LIVE IN THE GERSHWIN ROOM // w/ Ash Grunwald. ARIA Award winner Russell Morris celebrates the release of his new album Black and Blue Heart produced by Nick DiDia and Bernard Fanning.

DOORS 8.30PM // SHOWTIME TBC

Russell Morris

Black and Blue Heart

The new album produced by Nick DiDia and Bernard Fanning

After six decades on the road, an album can almost write itself. It might arrive in the space of a few months, fully formed in vision and texture in the mind of the vigilant creator. But it takes a rare combination of talent and circumstances to realise that vision as vividly as Black and Blue Heart.

"I'd met Bernard [Fanning] years ago," Russell Morris remembers. The Powderfinger frontman came backstage at one of the Australian rock legend's countless gigs to pay his respects with a mutual friend. "But It wasn't til I moved up to Queensland last year that we sat down and started talking."

The two producers speed-dialled their dream studio team: guitarist Dan Kelly, drummer Declan Kelly and, from Fanning's touring band, bassist Matt Englebrecht and keys player Ian Peres. Perched between the tropical bush and panoramic ocean views of La Cueva Studios near Byron Bay, Black and Blue Heart found its rhythm fast.

“Their contribution was enormous,” Russell says. “Bernard's harmonies in parts are fantastic [check the skybound chorus to Sitting Pretty, for instance]. He knew the songs better than I did. See, I wrote the songs so quickly, by the time we got to the studio I couldn’t remember some of the details. Bernard knew them back to front. Nick and Bernard's attention to detail was just extraordinary."

‘Black and Blue Heart’ will be available from 5 April, 2019. Presales for signed CDs and vinyl are now available from the Mushroom store