Following the criticism for cutting Russell Morris’ acceptance speech from the ARIA Awards telecast, the video of the speech has now been placed online.
Russell Morris won the ARIA Award for Best Blues and Roots Album. It was the first ever ARIA for the legendary Morris who for over 45 years has contributed to the Australian music industry.
“God good, I now know how Moses felt when he came out of the wilderness for 40 years,” Russell said accepting the award from Katie Noonan.
Morris, an ARIA Hall of Fame inductee, was edited out of the popcentric television broadcast causing ARIA to cop a scathing criticism from the industry for its lack of respect for a true heritage Australian artist.
‘Sharkmouth’, the now ARIA award winning Russell Morris album, will end 2013 as one of the biggest selling Australian albums of the year and has just recently passed platinum status.
Leo Sayer, one of the UK’s biggest acts of the 70s and 80s and now resident of Australia, articulated it so well when he wrote on Facebook, “Last night I watched the Arias – the annual gala awards show for the Australian Music Industry, and it struck me while viewing this chaotic and strangely un-musical parade that, there are very plainly two separate and disparate industries on the table for us music makers now… So I say this to my fellow musicians…
You can choose to be in the first house, an Elvis/Buddy/Dylan/Stones/Beatles/Springsteen type place – the place I come from. Or you could pick the second house, let’s call it the Hanlon/Cowell/Sony/Universal house”.
Morris had his first hit with a cover of Joe South’s ‘Hush’ at age 18 in the band Somebody’s Image.
After going solo he recorded his first single ‘The Real Thing’ with Ian Meldrum as producer. It was a no. 1 hit in Australia and now a bona-fide rock classic. This year it was added to the National Film and Sound Archive’s Sounds of Australia registry in Canberra.
‘The Real Thing’ has been covered by Midnight Oil and Kylie Minogue. He was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2008 by Midnight Oil’s Rob Hirst.
‘Sharkmouth’ was the album Russell was born to make conjuring up his blues roots to tell stories about Australia’s colourful past. The major labels couldn’t grasp the concept and instead Robert Rigby of Ambition/Fanfare Records “rode in on his white horse” and released the album through Fanfare.
Yesterday, Russell was back in the studio with ‘Sharkmouth’ producer Mitch Cairns to start work on the follow-up titled ‘Van’s Diemen’s Land’. The new album will also be a blues album with more stories about historic Australian figures.
‘Van Dieman’s Land’ is expected to be released around March, 2014.
Watch the speech you didn’t see on the ARIA telecast here:
