Neal Morse

Neal Morse (born August 2, 1960) is an American singer, multi-instrumentalist, bandleader and progressive rock composer based in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1995, he formed the progressive rock band Spock's Beard with his brother Alan and released an album which was moderately successful. In 1999, he joined former Dream Theater co-founder Mike Portnoy, Flower Kings' Roine Stolt and Marillion's Pete Trewavas to form the supergroup Transatlantic. In 2003, he released a solo album Testimony. In 2004, Morse wrote and recorded a new concept album featuring Portnoy and Randy George. In early 2007, Morse released a Christian progressive rock album based on the life of the Protestant Reformer Martin Luther, entitled Sola Scriptura. In September 2012, he released a solo studio album, Momentum, as well as Flying Colors with a newly formed band.
Morse grew up in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles as one of four children. His father was a choral director. Morse started to play the piano at the age of five and started to learn to play the guitar at the age of nine. During his twenties he wrote two musicals (Hit Man and Homeland), did some session jobs, tried to get a deal as a singer/songwriter in Los Angeles, and recorded a few country and western demos with his brother Richard.
Morse became a born again Christian in 2002. He left both Spock's Beard and Transatlantic immediately following the release of the Spock's Beard album Snow, since he felt a calling to make his personal faith more prominent in his recorded output and felt that this would not be possible or appropriate in a band context. The period leading to this decision is described on the solo album Testimony (2003), an epic, introspective composition which features Kerry Livgren of Kansas and Mike Portnoy. One part of his conversion to Christianity, omitted from Testimony but described in full on Testimony Live and later in the song Jayda on Testimony 2, was that his daughter Jayda had been diagnosed as having a hole in her heart that required open-heart surgery. However, before Jayda received surgery, the hole disappeared following a church service in which Morse's wife and others prayed for God's healing.