Thursday, September 2, 2010

Busker Days: Jesse Morris - Six Pack


Some of you will recall that my very first busker recording was of Jesse Morris. He performed Cocaine Blues and after I played it back for Flipside Central and West it was decided that I should move ahead with recording and publishing local street musicians for our audience. Now although I've come across many buskers since that day (and let you all hear a good many of them) Jesse stands out as one of my favorites. And although I've seen him from time to time, I've not had the opportunity to hear him since those first days.

That all changed a week ago Tuesday. He was back and clearly many commuters were as happy as I was to see him. As promised I put forth a listener request to Jesse, Fang's The Money Will Roll Right In. Not only was Jesse very familiar with this tune but he had recently opened up for Fang at a local benefit concert. He did an excellent punk turn rockabilly version of the song for the benefit of all lucky to be making their evening journey elsewhere at that moment.

Today, however, let's hear another song he played, Black Flag's Six Pack.


Jesse can be seen around town with his band the Man Cougars doing their blend of country and punk. More of Jesse Morris and the Man Cougars can be heard at their MySpace site.

Copyrighted photo courtesy of Bill Cendak. You can see more of his photos here.

7 comments:

  1. There's an interview of Jesse today at SFGate: http://tinyurl.com/4bmq8af He and his band are playing tonight at the Eagle Tavern.

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  2. I've just learned that Jesse committed suicide earlier this month. As noted in the post above, seeing him around BART inspired me to record him and the results have inspired me to post recordings of him and other street musicians on this blog. He was a kind spirit and I'm glad I had a chance to get to know him. Above all he amazed me with his music. I have several other recordings of him, including an original, the Fang song mentioned above, and a cover of Judas Priest's Breakin' The Law.

    Here's to you, Jesse!

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  3. Here's a link to an article about him:

    http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2011/11/rip_jesse_morris_punk_rock_joh.php

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  4. Very sad news indeed. Jack, I hope you will share more recordings that you and Jesse made together in the following days.

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  5. Jessie is a legend indeed, so much talent. Truly unfortunate the way things turned out...these links are down though. Would love to hear his cover of cocaine blues.

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  6. Anon, Thanks for the note and interest. We have changed the formatting, and I've been steadily updating the stale links to the Busker items, working my way back. I will focus on Jesse's recordings and get these up in the next week, so check back soon! You'll be glad you did. And kindly let me know what you think...

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  7. Anon, they're up now, both Six Pack and Cocaine Blues.

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