PJ Morton’s memoir, ‘Saturday Night, Sunday Morning,’ sings of his life and career
30th December 2024 · 0 Comments
By Geraldine Wyckoff
Contributing Writer
PJ Morton’s memoir, “Saturday Night, Sunday Morning: Staying True to Myself from the Pews to the Stage,” couldn’t be more aptly or poetically titled. Morton, born Paul Sylvester Morton Jr., a five-time Grammy winning soul, R&B and pop keyboardist, singer, composer and producer, tells of his conflicts between secular and gospel music that often presented themselves throughout his lifetime.
Morton – the son of the legendary Bishop Paul S. Morton Sr. – expected that as a “preacher’s kid” he would follow in his father’s footsteps right up to the pulpit of the Greater St. Stephen Full Gospel Baptist Church.
“I just felt like, ‘Saturday Night, Sunday Morning,’ kind of summed up much of my life and career,” Morton says. “No matter whether I was playing with someone at a club on Saturday night I had to be playing at church with my father on Sunday morning, no matter what. It’s like the dichotomy of my life.”
Even as a talented child, Morton’s aspirations weren’t to be a “front man” or even a singer. He was content to be behind the keyboards or an organ at his dad’s church and much later, in 2012, functioning as a sideman on keys with the hugely in demand pop group Maroon 5. However, leading his own bands including Freestyle Nation and his latest ensemble, PJ Morton and Afro-Orleans, he goes out front working his own soul and R&B grooves on original compositions.
“I’m an R&B singer but I’m in a pop band,” he says with a laugh. “I’m probably one of the few who’ve worked with Lil Wayne and Kirk Franklin.”
Morton’s book takes readers through his youth and his first encounter as an artist outside the church performing at the House of Blues in New Orleans at its one-of-a-kind weekly Sunday gospel brunch. “That was life-changing at that time. I was so young,” remembers Morton, who was on keys with the back-up band. “I was playing in front of audiences that weren’t in my dad’s church.”
Reading Morton’s memoir, one might notice that there appears to be a certain distance in his relationship to New Orleans and the style of music that folks associate with the Crescent City. Particularly as a keyboard player, growing up where great pianists like Professor Longhair, Dr. John and master James Booker reign as profoundly influential, he doesn’t really have a traditional New Orleans sound even while performing secular music.
“My influences were in my dad’s church,” Morton acknowledges, adding that his father would often bring in musicians from Detroit to perform at Greater St. Stephen. “I was kind of sheltered in that way. I was not ‘in the club’ of musicians in my own world. I didn’t play jazz; I didn’t read music. I had a different relationship with New Orleans.”
One needs to remember that Morton, now 43, wasn’t of the era of these legends although he was exposed to their music and huge reputations primarily when he began performing at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival as a member of St. Augustine’s jazz band on the Congo Square Stage and with his father in the Gospel Tent.
“Allen Toussaint was always a hero of mine because of how he was able to be in New Orleans but also reach outside of New Orleans and bring that sound to the world,” says Morton, mentioning Toussaint’s gifts as a songwriter and producer who owned his own studio and record label. Morton, who always enjoyed an affinity for composing and producing has followed that path and now produces and releases his albums under his own label, Morton Records.
“Those were the things that I was drawn to,” he says. “Although I am a piano player, I always used the piano as a companion to the songwriting.” He quickly adds: “It’s a badge of honor to represent New Orleans.”
After graduating from St. Augustine High School, Morton headed to Atlanta to attend the prestigious Morehouse College. It’s where, he says, he really began his career in secular music and put together his first soul and R&B band. His initial interest and love of secular music however came much earlier on hearing artists like Stevie Wonder, whose spirituality continually fills his music and lyrics, and Donny Hathaway. “I was drawn to their music,” says Morton as he remembers hearing Hathaway’s “Live” album. He thought, “It feels like he’s in church but he’s not singing church songs – I want to do that. I want to feel it in my soul but I don’t necessarily just want to talk about God stuff all the time.”
As experienced on Morton’s Grammy-winning and multiple Grammy-nominated albums, the church remains in his expressions. One can hear Morton’s gospel roots in much of his own work, including his latest, solidly soulful releases, “Watch the Sun” and “From Capetown to Cairo,” which he produced during his “life-changing” travels in Africa and Egypt.
“I think I’m at my best when I don’t block out any of my influences and church and gospel are such a big part of that,” he acknowledges. “The best training ground in the world was church. It just prepared me for everything.” With this background, Morton found he could “literally go from a funk song to a calypso song, to a reggae song and do pop kinds of songs.”
“I’m always trying to say something whether it’s expressing love – I do love love – but usually when I’m not writing love songs, I am just trying to get some kind of message across. I want it to be some food you can chew on. It’s my form of preaching.”
On occasion, Morton will play keyboards in church, though his father and influential mother, Debra Brown Morton, have long abandoned the hope of him at the pulpit.
“I think they’ve given up on me pastoring the church,” Morton says with a laugh. “They’re just really proud. They didn’t always quite understand even when they were supporting. But I think to see it in real time and to see how the audience responds to me, they realize that it is somewhat my church, my congregation.”
So many great New Orleans artists, including the late vocalist Johnny Adams and hot on the jazz scene drummer Brian Blade, and beyond – most notably Aretha Franklin – honed their talents in the church and brought their huge talents to larger audiences in the secular world. PJ Morton stands among them. The subtitle of “Saturday Night, Sunday Morning,” explains how, in part, he accomplished his goal and resolved his conflicts. It reads: “Staying True to Myself from the Pews to the Stage.”
This article originally published in the December 30, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
