Kevin Morris remembers watching Alabama Shakes play their signature roots rock sound on a boat in Tuscaloosa, Ala. in 2011 — before he became their manager and they gained fame and a Grammy nomination.
“The first time I saw them I thought they were going to be a big band,” said Morris, a 1990 Great Neck North High School graduate and former resident of Great Neck Estates. “Obviously it was one of those things where I was on this boat for 30 minutes texting all of my friends, telling them this is best band I’ve ever seen in my life. We’ve been really fortunate a lot of people really dig the music.”
Morris, who has now been managing bands for about 15 years, first heard about the The Shakes, as they were originally known, while working at Red Light Management, a music management company.
One of the people who runs the music website Aquarium Drunkard sent the Drive-By Truckers — another band he manages — a link to The Shakes’ song “You Ain’t Alone,” Morris said.
The band sent the link to Morris, who since 2009 has been managing several musicians with Red Light including the Drive-By Truckers, Amos Lee and Taj Mahal.
After hearing the song, Morris said, he went to the band’s home in Athens, Ala. to meet its members — Brittany Howard, Zac Cockrell, Heath Fogg and Steve Johnson.
At their initial meeting, the band gave him a copy of what would eventually become “Boys & Girls,” which was released and reached sixth on the U.S. Billboard 200.
“I fell in love with them as people,” Morris said. “We came down the next week again to see them play on a boat in Tuscaloosa as an opener act.”
Morris immediately signed the band that would become Alabama Shakes in summer 2011, he said.
Alabama Shakes released “Boys & Girls” in 2012, which was followed “Sound & Color” this year.
During this time, they have played on “Saturday Night Live,” “Conan,” “the Late Show with David Letterman” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
Attraction to the music industry runs in Morris’ blood — his uncle Chuck Morris was a concert promoter with AEG, a music promotion company.
Morris would also go to Rolling Stones and Billy Joel concerts as a child with his father, Dr. Stephen Morris, a North Hills resident and frequent letter-writer to Blank Slate Media.
“I got to go to these really great concerts, and I got really into music, but then in college I never really thought about the music business as a career path,” he said.
After graduating from Great Neck North High School in 1990, Morris studied at the University of Michigan before going to George Washington University Law School.
“I always knew I wanted to go into law,” Morris said. “I was always into politics and kind of felt like being a lawyer was a natural extension of that.”
He said after a year he began losing his connection with the law.
But his uncle Chuck, who introduced him to bands when he was growing up, gave him a suggestion — he could be a lawyer for bands.
That, he said, would change him forever.
A short time later in 1996, Morris said he met with Zumwalt, Almon & Hayes an entertainment law firm in Nashville, Tenn., on music row.
“I flew down to a Nashville law firm to meet with them, and clerked at the place for no money and kind of fell for it,” he said. “I loved sort of helping bands with trademark law and publishing.”
The law firm offered to let him be the lawyer for bands after two summers of clerking there.
He said that while he enjoyed being a music lawyer, he was always more attracted to the creative side of the music industry — something that managing bands would allow him to tap into.
“As a manager you get really involved with the bands — as a lawyer you do more contracts and negotiations,” he said.
So in 1999, he said, he quit his law career and moved to Boulder, Colo. to manage bands.
“It was a tough decision after three years of law school, and putting all that energy into the bar exam,” Morris said, noting he did take and pass the bar exam in Colorado, just in case things didn’t work out.
“I was doing really well on the legal side, and when I moved to Colorado to work with a band they never heard of you can imagine their reaction,” Morris said. “My parents said ‘just in case this doesn’t work out you might want to take the bar in Colorado too.”
He started managing bands for Madison House, a music management company. His first band was the progressive bluegrass band The String Cheese Incident, which he still manages.
In 2005, Morris moved to New York City, while continuing to work at Madison until 2009 when he became a manager at Red Light.
His involvement with bands, Morris said, varies on what the members want. He gives opinions on song choice and placement on a record, and gets them to their live performances.
“They write the songs and do the shows but they welcome our input,” Morris said.
Morris said he is particularly close with the Alabama Shakes.
“With The Shakes it’s a real family vibe,” he said. “We’re a close-knit family” with band members voting on all creative decisions.
“The songwriting was the first thing I thought was great — as songwriters they really connected with their songs,” Morris said. “They’re also one of the best live bands out there.”
Most of the time, he said, he travels with the band, which just finished performing at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, Calif. The band also just recently got back from a series of concerts in Australia, Las Vegas and San Francisco.
“You’re an important part of the team,” Morris added. “Obviously the band makes the music, but the manager is like a coach — you have to put time in.”
Morris said that while the travel is exciting, it is also hard to be away from his wife and two-year-old daughter.
“I’ve seen my wife and daughter 36 hours of the past month,” Morris said Friday. “It’s a time-intensive job, you have weird hours and have to be available 24 hours a day.”
