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.
Sometimes it is really interesting to see where your interest in music comes from. Often an event not meant to, will instill an interest in long lost music. I loved how when Guardians of the Galaxy came out lots of students suddenly started asking me about the music included in the film. Many of you watched the amazing “Avengers Endgame”. The opening of the film was a wonderful deep space scene of characters Tony Stark and Nebula and featured a piece of music that most of you had never heard before. It was a 50 year old class rock cut called Dear Mr. Fantasy by the band Traffic. It came off of their debut album “Mr. Fantasy”. Traffic featured Steve Winwood fresh off of his run with the Spencer Davis Group. He was just 19 years old but sounded like he had been singing for decades. Winwood would go on to front Traffic for a decade and they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004. It was a band that was quite revered by other musicians for being well ahead of their time.
Rolling Stone Magazine loved their debut album which was released on Island Records. This was the label of legendary...(continued)
Sometimes it is really interesting to see where your interest in music comes from. Often an event not meant to, will instill an interest in long lost music. I loved how when Guardians of the Galaxy came out lots of students suddenly started asking me about the music included in the film. Many of you watched the amazing “Avengers Endgame”. The opening of the film was a wonderful deep space scene of characters Tony Stark and Nebula and featured a piece of music that most of you had never heard before. It was a 50 year old class rock cut called Dear Mr. Fantasy by the band Traffic. It came off of their debut album “Mr. Fantasy”. Traffic featured Steve Winwood fresh off of his run with the Spencer Davis Group. He was just 19 years old but sounded like he had been singing for decades. Winwood would go on to front Traffic for a decade and they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004. It was a band that was quite revered by other musicians for being well ahead of their time.
Rolling Stone Magazine loved their debut album which was released on Island Records. This was the label of legendary record man Chris Blackwell. He had one of the best ears for new talent in the business. He was willing to give Traffic a shot and after they split up Winwood went on to form Blind Faith with Eric Clapton who featured heavily in last week’s selection by Cream. After that he reformed Traffic and they hit it really big with the albums “John Barleycorn Must Die” and “The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys” which we featured last year. Low Spark was very brave in that it was an open verbal attack on the guys who ran the music industry and their fast talking ways. Hence the name, The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys. Most of them were not bright enough to realize he was making fun of them. After that he went solo and just ruled the airwaves in the 1980’s with a huge solo release called “Back in the High Life”.