YOU’VE GOT EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED
A CONVERSATION WITH JESSICA LEE MORGAN
“I come from a pretty musical family,” Jessica Lee Morgan states, rather modestly, as we begin talking about her new album, a collaboration with her mother, Mary Hopkin. Morgan has quite a career in her own right. She has released five studio albums, toured with her father Tony Visconti with the Holy Holy, and Tony Visconti’s Best of Bowie projects/concerts, worked with her brother Morgan Visconti, and helped out her mother as well. Not to mention playing and singing on multi talented musician and producer Christian Thomas’ solo EPs.
“We always talked about doing an album together,” said Morgan when asked about Two Hearts. “My mom and I have been singing together all my life, and we started singing some covers together when I got my first guitar when I was 13. We never really got around to recording anything. We demoed “Here It All Comes Again” years and years ago. That found its way onto one of my albums (I Am Not). But we just said, we’ve got to do this. It still took a long time to put it all together, but I think I have held it up more than Mary. Mary is always raring to go and I am busy doing other things. Finally, we got it done. It was all bits and pieces and I said ‘it needs more of an identity’, and that’s when it all came together. I am very glad we made that decision”
The fact is that both Hopkin and Morgan keep very busy. Hopkin released Pieces last year and Morgan released Change The Record in 2021, but has been touring with The Blow Monkeys and Robyn Hitchcock. Morgan acknowledges that they all keep busy.
“We’re quite busy, you think, ‘Oh we haven’t put one out for ages, but one a year or two a year, not bad. We do all right.”
Morgan also had the chance to design the album sleeve.
“Well it is a duets album, so my mom said ‘you can do it this time.’ She usually does her own artwork and I do my own artwork, which is usually a picture of my face. But she said ‘I love your paintings’, but I am very impatient with my paints, so I splattered it about, tarted it up in whatever I use. I go on and off with painting really but I picked up my paints again , which is quite nice and therapeutic. I paint when it is necessary, and it is nice to have a reason to get them out.”
The cover art and the title strongly reflect what is in the package. “Two Hearts, two voices,” agrees Morgan. “ Also because of the song “Two Hearts Broken”, but our hearts are not broken,” she laughs.
As well as writing the album together, Hopkin and Morgan cover three songs, The Bangles’ “Eternal Flame” and Dire Straits’ “Why Worry”. “I introduced my Mom to both of them. The first album I ever bought, it was on cassette, was Brothers In Arms. And I taught her “Eternal Flame”. “Why Worry” was written with The Everly Brothers in mind, and we saw them sing it, it was just beautiful.”
They also covered Kate and Anna McGarrigle’s “My Town”. “My parents, when they were together, went to see The McGarrigles in concert. I think the idea was that Tony (Visconti) might work with them. They both fell in love and Mary has been a fan ever since. When I first got my guitar, she taught me things, and she taught me that song and I never really heard the original, so when it came time to record it, I listened to it and realised we played it differently. You got to make it your own but also stay true to the spirit of the original.
Working with family is not always easy. “Well, we all have our own studios. So Mary can do the vocals on her own and at her leisure and edits the vocals, gets them the way she wants, then she sends them over to us and Chris does the technical wrangling. We work the same with Morgan as well. It is great to send things over the internet. I think if we were together all the time in a traditional way it would be tricky. It is quite intense making an album. It is really quite emotionally draining. So if you are with your family all day, every day it is even more emotionally draining. But all in all we all work well together.”
The family has developed trust and support as they have to be 100% honest with each other about the music being made. “There are no punches pulled in my family. All of our names are on the music. Mary is very clear about the things she wants, but there are certain things that she doesn’t really have a preference for or a detailed vision.”
“You’ve Got Everything” is the first single from the album, and a lyric video is scheduled. This particular song seems to mean a great deal to both Hopkin and Morgan. It was also the perfect choice for the first single. “That was one of mine to start with, I had the chorus rhythm and I played it for my mom and she said, ‘Oh! That’s good.’ I did have this sort of vague idea. I was in London recently and I was walking around the park, which felt very unfamiliar and the whole thing felt alien and a bit isolating and frustrating. I was telling her about that and, I don’t know if it sparked her or she had an idea already but she came up with this story about this girl being lost and she realizes she is not fitting in where she is supposed to. Maybe it is autobiographical, ‘the girl with the golden hair’. It is a song about being grateful for what you got, count your blessings and spread the love.
Neither Hopkin nor Morgan is slowing down anytime soon. Besides touring, Morgan is preparing for a new album, one she did with Thomas. But their goals and hopes for the album are really quite simple and genuine. Give it a chance. “I hope people like it and I hope they find their own meaning in it. People will like different tracks and find their own meaning and take different things in different ways. The idea of singing together is really nice, it is like a presentation of our relationship together. The way we sing together and harmonize.
“People will appreciate what we are doing now but especially what my mom is doing as opposed to something she did in 1968 or the 1970s. That is the most important thing to her for both of us to be respected as artists. She is very proud of what she achieved with The Beatles and Apple, her achievements were astounding for the time. She was and is a household name. But we have released 16 or so albums on Mary Hopkin Music, so there is an awful lot more to Mary, that is the most important thing to her, just give it a listen.”