MORGAN GRAHAM: Nashville’s One-Woman Army

By PHIL SWEETLAND
Country music and radio contributor, The New York Times
May 6, 2005

Morgan Graham is the ideal person to lead Graham Entertainment, one of the Southeast’s hottest full-service entertainment companies, because when it comes to nearly all areas of show business Morgan can truly say, “been there, done that.”

She started waiting tables in her family’s restaurant at age 9, by which time Morgan had already been singing for four years; she began acting in community theater at age 11 and fell in love with musicals; she had modeled, competed in numerous beauty contests, and was named Miss Indianapolis; her college major was vocal performance and commercial music and minored in theater; Morgan moved to Nashville 10 years ago and worked at the Opryland Hotel before landing a job at Sun Records; and in the three years since she founded Graham Entertainment, Morgan has already built up a database of over 1,400 amazingly diverse and gifted people.

Phew.

“Everyone says to me, `how are you doing this?’ ” Graham says, smiling. “The minute I don’t have something to do, I feel strange.”

Morgan is a striking redhead and a Scorpio, but the town where she grew up sounds like a Pisces: Fishers, Indiana. The family home was surrounded by cornfields. “I’m truly a Hoosier, except I don’t like basketball,” she says. “I am a John Cougar Mellencamp fan, though.”

At age 5 she sang for the first time. Morgan’s opening number was “Tomorrow” from Annie. It was an early turning point. “That was the moment I knew I wanted to be onstage. From that point on I was always somehow involved with entertainment, singing, acting, and modeling.”

The family wasn’t overly musical, though her father played a little guitar and loved the Pop music of the Beatles and Bee Gees, while Morgan’s mother was very much a Country fan. Her Dad started a pizza restaurant, where little Morgan began waiting tables before she had turned 10. When Morgan was 13, her father died of lung cancer. He was only 38 years old.

“It was very difficult. I wasn’t real happy with the world at that point,” Morgan says. “It took several years for me. I was Daddy’s little girl, but it taught me how to be tough.”

Despite working 40 to 50 hours a week in the restaurant throughout high school, Graham acted in all the plays at school and Community Theater. “By the time I was 16, I thought I would live in New York,” she says. “I think I’m just a natural-born actor. It’s like I tell my students: Everybody acts every day, you get up and you improvise every day. Musicals are my favorite, because you can sing and act at the same time.”

She went to Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois (“it was a great school, but not a fun town”), and studied both music and theater. During college, she also managed a recording studio, combining her years of business experience with her love of music.

Early on, even during her father’s illness, Morgan had begun studying modeling at Barbizon. “It was a good experience,” she says. “It helps build your confidence more than anything else.” So did the fact that after she started entering the fiercely competitive world of beauty pageants, Morgan nearly always won the Talent and Miss Congeniality categories. At age 20, she was named Miss Indianapolis. “That was a great honor, and a lot of fun.”

After college and a few years managing one of the family restaurants back in Indiana, Morgan and her 15-month-old son, Skyler, took the huge step of moving to Nashville. After 4 long rough years in Music City, Morgan met a wonderful man named Bob Hetzel. They got married and are now the proud parents of another son, 3-year-old Gavin.

In Nashville, the working Mom quickly landed a job waiting tables at the Opryland Hotel. But when she and Skyler were disappointed in the quality of the day care, Morgan took a new job with the famous record producer Shelby Singleton at Sun Records. At Sun, she met legendary artists including Brenda Lee, Chubby Checkers, Jack Clement and the Jordanaires, and at night she sang at clubs all over Music City.

After three years at Sun, Morgan taught for a time at the John Casablanca’s modeling school. “I loved teaching, but not the way they did it there,” Graham says. “Since then, I have done a lot of acting coaching on my own. My whole motto is: Knowledge is Power. I still love to get training. Education is an ongoing thing.”

By this time she was pregnant with Gavin. “When I’m pregnant, I’m very sick and I can’t do a whole lot,” Morgan says. “Being a redhead and a Scorpio, if I’m not always doing something I go crazy. And my husband had been encouraging me to get paid for helping other people in show business.”

It was a perfect fit. “People were coming to me all the time, asking me what to wear, where they should be,” Morgan says. “What I created wasn’t just a modeling agency. We do music, we do booking for bands, and we have training availability to meet anybody’s needs.” Working with partner J.R. Davis, Morgan is building a Nashville powerhouse.

At first, she would meet individually to inform and audition singers, actors, and models. Morgan soon learned that her love to talk meant she was spending upwards of an hour with each candidate, so she started putting workshops together. She designed a 2 ½-hour course, and hired a professional acting coach to teach it. “Most people have modeling classes that cost $500 to $2,000,” Morgan says. “But I put together a list of Dos and Don’ts; we go over head shots and how to get them, and the importance of resumes. Then we put the students on camera and teach them how to slate, how to profile, and how to introduce yourself to the casting director. To me, if you can’t get past the audition process, then the training and experience you have obtained won’t make a difference. All we charge for this is $35.”

Graham Entertainment’s “intro to acting” workshop is truly one of the biggest bargains in Nashville. And business – not surprisingly – is booming.

“It’s been great, you know it’s given me a purpose,” Morgan says of her company. “A lot of agencies haven’t been in the business on the artist side. I understand what it’s like to be an actor, a musician, and a model. This is a business. I have a lot of respect in this town now. Before people would say, `you’re just a singer.’ I despised when people would tell me that. I would always say, no, I am not just a singer, but I am an entertainer and a business person. My thing has always been to be outside the box.”

Nobody in Music City is more qualified to give talented people – from toddlers to grandparents – this type of real-world advice. Morgan says, “it’s all about this: When casting directors or record companies see 1,000 people a day, you have to step out from the crowd.”

It’s something Morgan Graham has done her entire life, and she’s just getting started.