A Quote by James Vincent McMorrow
My mum was a big fan of E.L.O. and Elvis Costello. She used to play that, consistently, all the time when we were kids. And my dad, he would claim to be a singer... You know, he loves singing, and he used to sing a lot when he was a kid and at parties and stuff like that. So I come from a very party-musical family.
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My love of music comes from as long as I remember. I begged my mum to learn piano for a year when I was 4; she wanted to make sure I was serious, and I wanted to be Chuck Berry when I grew up! We were a very musical family; my mum would play guitar, and her, my dad and aunt would sing and harmonize!
Music was always a big part of our family life. My dad's brother used to play the harmonica at family parties, and my mum was in the Luton Girls Choir, who did lots of radio broadcasts and performances in the 50s. I have older cousins who used to play me their soul and ska records.
My dad is a big Outlaw country guy - Johnny Cash, Johnny Horton, Waylon, Willie. He loves Elvis and turned me onto Elvis. He was always playing me stuff. He and I would sing and entertain the family. We'd have a little skit on Thanksgiving or whatever.
My grandmother was a big Elvis fan, and I am, too, because she played Elvis, and she would keep me all the time when my dad was out of town.
Mum prayed to the Lord that when her children were born they wouldn't be tone deaf. Mum says at two years old I was singing my own little songs, she didn't know where I'd heard it so I must have made it up. I used to sing along with the radio.
My mum and dad used to make me stand up at dinner parties and sing to their friends. I had this conservatory in my house - three steps went to up to kind of a raised part of our kitchen. I used it as the stage. Every night after school I used to download backing tracks of songs I loved and perform to myself. My mum was trying to cook and I was pretending I was at the O2 arena.
I saw my dad doing it and thought to myself, 'I can do that.' I would be backstage watching him and running around the country with him singing to children. He would sing songs that taught children really good morals: like, 'Teaching Peace' was a song he used to sing to kids a lot.
I studied a lot from bossa nova, and I used to listen to it a lot as a kid because my mum would play it. I even wanted to learn Portuguese in high school so I could sing in it.
When we were at school my younger brother and I were very sporty, so we did a lot of stuff outside school, club activities. Summer holidays, though, my mum would take off a big chunk of time and my dad would take some time off and I have the fondest memories of the things we'd do as a family.
I grew up in London, one of four children. We were a very loud family, not a lot of listening, plenty of talking. My mum was a hearth mother: she loved to gather us all around her - Sunday lunches were a big thing. She was very good at thinking on her feet - people used to say she should go into politics.
I'm from a singing family, but they're not professional singers, only gospel - my grandfather was a minister. I started to sing the music that was out then because my mother used to play it all the time. It was the end of the '50s, the beginning of the '60s. There was Frankie Lyman and the Teenagers, Etta James... We used to sit outside on the stoop and sing. We even used to put our radios and record players outside.
My dad, being a jingle writer, and my mom, being a jingle singer, they hooked me up with some people when I was a kid that worked with children's jingle singing groups. I used to sing jingles as a kid.
My mum used to wear the guys' Chesty Bonds tanks, and I used to end up wearing them after she'd finish with them. She's a painter, and they would be covered in paint splatters. She would wear them and wear them until they were super-soft, and then I'd get them. But I was just a kid, so they were like a dress on me.
There was always football in my family: my dad, big and little brothers, even my mum used to play.
My mum and dad used to make me stand up at dinner parties and sing to their friends.
To be honest, 'Jurassic Park' was before my time. I was super into the superhero movies and stuff. Mum and Dad, they were like, 'Sam Neill - honey, do you know who that is?' I'm like, 'No. I'll Google him.' He's the nicest person and a big kid.
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