I first came across James Morrison as I ambled through a Winners store on Merivale Road, awaiting my appointment to get my eyes lasered. I had things on my mind, so wasn’t really paying attention to much, actually finding myself in the house and home section of the store, a section I don’t really ever find myself gracing. In effect, I was just killing time before the main event arrived later that afternoon.
Over the store’s music system a song was playing that managed to cut through my pre-op fog. It caught my attention enough that I whipped out my phone and engaged the app that identifies songs playing from other sources. The app came back with James Morrison, and the song was Fix the World Up For You. Nothing earth-shattering there, I just filed that info away and went off to my appointment, which for the record was successful and eye-opening.
When I could see again, which was sort of the next day, to a degree, I had to go take pictures for a junior hockey team’s golf tournament. That is to say I drank beer while a good friend of mine actually took the photos and drove the cart. All this disposable time, courtesy of that gracious friend, gave me the opportunity to revisit the memory of the Morrison song, enough that, later that night I downloaded it onto my phone and had the chance to play it again for myself, by now several beers downriver.
It was enough for me to download the entire album, and from there I discovered my new favourite artist, something that continues to this day.
I’m not talking Jim Morrison of The Doors. I’m talking James Morrison, actually James Morrison Catchpole, an English singer/songwriter with a life story that starts out sad and, at last reckoning, doesn’t seem to be getting much better despite his success as an artist. In fact his story saddens me to where I think of him, not his music, all the time.
He grew up in poverty and had the ubiquitous alcoholic father. When just three years old, he contracted whooping cough and it damn-near killed him, requiring several attempts at resuscitation. He survived that, though, but out of it grew that distinctive voice of his, the thing that caught my attention right off the bat.
I’m a sucker for a non-conventional voice. If voices were flavours, my favourite would be wood-smoke flavour, a kind of voice that has a depth to it, a body to it, a voice that can go low where the really good singers can hang out, a voice that sounds like a walk down a chilly street, but you’re bundled up and can smell the smoke from fireplaces as you go. A voice that exudes warm coziness, a blanket against the chill. That kind of thing.
No drugs were involved in the writing of that last paragraph, seriously. Its hard to describe that wood-smoke phenomenon, but I have experienced it, actually right up close, and it was worth every second I was fortunate enough to hear it, be with it, and even sing with it. But wood smoke is like all smoke I guess. It can drift away on the wind.
Plus I loved Karen Carpenter back in the day, so I feel I know my voices. Sadly, hers is another voice lost to the wind..
James Morrison is close, but not entirely that type of voice. He’s got a kind of raspiness that sets him apart, and he uses it creatively, which shouldn’t be a surprise coming from a guy who says he cried the first time he heard Stevie Wonder sing. He also claims Otis Redding, Al Green, and Van Morrison as vocal influences, so his voice, and the way he uses it, shouldn’t come as any surprise.
He sings songs that are just, well, good. While there are no “smash” hits, there are no clunkers either. It’s like almost every single song is good, and I’ve had favourite songs by him replaced by other favourite songs by him, only to be replaced themselves by still others, and on it goes to this day. I’d say his music “speaks” to me, but I don’t want to use that way of putting it because it sounds so done, so I’ll just say I really “get” his music. At first he was writing and singing all these romantic ballads, but then he started challenging himself to throw in some more up-tempo stuff, often involving love as well, but also taking on themes of childhood, growing up, dealing with the world, and life generally.
As I said, he grew up on the poor side of things, and rather than diving into sports, like most boys are expected to do, he dove into guitar after his uncle taught him how to play a couple of chords here and there. He, of course, was bullied because of it, but he moved to a new school in a new town that was a little more accommodating of his love of music. By the way, his parents split when he was four, so this move involved himself and his now single-mom.
At some point, James’ mother took in a border to help pay the bills, a young woman named Gillian, a girl six years older than James himself, and a girl that he fell head over heels in love with. Gill had a boyfriend, though, so as much as James attempted to impress her, the cards just didn’t seem to be falling for him when it came to his mom’s tenant and his spoken-for housemate.
But then, magic of magics, it happened. The boyfriend was gone and Gill went on a date with James, and just like some Hallmark Christmas special, the two fell in love and married. They followed that up with two children, both daughters, Elise, now 15, and Ada, now 5.
So there we are, James Morrison Catchpole, his wife Gillian Catchpole, and his daughters Elise and Ada Catchpole. Hallmark couldn’t write it up any better.
James was becoming a star, and while he did all his writing and most of his recording at home, there were still tour dates that drew him away from his family, sometimes for prolonged periods of time. Unfortunately this strained the relationship between he and his wife. Here he is on the road, singing live duets with female singers, love songs meant for Gill but being sung to other, younger women onstage. It didn’t help I don’t imagine. And I’m not taking Jimmy’s side here, because I just don’t know, but it can’t have felt good for Gillian to be home while her husband serenaded Nelli Furtado and Joss Stone on the road.
Then Gill got sick, her kidneys acting up, so much so that she actually needed a kidney transplant, something she received in 2022. But the new kidney didn’t help her deteriorating mental condition, a lousy mix of anxiety and PTSD, possibly brought about by the kidney business and her fears for her security in the relationship with James.
It was too much, and the couple eventually split. I don’t know, but I’m going to speculate that the split didn’t do much for anyone’s state of mind, but her susceptibility to depression would, I feel, be something to watch. But she seemed to be doing okay, getting out more, having a circle of friends, beginning the process of looking for a new place to live, and even opening up a store of some kind. She had turned a corner.
Earlier this year, on January 5th, a friend went over to see how Gill was doing. I honestly don’t know where the daughters were at the time. The friend found the door locked, but a chilling note taped to it. “Don’t come in. Call the police.”
The friend immediately called James, who had a key, and he came right over, and together they entered the home. It was James who found her.
A coroner determined officially what James and the friend saw for themselves. Gillian Catchpole, age 45, had died of ligature suspension, a clinical way of saying something else too panful for me to say. Scattered about the room were notes addressed to James.
She had a blood alcohol level of 190 mg / 100 ml of blood. You don’t have to be Agatha Christie to figure it out.
I can’t tell you what kind of guy James Morrison actually is. He sings of heartbreak and loss all the time, but nothing of this magnitude. He’s not been “officially” heard from since, buttoned-up with his daughters and family, no way anybody’s going to put this behind them anytime soon, if ever.
What a heart-breaking tragedy, for Gillian, the girls, James himself, and all manner of family and friends. What a dark place to travel to.
When I hear his songs now, later in the same year, this sadness is now a part of that experience. I mean, how could it be otherwise?
And one of my favourite songs of his, so touching, so real, so identifiable for almost anyone, now seems the saddest of all.
That song is called “Once When I was Little.”
In wish I had the words.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 