Psst, want to hear a secret? Tracie Morgan.
Yep, Tracie Morgan. She's the best-kept secret in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. I've lived in Kingston now for almost 16 years and I've seen her singing and playing her guitar ever since I've lived here.
Clubs, coffee houses, street corners, anywhere you can play a guitar and sing — Tracie has been there singing her heart out. Yet for some reason she's still a secret. While others of less dubious distinction have gone on to achieve recognition, she's continued to remain undiscovered.
Well she won’t be able to keep hiding her light under a bushel once people listen to her latest release Naked On Main Street currently on sale at CD Baby and reputable download sites, like iTunes, near you. Once you hear this disc you're not going to forget the name Tracie Morgan in a hurry.
First of all there is her voice, it can challenge you with its strength, seduce you with its husky, sultriness, and pierce your heart with its sharpness. Whether through choice or economics she is the only vocalist (except for electric guitar on one track and harmonica on another, she's also the only musician) and this only serves to demonstrate the diversity and range of her voice as she harmonizes with herself on every track.
Then there's what this voice can sing. Driving rock and roll on "Orphans and Ghosts," teasing blues on "Black Cat, Blue," hard questioning on "Babel", and poetic resonance on one of the best covers of Leonard Cohen's "Lover, Lover, Lover" I've ever heard. Helen's face may have launched a thousand ships, but this siren's song would have diverted them from their task long enough to at least have bought copies of her CD.
Maybe I'm exaggerating, but can you blame me? Think of what passes for women vocalists these days — squeaky voiced sex toys that squirm around on stage, more interested in being provocative than singing. Or the other extreme who are oh so very serious when they sing about meaningful things like "love," "heart," and other equally important new age emotions that have no relationship to the world we live in.
Tracie Morgan's voice is real; when she sings about love it's with lines like "you say I will be with you forever except for all those times I can't be found." No great illusions there, but no self-pitying whine either. We all make choices and have to live with the results, whether in love, work, or any aspect of life that you chose to dwell on, and Tracie's songs are real enough to live in that world.
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