Don Morrison – Random Notes (2010)   www.donmo.com

All Hail the Larrikin Troubadour Laureate of Adelaide. As if Don Morrison hadn’t already nailed the job with his past efforts both live & recorded.  Now he tops it all with Random Notes.  It’s folksy roots blues with universal appeal. But to citizens of a town normally well off the national narrative highway this is a rare delight.

The album’s local references make it a parochial documentary treasure to those that know the back story to the localities, events. &  personalities (Don Dunstan, Sam Newman, Adelaide hills, Roxby Downs, 3D radio, Central Market, a Brick Veneer out in Happy Valley,  etc ).  However, anyone, anywhere, can tell what’s going on here. Stories of life, sometimes funny “Conversation with the man from EMI” but you  also suspect some of these lyric tales  are for real.  It’s like the old Broadsheet songs that brought the news before the age of mass media.  The song stories and scenarios are like scripts’ for scenes in a comic - doco – drama TV series yet to be made.

 “Kensington Rd’s” evocative mood  comes with dreamily looking out over city lights momentarily removed from what is so familiar. Elsewhere “Up in Salisbury North” appears to be sad real life experience of  life in a hard scrabble neighbourhood.  This desperate story of gritty social realism is delivered with empathy yet it still reeks of sardonic Australian black humour.

This guy has a classic nasal Aussie ‘everyman’ voice and a kind of self depreciating wry humour that can be irresistible “I’m a legend  ...I’ve been on the ABC  (radio) …they played 2 minutes of my song  that goes for 3”!.  He could be a comedy act if he wasn’t so welded to his music ( & his skills  producing hand made resonator steel guitars).

Don’s heart felt song of despairing loyalty to Victorian football club Fitzroy could ring bells for far off British soccer fans that have seen their beloved game utterly morphed as excessive commercial exploitation & millionaire player salaries threaten to bring  clubs down.

This is no singer songwriter album even though he calls himself that at one point “come on you must need more of those”. There is a fine band working behind Don Morrison’s lyrics.  Delicate Hammond organ swirls in exactly the right places, subtle yet propulsive rhythm section, touches of harmony chorus.

In its own peculiar genre, this rates as a local masterpiece.  Random Notes is a unique & entertaining boogie full of knock about Aussie charm.  Nationally it should get him more notice too.  If you’re from even further away this is a riffing musical insight some aspects of life ‘Down Under’ from Adelaide, Australia.

LoneTony Joe