Tim McMorris was born on February 21, 1982 in Windsor Ontario Canada, and is the first of two children in his family. During his early childhood Tim lived with his family in the Meadowbrook area of Windsor until 1989 when they moved to Belle River, a small town about 40 minutes outside Windsor. Tim reveals “It was there that the foundation of my life was truly established. Belle River was where I experienced true friendship and true hatred of equal measure for the first time.”
Tim began attending Belle River Public School at age seven, and though he recounts many fond childhood memories there, it was at Belle River Public School that Tim was first introduced to the ugliness and cruelty of racism.
Tim was one of very few non-white students at Belle River Public. Being interracial (having a white mother and black father) Tim encountered a kind of racism that he describes as “the kind that only comes from the deliberate instalment of hatred into a child from a parent. As I grew older, this dawned on me and I understood that many of those kids we born into racist families and therefore only acted as they had been raised. It didn’t excuse their actions or behaviours, but it helped me to look at the person and understand why they did the things they did."
Racism was not only an issue at school but even in Tim’s neighbourhood; so much so that at one point some of the neighbors even tried to gather a petition to evict his family from the area because of Tim’s father being black. Thankfully, this was about 1990, not 1960, and most people in the area found the notion to be as absurd as Tim’s family did.
In spite of these obstacles, Tim describes his early childhood as “a good one”. He had made close friends in his neighbourhood, some of which remain friends even today. Though there were some times of trouble outside his home, there was usually laughter and happiness inside. Tim’s story is not one of a severely dysfunctional or hurtful family. In fact he describes his family as “the one continual reliable source of joy in my life.” Tim’s parents Erica and Mel are still married to this day.
Tim was first introduced to music “before I can remember”, he explains. “My dad was in the music business for a long time, he had played the bass for over 25 years with various groups before building a studio of his own to produce. Early on I remember going to fiddle with his bass and other instruments, but I didn’t really understand what was going on until my early teens.”
Tim instinctively joined the Belle River Public school band. He learned to play trumpet from his veteran music teacher and on his own time. This was his first exposure to playing and performing, and Tim fell in love with all that music was.
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