Corvallis native turns break up songs into a sweet sweet 'Valentine'

CORVALLIS - Morgan Grace spent her early years in Sweet Home, but her most impressionable years in Corvallis, attending Highland View Middle School and Corvallis High School before moving to Portland to pursue a career as a guitar playing singer/songwriter in 1995.

Still, she was more than happy to accept the honor, of Best New Artist at the 2009 Portland Music Awards last month, where she was also nominated for Best Female Artist

"It's cool. It's awesome," Grace said. "I've been here for so long. I played my first show in Portland in 1998 when I was 21. I was out there playing in bars just as soon as I could."

Over the years she's played everything from angry rock to jazz to pop to the just plan undefinable.

The award comes in the wake of her successful album "Valentine," which she released in early summer 2008. The album combined elements of Grace's earlier albums such as "The Sound of Something Breaking," "The Rules of Dating" and her work with the band The Suicide Race, as well as new material.

The process was funded in large part by $10,000 and a CD pressing deal that Grace won in the 2006 American Idol Underground competition.

"Almost every penny of it went right back into helping my music," she said.

"I did that whole album all by myself," Grace said. "I didn't have to consult with any bandmates or anything. I recorded it myself, played everything myself and I think it has a much cooler vibe than like the other two (albums)."

"Since I was a teenager, I've always recorded four-track stuff and kind of 'demoed' it out before bringing it to the band," she said. "I learned a lot as I went along. It was really fun."

" I was literally lying in bed with my laptop (working on the music). Way cooler than listening to your money ticking by and not being able to express yourself to the engineer about how you want it to sound."

Grace has taught herself all sort of computer skills in order to save money on recording and promoting her music, including HTML Web site formatting.

"I make Web sites for musicians and I do all sorts of things to scrape by," she said. "Believe me, I am not making a living at this right now."

"Jesus, I was a bartender for what felt like my entire life and then I went back to Portland State and got my degree in classical guitar, and for some reason that just lead me right back to the service industry," she said. "I actually drive a cab right now."

"The cab is cool because its so flexible and I don't have to work that much," she said.

Grace said that she's not sure where her catchy lyrics come from, describing her writing process as akin to a creative blackout, but elements of her life always seem to seep in.

"With the exception of two songs that are on the "Rules of Dating "that are about my dad, every word is basically 100 percent true," she said. "I mean it's all very personal and it's coming from a place of yeah, that really happened to me and now I'm going to sing about it."

As a line in one of her songs, directed at an ex-boyfriend, so aptly puts it: "Don't piss off a songwriter, you should know better."

Grace will be in Corvallis with her full band, which includes Sam Henry on drums, John Iten on bass and Jessica Larriva on keyboard for a show at 9 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 28, at Cloud 9.

CHECK IT OUT

Morgan Grace, The Bookhouse Boys, 9 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 28, Cloud 9, 130 S.W. First. St, Corvallis. Admission: $3. Information: www.morgangracemusic.com or www.myspace.com/morgangrace.