This month our interview is with singer-songwriter-novelist Bill Morrissey, a native New Englander whose musical roots are planted a bit farther south, as evidenced by Bill's solid and rhythmic acoustic fingerstyle guitar work. His new CD (ninth album) is appropriately titled "Songs of Mississippi John Hurt." (Rounder Records) Bill Morrissey's first novel "Edson" was published in 1996 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

We conversed with Bill by email while he was touring, and he generously spent some time with us answering a few curious questions. Here's what we found out.

THE BILL MORRISSEY INTERVIEW

Q: Bill, your career expansion from singer-songwriter to novelist doesn't surprise me, as your songwriting is a perfect example of how well-crafted words can create a picture in the listener's head of each verse, or chapter as it may be. Tell us about the creative shift you experience moving back and forth from singer-songwriter to novelist.

Bill: There never was much of a shift. I'd been writing short fiction all along. I think my lyrics and prose are all written in the same voice, the only difference being that my lyrics require a melody. They're written to be part of a marriage of words and music and can't or shouldn't try to stand on their own. But both prose and lyrics require a strong rhythmic foundation.

Q: How do you handle the balance of two careers that require you to mix inspiration with a touring schedule? Do you find yourself writing verses that end up being a chapter instead?

Bill: It seems like sometimes my work gets in the way of my work. When I'm writing a book and touring, I travel with a laptop and try to get a page or so done each day while I'm on the road. I usually have hours of traveling from one city to the next to figure just where the novel is going, so by the time I check in, I sort of have the page(s) already written in my head. And, sometimes, you get ideas that you think will be songs, but the more you work on it, the more you realize you need more than 3 or 4 minutes to explore it. "Edson" was supposed to be a song.

Q: Aside from you new CD "Songs of Mississippi John Hurt," is there one of your albums that stands out to you as your favorite work?

Bill: That's like "Sophie's Choice." There are moments on each album where I think I really got it right and moments on the same album where I took a chance and came up short. But, if you don't take chances, you might as well pump gas. I think the most fun session though, was recording "Inside." Whenever Johnny Cunningham (fiddle) is in the studio, things are going to be just fine and your biggest problem is to not blow your voice out because you're laughing too hard.

Q: Your web site offers an MP3 free download song from the new album. Do you have any opinions or predictions of how this type of music format may affect the music industry?

Bill: I think one of the most interesting things musically about the Internet is how I now can get radio stations like KGSR (Austin) or KDHX (St. Louis) over the computer. In some years, many small community stations may have an international audience. It's a different ballgame now. And I have no idea where it's all going. But my gut feeling is that this is a good thing. It threatens the commercial media powers. It may give a much larger voice to noncommercial music.

Q: I know that you use both standard and open tunings in your guitar work. Which open tunings do you prefer?

Bill: Mostly I work in open D and sometimes G. At least that's what I've recorded with. I fool around at home with D minor and Open A, but haven't come up with anything in them for a while. But recently, the D minor seems really interesting.

Q: What's the history of the old USA Epiphone acoustic guitars that you use?

Bill: My 1968 Epiphone Texan was made by Gibson in Kalamazoo. A friend of mine had owned it for about twenty years before I bought it from him, so I'd known and coveted the guitar a long time. It was an inexpensive guitar in its day, much like a Gibson J-50 or J-45, but it has a very unique (thin) neck. Shawn Colvin once borrowed it for a show and her only comment was, "This things plays itself." A few years ago, when I was touring with Greg Brown, I found a 1963 Texan in a Missoula shop that hadn't even been broken in. It was the exact twin of my other one. And since my 1968 had had its neck broken twice by airlines, I thought it might be a good investment. (Since they don't make them anymore). I just love the sound of a seasoned Epiphone. I also play a Guild D-35 from 1968. I bought it new from Jack's Drum Shop in Boston and it has been with me all these years and it sounds better than ever.

Q: I read somewhere that you occasionally co-write with Fred Koller in Nashville. Where's that material going? Has any of it been recorded? (Note: Fred Koller is a Nashville-based songwriter who has written hundreds of recorded songs, including some Nanci Griffith hits, as well as co-penning "Angel Eyes" with John Hiatt, recorded by the Jeff Healy band)

Bill: Fred's a good friend and when we get together we end up writing songs. I think a lot of them are a little too quirky for mainstream Nashville. But we have a lot of fun writing them. Maybe someday they'll surface.

Q: I recall a conversation I had with you 10 years ago, when "Standing Eight" (Rounder Records) had just been released, and I recognized a reference you made in your song "Motels and Planes" as being about Tom Rush, who had previously been your agent. Two questions about that: Did that verse frequently become a topic of conversation, and did you and Tom Rush ever make amends?

Bill: Yeah, people talked about the song, but I always think of my songs as fiction, no matter what. A lot of my audience has a problem with that since I write in the first person often. As far as I know, Tom and I are fine. We've seen each other a few times since then and everything's cool.

Q: I realize that "Songs of Mississippi John Hurt" has just been released in early 1999, but are there plans yet for the next album of your own material, or is it time to put on your novelist hat for a while?

Bill: My goal is to finish this new novel this spring. I have about 2 dozen half-finished songs on tape that I haven't been able to get to because of the new book. Once the book is done, I put on my songwriting hat. I expect a new album in about a year.

Q: So Bill, your job description currently reads "singer-songwriter-novelist", so what's next? Maybe a musical?

Bill: I do have a pretty good background in Broadway (my folks had a great collection.) And I think Cliff Eberhardt and I can do "Guys and Dolls" all the way through without looking at the lyrics. But I just want to write some songs after this book. After that, who knows?

Q: Your song "Closed Down Mill' from "You'll Never Get to Heaven" (Rounder Records 1996) became your first music video. How did that come to be, and how was the song chosen?

Bill: That was Rounder. They wanted that to be the video. So that's what I did. I got to bring in my friends Robert Earl Keen and David Johansen and then got to show the dancing style that made a name for myself in the eighth grade. It was an incredibly fun afternoon filming in Austin. It ended up getting played on a bunch of stuff I didn't expect like CMT television's Jammin' Country show and Extra Magazine on television. And, on CMT they used it in their White Horse Saloon show and people were actually line dancing to me. So, I think that's pretty cool.

Q: You've been sneaking horn arrangements into your music off and on for about 10 years. What do your fellow folk peers think about that?

Bill: You know, the real musicians on the folk scene, the writers I hang with, are the ones who know Bird, Diz, Hank Williams, Bean, Woody Guthrie, Lefty, Merle, Mother Maybelle, Duke, Prez, Bob Wills, Robert Johnson, Dylan, Ella, Gershwin, Tim Hardin . . . it goes on. So, if I bring in the horns, well, I just bring them in because they sound right to me and I don't give a rat's ass what anybody thinks.

Thank you, Bill, for joining us! For more information about Bill Morrissey, to check tour schedules, to read excerpts from his novel "Edson", and to hear audio clips, both live and studio, visit the Bill Morrissey website.