Born December 7th, 1948 in Fort Worth, Texas to Stanley and Margaret Morris, Gary Gwyn Morris is the closest thing American popular music has to a renaissance man. With a sound, range and depth unlike any singer in popular music history, Morris’s voice has captivated fans around the world for more than half a century with songs that have weaved that voice into the very fabric of our culture, our hearts, our playlists and our lives.
Raised in a home & family bound by faith and a healthy respect for traditional values, Morris’s early life was a balance between hard work, team sports and his love of music.
It was a love shared and nurtured by his mother & father, his younger brother, Mark, and his twin sister, Carey, who Morris credits with being his duet partner in his first public performance.
And while he was only all of nine years old, from that moment on, Morris knew exactly what he wanted to do with my life. Sports and everything else took a backseat, and performing for folks anywhere and everywhere they’d let him on a stage became his passion.
Fueled by his unmistakable voice, his gift for songwriting, a string of 15 Top Ten hits and 5 #1 singles that made him one of Country music’s biggest stars, that passion has led Morris to perform on many of the world’s greatest stages over his remarkable 50 year-long career; a career that gave the world one of the most memorable songs of this or any other era; ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’.
A career that saw him step away from his role as a Country & Pop singer, and into the role of an actor and Opera star, taking the Broadway world by storm with his turns as Rodolfo in Joseph Papp’s contemporary production of ‘La Boheme’ with Linda Ronstadt, and his starring turn as Jean Valjean in Sir Cameron McIntosh’s 1987 production of ‘Les Miserables’,
Now, marking 50 years as one of the world’s greatest troubadours, Morris recalled that…” after all the hit records, all the awards, the recognition, the thousands of shows all over the world… to this day, every time I walk on the stage, I’m still looking for that same feeling when Carey and I brought down the house in our third grade talent show,… a feeling I hope & pray that I never stop looking for.”
