Since Morrissey is playing in Akron on Valentine's Day, the Akron Beacon Journal ran a nice cover story on him in its entertainment section on February 10, 2000. This is the first story of any substance that I have seen in the Cleveland-Akron area on Morrissey, other than brief reviews of past concerts in the area.

Morrissey Alone

No record deals for Brit who wrote so many great songs

All men have secrets and here is mine. So let it be known . . . I believe Morrissey is one of the greatest songwriters of our time.

As the lead singer of the Smiths and as a solo artist, Morrissey has crafted some of the most memorable, moving music in the past two decades -- from the anthem of the disenfranchised How Soon Is Now? to the encouraging Sing Your Life, to the melancholy he is best known for in hits like Everyday Is Like Sunday and Tomorrow.

Sure, it's pretty easy to dismiss him now. Once the king of the British indie-rock charts, Morrissey now finds himself without a record company, without a new album, without a publicity machine.

Despite four gold records and a gold video, he was dropped from his various record companies after a series of increasingly failing solo albums that featured maddeningly average songs collected in packages that seem more and more exploitative of his exceedingly loyal fan base.

His current U.S. tour, which stops in Akron on Monday, isn't to promote a new album -- or anything new for that matter. It's simply a puzzling string of dates where he is expected to play equally puzzling sets culled from both his solo work and his work with the Smiths.

Why? That's a good question -- one that will likely go unanswered since he isn't doing very many interviews these days. His publicist wouldn't even return calls seeking an interview for this article.

However, come Monday night a couple of thousand of the Morrissey faithful will no doubt show up at the Akron Civic Theatre to hail their musical hero. Many will be screaming, ``Morrrisseeee!'' with the same reckless abandon that Springsteen fans reserve for ``Broooooce!'' or teen-age girls save for their favorite Backstreet Boy or 'N Syncer.

They will come bearing gladioluses (once his favorite flower) and unnecessary hearing aids (once his favorite accessory), clad in oversized cardigan sweaters or his more recent all-denim look, with hair coifed in his unusual modernized rockabilly style.

Why? That one I can answer.

A unique band

When Morrissey and the Smiths burst onto the music scene in 1983, it was like they fell from space.

They didn't look like anyone else.

They didn't act like anyone else.

Most of all, they didn't sound like anyone else.

In the mid '80s, early in the Reagan-Thatcher era, most music was slick and synthesized. The charts were packed with dance pop from Michael Jackson and Prince and stylish Englishmen like the Police and Duran Duran weaving tales of the hip, lush life.

The Smiths did the opposite.

While most musicians focused on being smooth operators, urging fans to follow them to the Promised Land of Cool, the Smiths did songs like Accept Yourself with lines like ``When will you accept yourself? I am sick and I am dull and I am plain.''

They championed Oscar Wilde. They called for the figurative beheading of Margaret Thatcher. They mourned murdered children, urged knowledge of nature, encouraged poetry and bemoaned a lack of love.

Morrissey's lyrics appealed to the bookish and the shy, to outsiders of all sorts, while guitarist Johnny Marr's jangly riffs and the Smiths' bouncy rhythm section kept the songs from being maudlin.

As Morrissey sings ``I am human and I need to be loved,'' in the band's best-known hit How Soon Is Now?, he sounds defiant and demanding in his plea.

At the beginning of the Smiths' climb to the top, Morrissey was militantly vegetarian, fiercely British, unwaveringly celibate and so outspoken on any topic that he was a lightning rod for controversy. He handled it all with intelligence, humor and disdain and a simple message: It's OK to be different.

Welcome message

That was a message I needed to hear as a minority teen-ager growing up in an overwhelmingly white suburb, as a working-class kid trying to make his way at an upper-middle-class high school.

That was a message that many fans of Morrissey's music needed to hear at various points in their lives for various reasons. I have friends who became vegetarians because of Morrissey, friends who came out of the closet because of his music, friends who got through their divorces by listening to him.

They are not alone.

Nearly every Smiths fan has a story about how the music affected him or her. In the book All Men Have Secrets, Smiths fans from around the world write about their favorite songs and how those songs changed their lives.

They all give reasons why his fan base is still so loyal today, even though he hasn't had a real hit in nearly a decade.

In the past five years, Morrissey has had it rough.

The songs aren't nearly as sharp as they used to be, leading to disappointing sales and the eventual dismissal from his record contract. He lost a major legal battle over royalties with former bandmates Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce. After the British press became relentless in their questioning of his various statements, he exiled himself to Los Angeles.

However, Morrissey may be changing that. He is fielding deals for a new record contract and working on new songs for a new album.

He does have his supporters in the industry. After all, much of the current crop of British rockers owe at least part of their sound to the Smiths.

With his considerable talent, Morrissey could turn his career around with a single song.

And he has a whole fan base ready to welcome him back with open arms.

Glenn Gamboa is the Akron Beacon Journal's pop music writer.

Also appearing in the Akron Beacon is 'I am human and I need to be loved' - Top 10 Morrissey One-Liners.