[rating=4.50]
Eliot Morris’ debut album on Universal Records What’s Mine Is Yours, produced by Tony Berg, is one of the most underrated pop/rock albums of 2006. The Birmingham, Alabama native hit a major homerun with this album, but it is one which most people have missed out on through the year. The album garners pop/rock films with hues of blues, folk and country fringes. With lo-fi acoustics and mid-tempo movements, Morris’ debut effort quills bluesy cylindered piano melodies layered with scintillating folk-toned guitar tremolos and lightly sprayed drum beats. The mandolin segments on “Will She Never Fall In Love Again?” are surrounded by pop/rock rigs that demonstrate a Blue Merle ingenuity, while the flourishing guitar riffs looping around the vibrant dance beats of the rhythmic motions on “Anyway“ have a Teddy Geiger mobility.
Morris’ expansive songwriting talents are comparable to classic tunesmiths like Paul Simon, James Taylor, Dan Fogelberg, and Sting. His song “This Colorful World” is featured in the Crayola crayons commercial (check it out at http://www.crayola.com), but the album offers much more than this one hit. There is a bluesy piano and guitar interlude on “Novocain” with torchlight vocals which absolutely excels. The modern country links in the pop/rock crescents on “The Moment You Believe,” and the rock ballad “No One Has To Know” with soft rolling piano prints shrouding the female vocals in the choruses harmonizing with Morris’ tenor pitch are also impressive cuts. Morris’ album has more than just one hit. His songwriting is very likeable hewing comfortable melodies along harmonizing instrument parts and lush choruses.
Even if people missed this album, Eliot Morris is a songwriter with many more homeruns left in him.
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