Morris Mills is an innovative singer, songwriter, and producer known for his dynamic fusion of rock, funk, and soul. Drawing inspiration from iconic artists like Prince and Jimi Hendrix, Mills has carved out a unique niche in the music industry with his electrifying performances and soulful voice. His compelling lyrics and intricate compositions showcase his versatility and deep passion for music, making him a standout artist in contemporary music. With a growing discography and a reputation for captivating live shows, Morris Mills continues to push the boundaries of genre and creativity.

www.morrismills.com

Good evening to everybody. Another edition of the Upper Room with Joe Kelly here on Monday evening. Beautiful Monday, Fall day feels like spring, but it's just.

Just a great time and great to be in the studio once again because we're really excited because he's got a brand new record. He's an extremely talented musician and great person. He is the Pied Piper, a funk and roll. And he's got a brand new record called Purple.

We're gonna play songs from that release and without further delay, we welcome Morris Mills. How you doing, brother?

Hey, brother. What's happening, brother?

I'm doing great. And you know, you've been working hard on this new record originally entitled Beautified.

And you made the switch for a good reason, I'm sure, near and dear to your heart. Tell us, the audience, why you named it Purple.

Well, the reason I named it Purple because the passing of Prince, which is musical icon and legend, he was my mentor from a distance, and he influenced my music.

And I've been trying to put out the Beautified project for two, maybe two or three years, and I just couldn't find the right songs to put or just the chemistry to it. So what happened was before the passing of Prince, I was getting ready to release the album of Beautify.

And that night, I think that weekend, I tried to upload it, and it wouldn't upload to the itunes or the distributors, and it just wouldn't. So I said, okay, let me just release a couple of singles.

And then when I got the word of the passing of a Prince, a couple of people from his camp got in contact with me and expressed their feelings and told me to do some things, which I did. So what I did, I took some time out and I paid some homage to him at their request. I was going to do that anyway, and I decided to write him a song.

It was called Purple. And it just made sense to call the album that because he was such a pioneer and he was a. Was a musical influence in my life. So. Yeah.

So I really wanted to pay homage to him with this project.

Yeah. Special guest right now, Morris Mills, and his website is Morrismills. And where's the best website people to buy your music?

Well, the best, they can go to bandcamp, bandcamp.com and they can buy the album directly. I think it's the best. It was 22 songs on there. It was 22 song for a special edition.

We took some of the songs off to do some other stuff with it, and we put out, yes, another version of the Album which consists of 16 songs now. So. Yeah, then go to Bandcamp.

Morrismills.bandcamp.com Hey, Dr. Fink's on this record, right?

Yes. As a matter of fact, Dr. Fink is on Disarm. He plays keys, and he did the mixing and the mastering for that particular project. Yeah.

A couple years ago, did.

Did you go out to Star View, or you guys just did it online?

Well, I sent the tracks to him.

Oh, okay.

Right. Called him up. I said, yo, Fink. I didn't say, yo, Fink.

Sure you did.

I. I said, I'll call him. Dr. Fink, could you. Would you be honored to do the mixing and the mastering for this for me, please? He said, yeah.

And then he said, well, I'm going to do something else special for you, too. And he said, well, check it out. He said, I'm going to play additional keyboards on your song. I'm like, whoa. Really? Right, yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, I was real honored by that. Yeah.

Well, we're going to get into one of those tracks right now from our special guest. He's very talented, singer, songwriter, plays all different kinds of instruments, and involved in film as well.

We'll talk about that as well after we play this track you talked about with Dr. Matt Fink from Prince in the Revolution and his own band. He's out touring. Morris Mills Disarm.

Yeah, that's the brand new one from Morris Mills, my special guest right now, and it's called Disarmed, featuring Dr. Matt Fink, original keyboardist with Dr. Fink. I was gonna say Dr. Fink and the Revolution, but Prince in the Revolution, can't forget Prince. But Fink is a great musician, as is Morris Mills.

And you play all sorts of instruments, right?

Yeah, I play a few. I don't play as many as Prince did. I only play a couple. You know, I play piano and I. I play guitar.

You know, fool around just a little bit on the drum, you know. Yeah. You know, so.

Yeah, yeah, that's enough to keep you busy. And you could probably make a record by yourself.

Right, Right. I could pick up a bass and there you go.

And you know how to sing. So it's all covered.

Yeah, yeah. The song was. The song that I covered was about the Smashing Pumpkins, by the way.

Oh, yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

Billy Corgan and Company, right?

Yes, yes. Out of Chicago, too.

So, you know, I alluded to your work in film, you know, love and Coffee, two of my favorite things. How'd you get the interest in what. What are the. Some of the projects you've been working in the film world?

Well, the. When I was in Chicago, me, some friends got together and we started a film company. And our first project was, it's called Backstabbers.

It was done with no budget. It's about this guy that entrusted his best friend to watch over this girl or maybe to rather to see if his girl was trustworthy.

Wrong thing to do, right? That's fine. Especially if you're. I mean, especially if you're a woman. That's fine. So the guy ended up taking the girl and it was a mess.

But anyway, it was filmed in Chicago and we got picked up by a distribution company out of Florida and got it distributed. And the guy that wrote the film was. His name was. Is rather William Pierce. So we did that, we did some other projects. You know, it kept growing.

The second project that we did, which I was co producer of, that one, it's called My Family Barbecue. Right. And it was sort of. I mean, I'm just going to put it this way. It was before Queen Latifah and her barbecue came out.

Oh, okay.

Way before. All right. So I kind of figured, I guess maybe she was inspired by that.

Right, right.

I'm sorry, go ahead.

No, no, you go ahead.

Yeah, so from there then I got the idea, you know, say, hey, you know, I wanted to make a movie. You know, I wanted to. To make a movie and I wanted to include the Chicago scene.

Because when I was living in Mississippi and I came back to Chicago, Chicago had a very vibrant neo soul scene, but it was underground and I was involved in that and I had some rivalry. So I'm like, let's put this on film, you know, let's put it on film. So it was kind of like Love Jones slash Purple Ring.

So we got to filming, created the album with some bad musicians. I mean, some great musicians. And the financing of the film didn't. I mean, it fell through, so we couldn't finish the film.

All right, so what I did, I kept on recording the album and the album was released. As a matter of fact, Prince recorded one of the tracks on the album.

It didn't record the track on the album, but he took a song from the album and a lot of Prince fans will probably know it. It's called Glass Cutter.

Right, right. MPG Music Club, right?

Yes, yes, yes. So that I can say that was an involvement with Prince, did one of my songs.

And then from there, you know, then we started getting to Beatless actors and the company just started growing. Then I appeared in a couple other films. One, I can't recall, but one, a TV series with Kelsey Grammer just for that episode.

I forget which episode was that, but it was a Kelsey Grammer and the film was called the Boss, the series, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was great, by the way, you know, and that was my first time being on set with celebrities or movie stars.

I mean, with a lot of people that I watch when I was small, you know, growing up. So it's good to be on a very big production set versus and yeah.

Can be painted, carrying your own equipment around.

Yeah, yeah, yes. And buying bologna sandwiches, getting on the set like that. Yeah, right. You know, great meals.

Yeah, yeah, they got a nice spread. So my special guest right Now, Morris Mills, MorrisMills.com. his brand new CD is called Purple.

And he definitely gives gratitude and praise to the late great prince. And we're going to get into another track right now called Stepping out tonight. This will get people moving.

You got a little reggae feel mixed into it as well, right?

I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The guitar in that, it gives a. In the breakdown. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's more of a steppers feel, Right, Right. Chicago style.

Yeah. See that, that's more modern, you know, Shows how far I go back. You're. You're a new cat, so. Newer cat.

Yeah, yeah. All right.

Another great track from Morris Mills. We'll come back and speak with Morris just after this. All right. Stepping out tonight. Morris schooled me. And that's Chicago influence.

Two step music, right?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Now, now I can talk hip with, with the young crowd now, thanks to you.

Look out now, Joe.

That's right. Yeah. So, you know, we were talking about your Chicago roots. Tell us about the city. You spent a good portion of your life in Chicago.

Chicago is a beautiful city, man. It's independent. The music scene there is great. It's great. I mean, they got a live music scene there, but there's no industry.

So I kind of had a book out of there. But the food, the women, the people are just good people, you know, I miss home sometimes, you know, Chicago people are real. What's up, Chi Town?

All right.

My baseball team if, if they win Wednesday night will be facing Chicago Cubs, so. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I like the Mets, so.

Yeah, I'm a Cubs fan.

Yeah. Yeah, they got a good team.

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah.

Well, I hope you win tonight.

Oh, yeah, it's, it's, it's Wednesday, but. Yeah, I hope so too.

Yeah, but we got an important event to talk about you're involved with coming up on October 8th and once you pass along all that great information.

Okay, well, I'll be. October 8th, Quest Love is doing an event and I'll be a special guest there.

Okay.

This other cat by the name Damn Funk.

Okay.

So we're gonna be doing. They're gonna be doing their thing and I'll be doing a Prince celebration. Yeah, Yeah. A Prince celebration. Celebration of Prince won't be doing.

I don't. I don't think I'll be doing any of my songs. I probably. I just might. I might do one. Okay. I might do one song of mine. But I want to pay. Pay.

Pay some homage to Prince, you know, for that. And. And just really, just, you know, just really. What can you say, man? You know, Mr. Cat.

Oh, yeah. It's been hit us so hard and definitely unexpected that that's, you know, still. That hasn't gone away.

Right, right. I still affected by it. You know, I try. You know, I tried to. Instead of.

Well, I celebrate his life, but yet when I'm celebrating, I'm still mourning instead. So, you know, it's kind of. It's like a bittersweet thing, you know.

Right. And you know, always interesting to us when he was alive and just still interesting and still so many questions when he passed. So.

Yeah, I guess that's gonna be a constant for a while.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we want to try to do it up, man. We really want to try to. To really honor him. I try. But we're going to do that.

We're going to have some fun and we're going to bring out the hit, you know. You know what?

Let me. You got to mention the date, the time, the location and. And where people can go see the show.

Cool. Cool. The date is.

First of all, let me give special shout out to the promoters and the booking agents, to LaFaire Music and to Step Up World for their involvement and get me on that show. But the event is Saturday at 8pm it starts at 8 o' clock and up until 1:30 is at the Terragram Ballroom.

Yeah, yeah. And you go to Ticketmaster.com to get the tickets. Yeah.

So will you have your music for sale if people want to buy it right there?

Well, I don't have any physical CDs. I try to do everything online to be cost effective.

Right.

So, I mean, until we get the deluxe album together, right. Then. Then when I do another show, possibly in New York. Yeah, yeah, but they can always go online and purchase my music.

Yeah, that's right. MorrisMills.com and Bandcamp right there. Morris Mills and all the great music available right there for your purchase. Support independent music.

And before we get into two tracks, I got to give a shout out to a really great friend of our radio show and helping you along the way with some great push, Jill Monroe. And how do you guys get affiliated with the legendary Jill Monroe?

Well, Jill. Well, Jill's my manager now, by the way.

Mm.

Yeah, she's my manager now. We, she. We go way back and we never met until the Prince celebration of Purple Rain at the Oscars back in August.

Yeah, she was a big supporter with Emancipation Radio.

Right.

Yeah, and her and Jedi, which is. Which is. Which is also a friend.

Yeah, Great guy. Yeah.

Nation, you know, Shout out to them as well. And she saw me at the. Of the Prince celebration and she called out my name and I turned around, I said, ain't nobody know me here, right?

You know, and she called my name, and I turned around and looked at her and she said, hi, I'm Jill Monroe. Like, Jill. She said, yeah, Jill. She. I'm like, okay. And she's like, yeah, I supported your music for years at Emancipation Radio.

Like, yeah, that's right. I thought you were white, Jill. I did. I thought she was white. That's what threw me off. I'm like, jill Monroe.

Right, right.

So anyway, yeah, so from there I was like, it just made sense. She worked with Prince and she worked with the Time and Jerome.

Then it just made sense because she knew what I was trying to do and she's been following my music and she's been supporting me over, I would say, over 15 years.

Yeah, yeah. It's great to have her in your corner and pushing the new record Purple. And right now we're going to get into two tracks from Purple.

We'll go into Erotic City, which is one of our mutual favorites, obviously yours. You recorded and did a great performance of Prince's Erotic City and a song called hello with Vassi Jackson. Right. Ossie Jackson.

Yes. Best Dye Jackson is the one that produced and co written the song with me.

Yeah, I've got his records and played his music, too. Great guy.

That's my boy.

Yeah. Plays guitar, right?

Yeah, yeah. As a matter of fact, I'll give a lot of credit to Best Eye.

Because when I was living in Mississippi at the time, he's the one that took me under the wing, under his wing for about a couple of years and showed me the business, showed me how to write, put me on stage with him. Either had me to close the show with Princess Purple Rain. And I remember one show that I did with him, it was. It was with.

It was this song by Marvin Gaye. And it was called Sexual Healing. And I had some spiritual conflictions with that song. So anyway, he put me on stage, right?

And this is the first time this had ever happened.

I froze, okay?

He looked at me, he walked over to me, he said, you better sing this motherfucking song right now, man. Sing the song. I looked at him, right? Yeah, yeah. I said stalker. I didn't say the other word.

That's right. Yeah, I. I heard it. I got the headphones on. I heard it. So. So besides talented musician, you guys are stylish dressers, too.

But Bosti's got, you know, some really cool suits and hats as well, right?

I kind of. For me, it's Best I. Jackson. Yeah. I give him his parts.

Yeah, he produced stuff for like, what, Like Johnny Taylor, the Neville Brothers, and all of them, Bobby Rush. So, yeah. Best Eye. Yeah. Love a man.

All right, this is two in a row. Thank you more so much. And, man, you got to come to the east coast and drop by the studio.

I promise you that I'll do that, man. And thank you for having me so much, man. God bless you. All right.

All right, you too. And check it out. Tomorrow night, we'll have it uploaded at Upper room with jokelly. Com. Morris Mills.