For the past couple of weeks, the Music Review section of Orient Lodge has been dedicated to the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival. Now, the mud is washed from my feet and most of the camping gear has been properly stowed away. It is time to return to reviews of performers that have been submitting their music via SonicBids.

I have now received about fifty different submissions. I’ve scanned all of them, and studied a majority of them. Listening to the performers’ music coming out of the speakers of my laptop as I sit in my office is much different than sitting on a rain drenched hill at Falcon Ridge, and I need to readjust my listening style back the solitude of my office. I’ve reviewed seven SonicBids submissions so far and today, I am adding my eighth selection.

Hugh Morrison was one of the more recent submissions I’ve received. He has a new CD out called, Robert Burns Rocks. If I didn’t like Morrison’s music so much, I would wait until the great bard’s next birthday in January, but I think this CD deserves to be highlighted right now.

I listened to various tunes, and when his rendition of Auld Lang Syne came around, my wife perked up her ears. It sounded a bit to her like the Pogues’ rendition. I won’t get into whether Morrison sounds more like the Pogues or the Drop Kick Murphys. No, he sounds more like Hugh Morrison, and Hugh Morrison sounds really good. Also, he’s Scottish, not Irish.

What I especially like about his music is that he has put together a whole CD of Robert Burns tunes. Everyone knows Auld Lang Syne. Fewer know Scots Wha Hae or Ye Jacobites By Name. Years ago, I learned to play the great highland bagpipes. I immersed myself in Scottish history, learning Scots Wha Hae and visited Culloden Moor. Yet for all my interest in Scottish history, the romantic poems of Robert Burns are closest to my heart and it is great to hear Morrison cover a few of them as well.

It has been fun exploring Morrison’s online presence as well. There is a video which I take to be his daughter’s first piano recital. There is a podcast, and it appears that Morrison plays with a bunch of different groups from time to time.

Check out Hugh Morrison’s new CD Robert Burns Rocks, and if you’re in Texas or Arizona, check out his schedule to see if he’ll be performing near you any time soon.