an island chain off the west coas ...
. She attended her first folk club at the age of 17, and became active in the
Midlands
The Midlands (also referred to as Central England) are a part of England that broadly correspond to the Mercia, Kingdom of Mercia of the Early Middle Ages, bordered by Wales, Northern England and Southern England. The Midlands were important in ...
music scene.
In 2002 she gained a PhD from the
University of Plymouth
The University of Plymouth is a public research university based predominantly in Plymouth, England, where the main campus is located, but the university has campuses and affiliated colleges across South West England. With students, it is the ...
with a thesis on blankness, silence and
racial binarism. That year she moved to
Truro, Cornwall.
[
Morrison is half of the duos We Are Muffy (with ]Nick Duffy
Nicholas John Duffy (born on 24 June 1956) is an English musician, artist, illustrator, and filmmaker.
Nick is the elder brother of singer/songwriter Stephen Duffy. They are both co-founders of the folk-pop group The Lilac Time. Nick is a mu ...
of The Lilac Time
The Lilac Time is a British alternative folk-rock band, originally formed in Herefordshire, England by Stephen Duffy, his brother Nick Duffy and their friend Michael Weston in 1986. The band's name was taken from a line in the Nick Drake s ...
), and Rowan: Morrison (with The Rowan Amber Mill). She also sings with freakbeat
Freakbeat is a loosely defined subgenre of rock and roll music developed mainly by harder-driving British groups during the Swinging London period of the mid-to late 1960s. The genre bridges British Invasion R&B, beat and psychedelia.
Etymolog ...
bands The Mighty Sceptres (along with Nick Radford, who has also released music and collaborated with Morrison as Frootful) and The Ambassadors of Sorrow.[
Morrison's self-released album ''The Brown Girl and Other Folk Songs'' was produced by the artist herself, with performances and additional mixing by Nick Duffy. Her album ''The Sorrow Songs'' (2022), produced by ]Eliza Carthy
Eliza Amy Forbes Carthy, MBE (born 23 August 1975) is an English folk musician known for both singing and playing the fiddle. She is the daughter of English folk musicians singer/guitarist Martin Carthy and singer Norma Waterson.
Life and c ...
, tries to reinsert Black British history
Black British people are a multi-ethnic group of British citizens of either List of ethnic groups of Africa, African or Afro-Caribbean people, Afro-Caribbean descent.Gadsby, Meredith (2006), ''Sucking Salt: Caribbean Women Writers, Migration, a ...
into the tradition of British folk music
Throughout the history of the British Isles, the United Kingdom has been a major music producer, drawing inspiration from Church Music.
Traditional folk music, using instruments of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales. Each of the ...
. The album's first song, 'Unknown African Boy (d.1830)' is told from the perspective of the mother of an eight-year-old West African
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, ...
boy, who was washed up on shore on the Isles of Scilly, when the slave ship
Slave ships were large cargo ships specially built or converted from the 17th to the 19th century for transporting slaves. Such ships were also known as "Guineamen" because the trade involved human trafficking to and from the Guinea coast i ...
''Hope'' was wrecked there. Morrison performed the song on '' Later... with Jools Holland'' in 2022.
Discography
Solo albums
* ''Are You Ready Cat?''. Freestyle records, 2013.
* ''The Brown Girl and Other Folk Songs''. Self-released, 2022.
* ''The Sorrow Songs: Folk Songs of Black British Experience''. Topic Records, 2022.
Collaborations
* The Ambassadors of Sorrow, ''Easterly''. 2009.
* The Ambassadors of Sorrow, ''There Is No Ending''. 2011.
* Lack of Afro, ''This time''. La Baleine Distribution, 2011.
* The Mighty Sceptres, ''All hail the Mighty Sceptres!''. Ubiquity, 2015.
* We Are Muffy, ''The Charcoal Pool''. Tapete Records, 2018.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Morrison, Angeline
Year of birth missing (living people)
Alumni of the University of Plymouth
Academics of Falmouth University
British people of Jamaican descent
Cornish folk musicians
Cornish folk singers
Living people
Musicians from Birmingham, West Midlands