SPILL FEATURE: YOU KNOW WHAT YOU SHOULD DO? – A CONVERSATION WITH JESSICA LEE MORGAN

YOU KNOW WHAT YOU SHOULD DO?

A CONVERSATION WITH JESSICA LEE MORGAN

Jessica Lee Morgan is much more than a singer/songwriter. She is an artist, musician, writer, instructor, singer, producer and runs a studio and label. Of course, she does a lot of this with her partner, Christian Thomas, but there are many layers to Jessica Lee Morgan. She is also from a very musical family, as the daughter of Mary Hopkin and Tony Visconti, she has been around music her entire life. Her brother, Morgan Visconti, is a musician of note as well, as a solo artist and as a member of Ride.

Ms. Morgan has been busy of late. Not only has she just released a new album (her sixth solo studio album and she also released an album with her mother, Mary Hopkin), she has also written her first book. Both are titled You Know What You Should Do?

For the album, Ms. Morgan had help from Thomas and basically recorded the album live in the studio and later overdubbed other instruments (“bits and bobs” as Ms. Morgan would say) to flush out the songs. But she had help from her family as well. “I co-wrote one song with my mom (“Always Rushing In”), and she joined me on backing vocals there and two others, and the grand finale track (“Peace Of Mind”), my dad and my brother joined us as well. So, it is quite an emotional ending to the album. It was quite emotional. Hearing my parents singing together on the same track is always emotional for me. It was great getting all the people singing live, when we do it live. We would get one half of the audience singing one part, and the other half singing the other. It is glorious. I love those moments.”

Working with your parents is hard enough, but when they are Tony Visconti and Mary Hopkins, it might be somewhat of a chore producing music with them, especially if you are the producer.

“My mom is very much herself, and completely in control. She tells me and Chris exactly what she wants. She will listen to our opinions, but everyone is very headstrong, even my brother. Chris too, for that matter,” Jessica laughed. “I am too, but I have to defer to the knowledge and experience, Chris is laughing in the background. But they always give me their opinions. In fact, I didn’t let my dad near it until it was released. I do cover that in my book, the whole thing about working with your family.”

YOU KNOW WHAT YOU SHOULD DO? ALBUM REVIEW

The book and the album share a title and theme. “They were both evolving at the same time. A lot of songs written for the album were written during the 2022 tour I went on with Tony Visconti’s Best of Bowie and that was the first Bowie Supergroup formed after the pandemic. It was all a bit up in the air as to who would be going, so I started writing these songs for the set that I would be playing to support the shows. I toured with them, then Robyn Hitchcock, and The Blow Monkeys. It wasn’t until we were waiting for CDs for my mom’s album Two Hearts, we couldn’t do anything but wait. Chris and I set up and recorded all the songs, because they hadn’t been captured at that point. And then at some point, maybe this year, I realised one of the songs

was called “You Know What You Should Do?”, and I thought the songs would make a good soundtrack for the book, so they just kind of joined up.”

As for the song, Jessica worked hard on it. “I had the song, I think I rewrote the verses late in the game because they weren’t really hitting home. It was just this thing, we all get it, unsolicited advice…. ‘you know what you should do?’. It reached a critical mass when I was on tour with The Blow Monkeys. I was at the merch stand and people would come up and people just felt the need to come up and say ‘you know what you should do? You should write a hit song and get famous’. Even my gran used to say, ‘you know what you should do? Sing jazz and then you’ll be famous’. Or ‘you should go on The Jools Holland show!’ For goodness sake, you don’t really understand what it takes to do those things. I do know what to do, and the book bares it out. I got this far…”

The title was perfect for the music and there is a little bit of humour with the meaning behind the song. “I started writing and amassing things. In starting our own business, we had to learn a few things about how to release music, and copyright issues. Then people started asking, or rather people started telling me what to do without me asking,” Jessica laughed. “And other people started asking me what they should do. So, I thought I would start writing it down, and then I remember telling my brother one day ‘I’m writing a book!’. That was a couple of years ago, and from that point on, I had to finish it. It is a useful manual for me, and hopefully useful for other people too.”

The album and the book have been released and now it is time for the fans to enjoy You Know What You Should Do? And Ms. Morgan has some hopes for both. And even a little bit of her own advice to give. “Knowledge is power. You have the power, so the more you know what’s going on, the more you can be in charge of your own destiny.

I hope people who support me will have a greater appreciation of what we face to get music out, especially as an independent artist. It is so difficult, and it is so much easier to make music now, and release. Everybody’s doing it, so it is harder to cut through the noise. Don’t turn on the news, that’s my other advice!”, laughed Ms. Morgan.

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