A Podcast Conversation With ... Jeffrey Morgan

By Bill King

Fatefully born in Toronto on the same day that (We’re Gonna) Rock Around The Clock by Bill Haley & His Comets was released, Jeffrey Morgan is the authorized biographer of both Alice Cooper and Iggy Pop & The Stooges. Morgan is also the author of the graphic novel The Brides of Mister X and Other Stories, which Rolling Stone called “one of the 50 best non-superhero graphic novels.”

In 1974, Lester Bangs personally invited Morgan to write for Creem: America’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll Magazine; a position he held for twenty years, becoming Creem’s longest-serving writer. Also beginning in 1974, Morgan took over one thousand photographs of many of the rock concerts he attended. That archive is now represented exclusively by Reelin’ In The Years Productions for worldwide licensing.

Explaining his unique visual style, Morgan says: “Taking a cue from Debussy, I wanted to capture The Space Between The Notes which is why, more often than not, my photographs portray musicians pausing instead of performing. My intention was to photograph the live equivalent of fine art studio portraiture.”

Morgan recently published Rock Critic Confidential, a lavishly illustrated anthology of his rock 'n' roll writing and photography.

Learn more in this FYI podcast.