Wonderful world

You would have heard the James Morrison track on radio. Daniel Bardsley highlights the small-town boy.

It is surprising when you hear that a talented musician whose songs strike a chord with people across the world has humble origins.

Not for him or her a privileged upbringing in London or Los Angeles, New Delhi or New York, as the jet-set internationally-educated son or daughter of a millionaire.

Instead, small-town life gave them the inspiration to conquer the world. James Morrison is a case in point.

Morrison, 22, whose hit Wonderful World is almost constantly playing on UAE record stations, comes from Rugby in central England.

It is a pleasant enough place, with an attractive town centre, but it's hardly the centre of the universe, as I came to know when I spent two years living there.

How life here, or in sleepy Cornwall, where he later moved, inspired Morrison to produce the sublime music he is now wowing the world with is hard to fathom.

Morrison is said to have taught himself to play the guitar when he was just five years old, although he says his current success really stems from the time when, as a 13-year-old, he was taught an old blues riff by his uncle.

His "bittersweet, bluesy soul" singing has since led to comparisons with legends such as Al Green and Otis Redding.

HIS MUSIC

His first single release, You Give Me Something, was so infectiously catchy it was hard to believe it wasn't a cover version of someone else's soul classic. It reached number five in the UK and number two in The Netherlands.

This was followed by his debut album, Undiscovered, which topped the UK charts and has gone on to shift more than half a million copies.

Second single Wonderful World, which is inspiringly uptempo despite being about lost love, was also a top 10 UK hit.

The next release is set to be The Pieces Don't Fit Anymore and that too is likely to set the charts alight.

It seems that James Morrison is no longer Undiscovered!

One downside to his album if you buy it here is that the Middle East version is two tracks short of the European release, having just 11 songs instead of 13.

This policy of short-changing record fans in this part of the world — seen with countless other albums — was enough to deter me from buying the album locally.

- The writer is the travelling bard of Gulf News