04 May Don’t Miss The Jonnie Morgan Band

Photo by AWOL Photo, LLC

When I saw Jonnie Morgan’s name on the SunFest lineup I let out a little cheer. The handsome and humble songwriter and musician is a fellow University of Central Florida alum. I have had the pleasure of catching the guys at local venues around Orlando. Today they will take the Tire Kingdom stage at 7:30 p.m.

I used this excuse to chat with Morgan before his SunFest debut to find out a little more about his seven piece ensemble.

After dabbling with covers and a successful “Open Mic” night, Morgan and two friends started playing Orlando’s local watering holes…which weren’t always prepared to support a band.

“We were terrible,” Morgan said. “ But it was so awesome to finally play a show. [One] stage we were on was made of plywood and 2x4s. It was bouncing up and down. At one point, my microphone stand fell over and snapped in half during the performance. All the embarrassing things that you should go through, happened.”

It wasn’t long before Morgan had bigger (and more sturdy) stages to play. The band began to grow, adding on another three members by 2010. In 2011, the Jonnie Morgan Band competed for a chance to play Florida Music Festival’s main stage. They beat out 40 bands for the win, no easy feat.

“We’ve been working really hard to continue to make [our music] grow,” Morgan said.

Today, Jonnie Morgan Band consists of seven members: Morgan, Jeremy Adams, Bruno Ufret, Brandon Sollins, Matthew Mill, Corey Paul and Jose Rojas.

“They are all phenomenal musicians,” Morgan said. “There is a huge level of mutual respect between all of us. It’s a really good team that we’ve put together. The advantage is that we are all really good musicians individually, but when we come together we become great.”

Seven members means a lot more instruments to produce a completely “full” sound. You can expect to hear trumpets, trombone and bass guitar.

“It’s really hard to explain to people what we sound like,” Morgan said. “We are like a jam band…We always kind of say rock and roll, infused with R&B and soul, because of our horn section.”

With one EP under their belt, the boys are currently in the studio putting the final tweaks on their sophomore release. You can expect to hear original songs tonight during their first SunFest performance.

“I hope people flock over to us,” Morgan said. “I hope the sound travels and we get a really good turn out.”

I’ll be in that crowd, boys! See you at 7:30 p.m.!