Singer/Songwriter Morgan James was born in Boise, Idaho but spent the most of her youth travelling across the country, growing up in many states including Utah, Tennessee and California. Music was her passion at a young age and was hell bent on chasing her dream of attending The Juilliard School in New York City. After auditioning, being wait-listed then ultimately rejected, Morgan wasn’t taking no for an answer. After lengthy discussions with the head of admissions she not only convinced them to accept her but to create an additional space on top of their usual enrollment numbers. It was here where she studied opera and graduated with a Bachelor of Music in Voice. In 2010, she made her Broadway debut in the musical production of The Addams Family alongside the legendary Nathan Lane. It wasn’t until 2014 that Morgan released her 1st studio album ‘Hunter’ via Epic Records. This well trained vocalist is well known for her cover tracks and her collaborations with popular rotating musical collective Postmodern Jukebox where they would rework modern music into vintage remixes, a niche channel with hundreds of millions of views on YouTube. Now with over 23 million streams on Spotify alone, Morgan James has made quite the name for herself in the music industry.
On November 5th, this promising artist released her first Christmas album titled ‘A Very Magnetic Christmas’. A 10-track soulful spin on the classics including a titillating new take on Clarence Carter’s 1968 provocative hit ‘Backdoor Santa’. This song is unlike most other Holiday hits singing about peace, joy and presents. Instead, it paints the picture of a naughty Santa Claus that “makes all the little girls happy while the boys are out to play”. For a storyline so provocative, it is no surprise that Morgan James released a professionally produced animated music video to pair with the song.
Taking fans all the way back to the 1930s with this animated music video, it is clearly heavily inspired by the early years of the Golden age of American animation such as the cartoons from Disney and Fleischer Studios. In particular, the works of Ub Iwerks (Steamboat Willie), Grim Natwick (Bettie Boop) and Willard Bowsky (Popeye) were great inspirations along with other popular ‘Rubber Hose’ styled animations.The music video features a light haired, long legged retro cartoon reimagining of Morgan James. Consistent with most animated features at the time, the music video is mostly monochrome with the odd dark red element. In this cartoon city, we see the townspeople hustling and bustling about running their Christmas errands. Along comes our female Santa Claus flying down the street in her red convertible (instead of a sleigh – I love this!) overflowing with presents. The car bounces up and down dramatically and repeatedly just as the retro did. Although James is singing Carter’s lyrics, I love the gender swap in the cartoon where instead of a naughty Mr. Claus, we see a seductive Ms. Claus sneaking around with all the boys.
One of my favorite scenes is when one of the townsmen drops his presents and as it hits the ground it opens up to reveal our pretty protagonist who reaches out with a larger than life candy cane and pulls him inside. The box shakes and bounces around eventually spitting her out and leaving the man completely love struck with lipstick kisses all over his face. Another fun scene is when James is singing “I keep some change in my pocket whenever the kiddies are home. I give ‘em all a few pennies so that we can be alone”. We see our lady love dancing down the street showering golden coins to all the grasping hands. Inside the apartment, there seems to be some commotion coming from inside a closed bedroom door, leaving viewers to chuckle at the suggestive story line. It is clear that our cartoon cutie is well received all over town as inside the bouncy bar, we see countless characters ogling at her as she performs table top. A couple classic shots of elongated heart shaped eyeballs popping out of lusty heads adds even more cleverness and jest to this vintage themed music video.
The animated music video for ‘Back Door Santa’ is nothing short of impressive. It truly represents the high-quality results an artist can have when hiring a professional company to execute an important project. This cartoon playfully encapsulates everything that this vintage song represents. By bringing something important from the past and combining it with modern day elements, Morgan James has opened herself up to a whole new fanbase.
Check out the animated music video for ‘Back Door Santa‘ on Morgan James’ official YouTube channel here:
Spot on with this write-up, I truly assume this website wants much more consideration. probably be again to read much more, thanks for that info.
Its good as your other content : D
Hello. Fantastic job. I did not expect this. This is a superb article. Thanks!
Great blog here!
enjoy your composing design, do carry on creating! I is going to be back!
Youre so cool! I dont suppose Ive learn anything like this before. So nice to discover any person with some authentic thoughts on this topic. really thank you for starting this up. this web site is something that is wanted on the internet, someone with just a little bit originality. valuable job for bringing something new towards the internet!
Keep up the wonderful piece of work
hey I was quite impressed with the setup you used with this blog. I use blogs my self so great job. definitely adding to bookmarks.
Oh my goodness! amazing write-up dude