Hi.  My name is Eliot Morris.  I am a singer artist/songwriter living in Memphis, TN.  I grew up one of six kids in Mobile, Al, in what I consider a typical southern upbringing with typical boyhood interest – until the day my father brought home a CD player and a Motown compilation.  Then things began to change a bit.  I immediately began to find myself lost in music – a romantic wrapped up in front of a speaker.  I went to Auburn University and jumped into an unspoken cycle of expectation – quite possibly self imposed.   Without really considering my gifts I studied finance and graduated after four years.  All the while songs were being born in my heart, mind and dorm room.  I played the occasional open mic but I buried the desire to give it a real go.  You can only bury some things so deep before they start to show on the surface.  So in 2002 I released my own independent record and shortly thereafter, I was able to catch the ear of Gary Gersh who helped discover Nirvana, Counting Crows, Mars Volta and others. In time we decided to work together and he signed me to his label, Strummer Records.

I  began recording What’s Mine Is Yours in October 2004 and by the time the record was ready to be released (in 2006) Strummer Records, a Universal subsidiary, “went away” in a typical industry reorganization. I LOVE the record we made but we just weren’t able to sell enough copies, so in typical artist reorganization, I was dropped.  The life experience was rich but the bank, much like my heart, was broken.  And while it was amazing to meet and tour with heros such as John Mayer, Counting Crows, and James Taylor, I had to really come to grips with why I was doing music in the first place.  Self revelation can be a slow process but like Dylan says, “he not busy being born, is busy dying”.

And so was born in me the simple and profound conviction that I am an artist – in the most broad sense of the word.  It informs how I perceive and respond to everything in this world.  I began to paint and discovered a gift that I had, for whatever reason, never invested in or responded to.  I gravitated to the works of people like John Singer Sargent, Anders Zorn and the still living master, Richard Schmid.  In painting, I found, and claimed, my inheritance from three previous generations of portrait artists.  So, in spite of my lack of formal education in the field, painting people feels very natural and continues to be quite rewarding.

All the while I finished another record that I released in 2010, appropriately titled, All Things in Time.

I am currently living in Memphis, TN with my wonderful family and I split my time between chords and canvas.  If you’re interested in having me do either for you, please reach out to me through the contact link on this web site.