This rockabilly artist led an obscure career and performed under several different names. Willie Morrell, Sr was born in Milton, Florida on June 27, 1938. A 1957 Billboard magazine mentions rocker Willie Morrell being a new talent managed by WEBY radio DJ Doyle "Jollie Chollie" Cook. By the time he appears on vinyl though, he initially went by the stage name Jackie Morningstar. His most well known recording is Rockin' In The Graveyard which was initially put out in 1959 on the Sandy label out...
This rockabilly artist led an obscure career and performed under several different names. Willie Morrell, Sr was born in Milton, Florida on June 27, 1938. A 1957 Billboard magazine mentions rocker Willie Morrell being a new talent managed by WEBY radio DJ Doyle "Jollie Chollie" Cook. By the time he appears on vinyl though, he initially went by the stage name Jackie Morningstar. His most well known recording is Rockin' In The Graveyard which was initially put out in 1959 on the Sandy label out of Mobile Alabama, but has since been reissued many times since the 1970's via Rockabilly revival compilations. The song warranted a brief mention in Billboard at the time of release, "Ghoulish rocker is sung in sprightly rockabilly fashion". Jackie also recorded the lesser known song No Date. These songs were also released in 1959 and reputedly recorded at the Singing River studios in Biloxi, Mississippi. He released a couple more songs that came out in 1963, but not under the name Jackie Morningstar. The artist name he used was Jackie Morrell And His Jazz Masters aka Jackie "Morning Star" Morrell And His Jazz Masters. Those self-composed tracks were titled "Got the Blues" and "Rain on the Window Pane" put out on the Jay-Em label out of Nashville who used the RCA Custom Pressing plant for the source of their 7" 45 RPM singles. 1967 saw Willie Morrell publish two songs :Brother, I'm Gettin' Ready" and "I'm Making Plans To Be With Jesus" via Hank Locklin's Coldwater Publishing Co., which was managed by Morrell's longtime promoter and radio DJ friend Doyle Cook. In 1974, Morrell ran for a county commissioner seat in his hometown of Milton FL, and in his electoral filing bio, he said he was a Nashville recording artist for Minaret Records (founded by Herb Schucher and initially run out of Valparaiso FL but by the 1970's Minaret became affiliated and distributed via the Nashville based Shelby Singleton Corporation, who also bought the Sun label back catalog rights). During the 70's, he led "Willie Morrell and the Down South Band" and in 1977 he released the a country album "Lead Me Not Into Temptation" with a back cover quote by the afforementioned Hank Locklin. The album was released on the Country Artists label, apparently run by music publisher and producer Finley Duncan out of Munson Florida who'd started out as Jukebox operator. Although Morell/Morningstar's "Rockin In The Graveyard" single may have sold a million reissued copies, Morrell died largely unknown as an obscure regional musical artist, at the age of 68 on December 26, 2006 in Pensacola, Florida. He is interned at Lewis Williams Memorial Cemetery in his longtime hometown of Milton, Florida where many Morrell's live nearby, as does his surviving son Willie Morrell Jr on Morrell Rd. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.
