Hello and welcome to Morganchem, the home of all things NErDy at Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet High School and the official web presence of Michael Morgan.
I take your child's education very seriously. It is with that intention that I have provided this webpage for you and your child to help get a better understanding of what goes on in their Chemistry class. Here you will find our weekly and semester long schedules, copies of all the homework assignments and laboratories, daily announcements, and important information to help parents keep their children on track.
To learn more about my academic activities and the success of my students view my biography under the "about" menu. For those interested in the many different academic activities that my students are involved in on a daily basis outside normal class hours look at the Chem Club page on the "about" menu.
Over the past twenty years music education has disappeared from our schools. This becomes obvious when listening to new music on the radio only to hear music that is unoriginal or even bad. Most of today's so called artists do not write their own music or even play their own instruments.
So in the spirit of teaching you everything we can, this page features an Album of the Week. These are not ordinary albums in the history of music. These are the groundbreaking pieces of music that truly shaped how music was presented, recorded, and how it influenced other musicians and the public.
A few notes about the choices. They are albums and not collections of single songs thrown together willy-nilly. They were meant to be played in order. They often told a story or set a mood. Some of them defined a genre and some defined a generation. I strongly recommend that you ask your Parents/Grandparents to dig through their record collections and find their old copies of these and put them on the turntable and experience them the way they were meant to be experienced.
The entry for this week was written by my good friend and former colleague Cesar Chavez. We lost him a few years ago and he is dearly missed. I think his insight into this album is much better then my own so I asked him to prepare this entry.
Back in Black
The decade of disco had passed and 1980 ushered in the promise of solidifying the hard rock and heavy metal sounds that had paved the way by such greats as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. No one expected, however, that future Heavy Metal Gods, AC/DC, were being forged, literally by fire and brimstone in Australia, to be known forever more as the Thunder Down Under.
The band had built a relatively successful following after six albums and were working on their 7th, when tragedy changed the face of rock and roll forever. In February of 1980, Bon Scott, the prolific lead singer and song writer for the band, died unexpectedly of alcohol poisoning. This nearly drove AC/DC to call it quits, but after some soul searching (and with the support of Bon Scott's parents), the band stayed together and hired Brian Johnson as their new singer. They agreed to continue...(continued)
The entry for this week was written by my good friend and former colleague Cesar Chavez. We lost him a few years ago and he is dearly missed. I think his insight into this album is much better then my own so I asked him to prepare this entry.
Back in Black
The decade of disco had passed and 1980 ushered in the promise of solidifying the hard rock and heavy metal sounds that had paved the way by such greats as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. No one expected, however, that future Heavy Metal Gods, AC/DC, were being forged, literally by fire and brimstone in Australia, to be known forever more as the Thunder Down Under.
The band had built a relatively successful following after six albums and were working on their 7th, when tragedy changed the face of rock and roll forever. In February of 1980, Bon Scott, the prolific lead singer and song writer for the band, died unexpectedly of alcohol poisoning. This nearly drove AC/DC to call it quits, but after some soul searching (and with the support of Bon Scott's parents), the band stayed together and hired Brian Johnson as their new singer. They agreed to continue and finish what they stared.
What they created, the final result, was pure magic. Released on July 25th, 1980 (six months after Bon Scott's death), Back in Black became an instant classic. The album had a solid black appearance, no art work; the band dedicated this to their fallen member. It just simply said the band's name and album title silhouetted in grey, but the content, song after song became hit after hit. In short, this album has become the anthem for all rock and roll and heavy metal listeners. Each song is quickly recognizable wherever it is played (bars or stadiums). No listener was to be found without this album in his/her collection.
Today, Back in Black continues to sell; it has been re-mastered and re-released numerous times. It is the 2nd best selling album in history, behind Michael Jackson's Thriller. Regardless of your musical taste or preference, I'm sure you have heard (or will hear)any number of the songs from the album, "Hells Bells", Shoot to Thrill", "Back in Black", "Have a Drink on Me", "Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution", or Tipper Gore's favorite, "Let Me Put My Love Into You", which earned the album the infamous explicit lyrics sticker in 1985, which did nothing to curb its sales or mass appeal.