Jenny Morris

Jennifer Patricia Morris (born 29 September 1956) is a New Zealand-Australian singer-songwriter.

Her first success came with New Zealand band the Crocodiles, who had a top 20 hit single with "Tears".

The follow-up single, "Little By Little"—a cover of The Springfields 1960's song—was released in 1982 but failed to chart.

In 1976 she became a singer with How's Your Father, who were finalists in the 'National Battle of the Bands'.

She began working as a Home Economics teacher for two years at a high school near Wellington.

Late in 1978, Morris joined an all-girl group, Wide Mouthed Frogs in Wellington, performing lead vocals.

Fellow members were Kate Brockie on lead vocals, Andrea Gilkison on guitar, Tina Matthews on bass guitar, Bronwyn Murray on keyboards and Sally Zwartz on drums.

In 1979 they released the track, "Some Day" for the compilation album, Home Grown Volume One; "Some Day" was cowritten with Tony Backhouse, guitarist of fellow Wellington band the Spats, which also had a track, "Young Ladies in Hot Cars", on the compilation.

Wide Mouthed Frogs worked with the Spats' members: drummer Bruno Lawrence sometimes played saxophone for them and keyboardist Peter Dasent became their musical director.

By 1980, the Spats had evolved into the Crocodiles, under the mentorship of US producer Kim Fowley, and featured Backhouse, Dasent, Fane Flaws (guitar, vocals), Mark Hornibrook (bass guitar), Lawrence, and songwriter Arthur Baysting.

Morris was asked to join and soon after, Hornibrook departed and was replaced by Matthews.

The Crocodiles were managed by Mike Chunn (ex-Split Enz bassist) and regularly performed in Auckland.

In January 1980, they played the high-profile Sweetwaters Music Festival and in April that year, they released their debut album, Tears, produced by Glyn Tucker, and its lead single, "Tears", both reached number 17 on the respective New Zealand albums and singles charts.

Lawrence left and was replaced on drums by Ian Gilroy (ex-Whizz Kids), then Flaws left, although he continued to write material for the second album.

Released in November 1980, Looking at Ourselves, was produced by Ian Morris.

That year, they won 'Best Group' and 'Most Promising Group' at the New Zealand Music Awards.

The line-up went through further changes, Gilroy left to join the Swingers, then Matthews and Dasent left.

Re-locating to Sydney in February 1981, she was a backing vocalist for various groups and formed a trio, QED, in 1983.

In February 1981, following a repeat performance at the Sweetwaters Festival, The Crocodiles moved to Sydney, at the behest of their manager, Chunn, with new band members, Barton Price (drums), Rick 'Rikki' Morris (guitar) and Jonathan Zwartz (bass) only to disband in July.

Price went on to join Models.

Morris explained why The Crocodiles left:

"New Zealand is not particularly supportive of its local music industry. [Going to Australia] was something people had done before and been successful, so we decided to do it too and maybe get some extra information from the trip."

Morris began her solo career with the single, "Puberty Blues" in December 1981 on Mushroom Records; it was the title track from the 1981 film Puberty Blues, which was a local box-office success.

The song was written by Tim Finn and performed by Sharon O'Neill in the film.

The B-side was "Adolescent Angst", which Morris recorded with The Morris Majors.

"Puberty Blues" reached the Australian Kent Music Report Singles Chart top 100.

During 1982–1984, Morris continued as a session backing vocalist, contributing to releases by ex-manager Chunn's brother Geoff (also ex-Split Enz); ex-bandmate Flaws' project and album, I Am Joe's Music; the 1983 Models' album The Pleasure of Your Company; and New Zealand outfit D.D. Smash’s 1984 album The Optimist, she went on to tour with D.D. Smash front man Dave Dobbyn, and the New Zealand version of The Party Boys.

In late 1983, Morris formed QED in Sydney with guitarist Rex Goh (ex-Air Supply) and bassist Ian Belton (ex-Dave Dobbyn, Renée Geyer).

Morris provided backing vocals for INXS on their 1984 album, The Swing.

Morris was credited for Dropbears' 1984 mini-LP, Untitled, before contributing backing vocals to INXS' first number 1 album The Swing.

She then recorded a duet with lead singer, Michael Hutchence, on a cover of Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood's hit "Jackson"; it was included as a bonus track on the March 1985 (cassette only) INXS EP, Dekadance, which reached number two on the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart.

Morris worked on their 1985–1986 Listen Like Thieves World Tour.

Morris has won two ARIA Music Awards for 'Best Female Artist' in 1987 and 1988 and was nominated for the same award in 1992.

Her solo career includes top five Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) albums with Shiver in 1989 and Honeychild in 1991, and her top five ARIA singles are "She Has to Be Loved" and "Break in the Weather".

These albums and singles also peaked in the top ten on the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ) charts.

In 2003, on Australia Day (26 January), Morris became an Australian citizen and in 2010 she received the Medal of the Order of Australia.

Jenny Morris was born in Tokoroa, New Zealand and grew up in Hamilton with three brothers (Alistair, Rhys and Tam) and four sisters (Maxine, Bronte, Joanne and Shanley).

Morris wrote a poem on the Vietnam War when she was 12 and used her sister's guitar to put it to music.

Morris has stated that her influences include Aretha Franklin and Dusty Springfield.

Her first professional performance was at age fifteen, at Andersons Theatre Restaurant, in Hamilton.