Music made sense when rock star discovered guitar
Jewish Telegraph, April 2016
GUITARIST Morganfield Riley grew up celebrating Jewish and Christian festivals.
Morganfield, who is gearing up for his group Calisse to release debut album Farewell Blacksheep next week, has Italian, Irish, German, Czech, Polish and Middle Eastern DNA in his family.
He told me: “Though my parents aren’t affiliated with any sect or denomination, we always celebrated both Jewish and Christian holidays — to which I solely mean Christmas.
“They never made me go to a church, synagogue or mosque for anything outside of studying works of architecture and history or for bar and batmitzvahs.”
Morganfield added: “We had a lot of close Jewish friends, like my godmother, so we would celebrate all the holidays with them, singing in Hebrew and gathering every year for Passover.
“I grew up with an awareness of Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashana, but I would say that my knowledge and understanding of Judaism really came through my family, especially my mother, and our friends.
“The idea of identity is kind of strange because I didn’t find out that some of our lineage was Polish Ashkenazi until I was about 21.
“I contacted my biological grandfather before he died because I had questions about my family’s history and he told me that our family in Warsaw was all killed during the Second World War, but he denied it was because we were Jewish and that it was just happenstance.
“I wasn’t convinced and, upon a DNA test and further research, we discovered our Jewish and Middle Eastern lineage, which wasn’t really much of a surprise to anyone.”
Morganfield was born “across the bridge from San Francisco”, but grew up in Portland, Oregon.
“My family did a lot of extended travelling in the States, Europe and Asia, so by the time I was in high school and we stopped travelling so much, it made me stir crazy.”
Morganfield has to defend his name as many people think it is a stage name.
“People think it’s fake or that I’m saying my first and last name every time I have to introduce myself as Morganfield — they think I’m Morgan Field.
“The name ‘Morganfield’ is the last name of McKinley Morganfield, aka Muddy Waters. My dad is a huge fan, so he picked it out and that was it.”
He started playing music after his family moved back to America from Spain and he was made to pick between learning the piano or cello.
“I picked the piano, but I hated it for a long time,” he told me. “It’s only been in recent years that I’ve returned to it, and now I write almost all my songs on it, even if the songs have no keyboard in them.
“I ended up going through a slew of instruments growing up: piano, flute, tenor sax, flugelhorn, accordion, etc. When I found the guitar, music began to make more sense.
“I could play songs by myself, which was pivotal since I spent enough time by myself on a plane or car that I had been acclimatised to solitude. With that said, music is much more enjoyable when shared with others, but I still like to be a mad scientist in my room, too.”
Morganfield says his “rock and roll fantasies” started in middle school.
“As my palate changed so did my motives,” he said. “I was exploring different routes instead of just being in a band, like producing, arranging, movie scoring, ghostwriting; that’s when it dawned on me that there’s a multitude of ways to approach a creative career and that’s something that works for me because I am still very sporadic with my projects.
“I want to keep expanding my sound in the way of Joni Mitchell or Beck or Yann Tiersen, where you can’t pin them with any one sound.”
Calisse began when Morganfield was introduced to James Collette by filmmaker friend Emilio Quinton.
When James decided to record a solo project, Morganfield asked if he could produce one of the songs — which resulted in them forming the band.
“We like the same music and we tend to like things for similar reasons, but we’re never simultaneously listening to the same music . . . except for J Dilla,” Morganfield said.
He added that at first, what he and James produced was “pretty poor”. But added: “We were both in stressful junctures of our lives and it was difficult to get to know each other when we were so personally distracted.
“After a couple weeks we realised how much we liked the same art and movies and that we were both available to play music and that sealed the deal.
“When the rest of the members joined in, we all hit it off really well. We support each other in the same way that we make music.”
Farewell Black Sheep is about “loss, goodbyes, and shifting into a different phase”.
Morganfield explained: “A lot of events occurred during the album’s inception, all the way up to today, and it seemed like a title that recognised everyone’s feelings well.
“It’s a bit ironic seeing as we’ve all been having a blast as a band, becoming great friends in the process. It was definitely a group of strangers that has now become a unit and a family.”
Despite the debut not having been released yet, Calisse are working on their second album.
“I’m not sure I’m at liberty to tell you how far we are with it yet . . . I can’t say that it’s almost done and that it’s a double album, but it could be something along those lines.”
Calisse have plans to tour America, but nothing is planned for the UK . . . yet.
“It’s definitely one of the most desired destinations we’d like to tour, given the UK’s musical canon and history,” Morganfield said.
“Plus, we have an affinity for places that are grey and rainy most of the year.”
