"Lyrics, Life and Love are the foundations of the artist known as Dominique Morgan. Since age 7, this storyteller narrates tales of the heart; recalling personal trials, tribulations and chronicles of passion. This 12-time Omaha Entertainment & Arts Award nominee has been deemed by Encounter Magazine as '…one of the most celebrated R&B artists in the Midwest.' Composing hit songs like 'In My Zone' (from the album Party Soul by Jus.B). Mr. Morgan has composed over 400 songs of expression throughout his music career - with albums like Loveaholics and Love Chronicles, Dominique eloquently translates life’s pain into musical memoirs of strength and courage."
= from his home page
"Dominique Morgan got into the music scene very early on and knew that music was what he was meant to do with his life. In 2005 he began to work at Icon One Music as a member of the writing staff, Penfluence while crafting songs for his own project. He spent years contributing to other artists projects until he was featured on the Icon One Music Christmas compilation Icon Onederland in 2009... This entire time he was writing and producing songs that would come to be his first project 'A Thin Line Between Love & Hate' in 2011 and that same year he won Performer of the Year from Brainstorm Promotions one of the largest LGBT promotions companies in the Midwest."
- from his ReverbNation page
"'I’m gonna be so honest with you right now it will piss…you…off. I started writing music at seven. Music just comes to me. I don’t read music. The shit just happens and I just go with it and I just go with it ‘til I can’t go anymore.'
"Dominique Morgan, orator of the aforementioned, was a show choir kid at Benson High. At age 14, he came out as gay to his family, “who were cool with it.” He left home during his senior year, 'making a stink about being grown,' and followed friends to UNL, where almost no one knew he wasn’t enrolled or that he got by sleeping in cars. Bad checks led to prison.
"That was before 2009. Now he is one of the metro’s most celebrated R&B recording artists and a prominent activist. Morgan recently headlined at the Baltimore Pride Celebration, which he described as a highlight of his career...
"An unguarded man expressing his pain and hope on- and off-stage, Morgan brought himself and his fans to tears during an acoustic set with Kevin Sullivan of Bells and Whistles during the 2015 OEAA nominee showcase at Reverb Lounge. His album, Loveaholics Anonymous, is a well-received tribute to the highs and lows of romance, earning him three nominations for best R&B artist, album of the year, and artist of the year. A holiday album, Dom’s Favorite Things, launched in late 2015. If the past is prologue, the next act for this Omaha original could be biblical. What comes after a year like that?"
- from the article, "Dominique Morgan: Fusing Reinvention and Love with Activism and Music", by Greg Jerrett on the website, OmahaMagazine.com
'R&B and soul singer-songwriter Dominique Morgan, 33, has emerged as an urban music force with multiple Omaha Entertainment and Arts Awards nominations for his Love Chronicles album.
"His tunes of love and loss come from personal experience: an abusive relationship, homophobia, both parents passing, incarceration.
"Alfonzo Lee Jones, founder-president of Icon One Music, the local label Morgan records on, says the artist has 'absolute determination.'
"Music is Morgan's passion and sustenance. When he bravely came out at 14, he leaned on music for solace.
"'It was an important part of my secret life. I spent a lot of time in my room listening to music. No one knew this was my salvation, this was my safe space,' Morgan says. 'I was very closeted about music. I didn't sing in front of people. But I had this desire to perform. I wrote songs in a notebook I hid under my bed. I was just very insecure and being a performer is the ultimate exposure.'
"He got up enough nerve to sing in Benson High's mixed chorus and to audition for its Studio Singers show choir.
"'I was frightened to death to audition. I didn't know how to dance in time, I didn't know how to read music, I felt so behind.'
"He made the cut anyway.
"'It was the first time I had been chosen for something and somebody saw something special in me. That experience was amazing. It opened me up to discipline, group dynamics, being a leader.'...
"While incarcerated his father died suddenly. He'd been Morgan's only regular visitor. Morgan stopped calling home. Hearing freedom on the other end only made his confinement worse. 'It was too much for me.'
"He turned to music to cope.
"'It was like this wall burst in my head and these words, these songs, these melodies just flooded out of me. I thought, One day I want to sing my songs. Music kept me going. It was my saving grace.'
"He wrote the songs in long-hand, with a pen, in notebooks and on kites (internal request forms). He utilized mics and mixing boards in prison music rooms, buying access to the gear via handmade checks he covered with the $1.21 a day he made working in the kitchen. He earned a culinary degree he uses today as a caterer.
"In a prison talent contest he revealed music chops he'd kept on the down low. The prospect of using those chops on the outside kept him sane. After serving eight-plus years, he got out February 2009 and cared for his ill mother until she died that December.
"'It was devastating.'
"His youngest sibling, Andrea, came to live with him.
"He tracked down Icon One's Alfonzo Lee Jones and began writing songs for the label. Jones admires 'the soul and feeling Morgan puts into his writing,' adding, 'Dom paints a vivid picture with every song he composes. You can feel the emotion. That's powerful.'
Morgan says in Jones he's found 'more than a producer – he's like a brother to me.'...
"His music took off as a recording artist and live performer, he says, once he stopped trying to position himself as a gay singer-songwriter. That transition came with his outreach work for the nonprofit LGBT advocacy group, Heartland Pride.
"'I am a singer who happens to be gay. I can still be myself through that but I let the music speak for itself.'
- from the article, "Dominique Morgan's voice will not be stilled", by Leo Adam Biga on the website, The Reader
Home page:
http://www.dominiquemorgan.com/
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/dommorganmusic/
ReverbNation:
https://www.reverbnation.com/dominiquemorgan
To download the whole podcast, right click on the link below and hit "Save as...":
https://archive.org/download/IowaMusicShowcaseEpisode57/Iowa%20Music%20Showcase%20-%20Episode%2057_.mp3
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