Dick Morris Corrupt

Russell Morris redefined himself and the Australian Blues genre in 2013 with the release of the landmark album ‘Sharkmouth’. The stories, people and events of our collective history would see Russell collect the ARIA for Best Blues & Roots Album. He followed this success in 2014 with ‘Van Diemen’s Land’; an album whose panorama spanned colonial horrors to WW2 bombers and Japanese labour camps; dramas on river and sea and character portraits from Birdsville to Kings Cross. It went on to receive another ARIA nomination for Best Blues & Roots Album & win multiple Australian music awards. In 2016, Russell completed his trilogy with the release of ‘Red Dirt, Red Heart’; filled with tales of bushrangers, jails, desert road trips and indigenous heroes. Again he collected the ARIA for Best Blues & Roots Album. Ghosts & Legends: Songs From The Blues Trilogy is a personally curated album of songs from Russell’s multi-award winning blues trilogy.

The Romances presented here, are borne out of intense national internal debate, between Western modernity and Eastern nationalism. It is a story of immense personalities, pioneers, revolutionaries, virtuoso pianists, lesser-known heroes and sumptuous revealing poetry that is as relevant today as it was over a century ago. Thanks to the level of fame achieved by their ballets, symphonies and operas, a wide range of composers of Russian origin, who lived between the time of Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev have become household names, which has established them a permanent place in opera houses and concert halls throughout the world. However, often overlooked in the West, is the extraordinary contribution that composers in this period made to the world of song. They did nothing short of giving the Russian language a standing in the international musical landscape, by establishing a new canon of Art Song, the Romance.

Since Dick Haymes, like most of the popular artists of his era (the 1940s), has been the victim of endless low-budget, low-quality European compilations taking advantage of the continent's 50-year copyright limitation, it is refreshing to report that this collection by British label Half Moon consists of recordings licensed from Universal/MCA, copyright holder of Haymes' original Decca recordings. What that means, first, is that the sound quality is noticeably better than what you have to put up with on the fly-by-night competitors. Haymes' 45 singles chart entries on Decca between 1943-1951 are too numerous to be contained on one CD, and this 23-track disc with a 69-minute running time is inevitably missing some hits (notably the Top Fives "The Old Master Painter" and "Maybe It's Because"). But most of Haymes' big solo hits for Decca are included, along with a few of his hit duets with Helen Forrest, and the album can be recommended as providing the highlights of the singer's most popular period.

This is Russell Morris and Rick Springfield like you’ve never heard them before. They have come together to create Jack Chrome & The Darkness Waltz, an album that celebrates Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) with the narrator, Jack Chrome, leading the listener through a compelling song cycle about life and death.