Alicia Morgan - author of "The Price of Right"
New York-born and Florida-raised, Alicia McCracken Morgan taught herself to read at the age of three, when her mother noticed her reading the newspaper. She taught herself to play the piano at age nine, beginning a lifelong addiction to which there seems to be no cure. Following in the footsteps of her father, a painter and art professor, at fifteen Alicia was working at Busch Gardens in Tampa as a portrait artist, and then a cartoonist – one of the first females hired there to draw caricatures, as the prevailing wisdom was that “women weren’t funny enough to be cartoonists.” But music soon became her primary focus, and she began her professional music career in high school. She briefly attended college, but was offered a road gig and ended her formal 'higher education' after a few months.
Alicia is one of the few people who have actually ‘run away with the circus’. After playing in the backup band for a magic show, she ended up joining the show as a performer, working for a man who caught bullets in his teeth and doing illusions. She spent the next few years playing carnivals and circuses, returning to winter quarters in Gibsonton and Sarasota in between show seasons. Like all women in the circus, she learned to perform on the ‘web’, the long white ropes that hang from the ceiling of the tent. Alicia also worked in the side show, where she was a fire-eater, Serpentina the Snake Woman and the India-Rubber Girl.
Returning to music, she found her way to Los Angeles, where she met her husband, and continued to work as a musician while raising her children. Alicia began writing in 2004 when a friend recommended it as a way to deal with the frustration she felt with the outcome of the election. Having heard about ‘blogs’, she decided to start one of her own, and her political blog Last Left Turn Before Hooterville became her daily therapy. Her article about her experience singing on the Neil Young album Living With War garnered her world-wide, if short-lived, attention, and she was interviewed and/or quoted by the LA Times, Editors & Publishers, the London Independent, Rolling Stone and Radio France Internationale. Last Left Turn Before Hooterville was a finalist in the Weblog Awards in 2006. She also has a companion political Photoshop cartoon blog, Capitol Punishment, which she works on when time permits or inspiration strikes. She teaches voice, keyboards and computer recording at the Musicians Institute in Hollywood.
Her first book, The Price of Right: How the Conservative Agenda Has Failed
America (and Always Will) was published in September 2008 by Sterling & Ross.
Alicia lives in Sherman Oaks, CA with her family. She is a wife of one, mother of three, stepmom of one, a concierge of two Burmese cats who think they are dogs and a Dalmatian/Great Dane dervish of a dog.
Links to my music blogs:
Alicia's Keys to Finale and GarageBand
Video:
The Neil Young album that David and I sang on is available to listen to in full:
Click album cover to hear the full record of Neil Young's "Living With
War"
