Bowes & Morley

Bowes & Morley - Mo's Barbeque - 2003 - STC

Luke Morley (born 19 June 1960, Camberwell, London, England) is the lead guitarist and co-songwriter for the rock band The Union. From 1989 to 2009 (with a break from 1999-2002) he was the guitarist, chief songwriter and producer for the hard rock band Thunder. Previous to that he was a member of 1980s group, Terraplane who subsequently became Thunder. Danny Bowes (born 14 April 1960, West Ham, London, England and educated at the Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham College) was the lead singer with Thunder. Previously, he was a member of Nuthin' Fancy, 1980s group Terraplane, as well as occasionally playing the odd gig or two with his group Danny and the Doowops. Danny will be performing with another bandmate Ben Matthews (as "Danny & Ben") for several concerts in early 2012 and has contributed vocals to an album by Dean Howard who was previously with T'Pau.

Danny Bowes & Luke Morley's (both from the band Thunder) second album is an 11 song collection of sublime, soulful hooks, pure-pop melodies & the occasional outburst of classic 70s retro rock, including covers of Stevie Wonder's 'Living For The City' & Ann Peeble's 'I Can't Stand The Rain'. 'Mo's Barbecue' could only have been created by a singer & guitarist that intuitively understand each other's artistic strengths & appreciate all that's good about popular music. © 1996 - 2011 CD Universe

[***** my view on South London's finest, 26 Mar 2008] Fantastic collection of new songs and great covers.Luke and Danny have made an album which is a confident departure from the day job with Thunder and a step further from 'Moving on Swiftly'.The version of the Stretch's 1975 hit 'Why did you do it' is a solid speaker breaking funk classic. The brass and the McDonald sisters backing vocals add depth.The production is fantastic for the hi fi focused.We eagerly await the next! By & © D. S. Reed "skinny northern bloke" (Bermondsey) © 1996-2011, Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates

BOWES & MORLEY are Daniel Bowes and Luke Morley, in regular life singer and guitarist of British Rockers THUNDER. For the second time they are coming around “solo” now and if you ask yourself now, why, they have THUNDER, here they approach the whole thing a lot more relaxed and also break out of Rock with bluesy, at times almost Latino-like songs and rhythms. And this could cause some THUNDER fans to look at “Mo’s Barbeque” a little askance as you almost automatically would expect something similar, which you do not really get. The influences on this album very obviously come from the Seventies, from the rhythms to the melodies and the influences from Blues and Funk, at times some passages almost sound a bit like Soul and take the listener by surprise. The guitar at times only plays a secondary role, while the song with its many different shadings (besides piano and Hammond organ you also find trumpet, saxophone and trombone on this album) is in the foreground. Purist might be a good attribute that I could use here, because if you do not get one thing on “Mo’s Barbeque”, then big frills or even bombast. Besides more relaxed own compositions such as “Desire” or the quiet "Since I Left Her" the Brits also have taken on four classics, "Living For The City" by Stevie Wonder, "Why Did You Do It" by STRETCH, a great version of FREE’s "Come Together In The Morning" and Ann Peebles' "I Can't Stand The Rain" that most of you will know from Tina Turner’s version, which all almost seamlessly blend in with Morley’s compositions and also show the versatility of his song writing. Luke Morley herewith also proves that he is a composer that has more than “just” the first class Rock of THUNDER and is able to unite many different influences into compact compositions. And to lose many words about the class of a Danny Bowes would be a waste of them, because he has an almost perfect Rock voice, rough, but emotional, melodic, but powerful, with some true memorability. As said before, if you expect THUNDER-like Hard Rock, you might be disappointed by the outcome as we get a lot less Rock and even less Hard here. Still that should not hold you off from checking out “Mo’s Barbeque”, if you like the Rock of the Seventies. (Online March 3, 2004) © 2000-2011 The Metal Observer. All rights reserved http://www.metal-observer.com/articles.php?lid=1&sid=1&id=5694

If you prefer the hard/blues rock sound of bands like The Union and Thunder you may not get into this album easily. However, by itself, "Mo's Barbeque" is a good retro sounding soul pop album from guitarist Luke Morley and the great vocalist Danny Bowes, both members of the British hard rock group Thunder. This album has some great blues and funky passages and is reminiscent of mid seventies Motown soul blues. The album includes great covers of Stevie Wonder's "Living For The City", Ann Peebles' "I Can't Stand the Rain", and Paul Rodgers' "Come Together in the Morning". Danny and Luke also recorded an album called "Moving Swiftly Along", which is worth a listen but not as strong as "Mo's Barbeque" [All tracks @ 320 Kbps: File size = 127.44 Mb]

TRACKS / COMPOSERS

1. Desire - Luke Morley
2. Living for the City - Stevie Wonder
3. On a Day Like Today - Luke Morley
4. Why Did You Do It - Greg Kirby
5. Since I Left Her - Luke Morley
6. Come Together in the Morning - Paul Rodgers
7. Waiting for the Sky to Fall - Luke Morley
8. Illogical - Luke Morley
9. How Could You? - Luke Morley
10. That's Not Love - Luke Morley
11. I Can't Stand the Rain - Ann Peebles

MUSICIANS

Luke Morley - Guitar, Percussion
Chris Childs - Bass
Mark Taylor - Keyboards, Piano, Organ
Mario Goossens - Drums
Martine Robertson - Saxophone
Ben Gant -Trumpet
Ian Moffat - Trombone
Danny Bowes - Vocals
Tara McDonald - Addtional Vocals on "How Could You"
Angela Murrell, TJ Davies - Backing Vocals