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Van Morrison (born August 31, 1945 as George Ivan Morrison) is a singer and songwriter from Belfast, Northern Ireland. He plays a variety of instruments, including the guitar, harmonica, keyboards, and saxophone. Featuring his characteristic growl — a unique mix of throaty folk, blues, Irish, skat, and Celtic influences — Morrison is widely considered one of the most unusual and influential vocalists in the history of rock and roll. Famed critic Greil Marcus has gone so far as to note that "No white man sings like Van Morrison." Known as "Van the Man" by his fans, Morrison first rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Northern Irish band Them, penning their seminal 1965 hit "Gloria". A few years later, Morrison left the band for a successful solo career. Morrison has pursued an idiosyncratic musical path. Much of his music is tightly structured around the conventions of American soul and R&B, such as the popular singles "Brown Eyed Girl", "Moondance", and "Domino". An equal part of his catalogue consists of lengthy, loosely connected, spiritually inspired musical journeys that show the influence of Celtic tradition, jazz, and stream-of-consciousness narrative, such as his classic album Astral Weeks and lesser known works such as Veedon Fleece and Common One. The two strains together are sometimes referred to as "Celtic Soul". Morrison's career, spanning some four decades, has influenced many popular musical artists. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2000, Morrison ranked number 25 on American cable music channel VH1's list of its 100 greatest artists of rock and roll. He lives in Dublin, Ireland..
Early life Growing up in a Church of Ireland family in East Belfast, Morrison was exposed to music from an early age, as his father, George, collected American jazz and blues albums, and his mother Violet was a singer. His father's taste in music was passed on to him, and he grew up listening to artists such as Ray Charles, Leadbelly and Solomon Burke. In a 2005 Rolling Stone article he said that "Those guys were the inspiration that got me going. If it wasn't for that kind of music, I couldn't do what I'm doing now."* Before becoming a successful musician, Morrison had a job as a window cleaner, * referenced in the autobiographical songs "Cleaning Windows" and "St Dominic's Preview". 1960s Morrison left home at age 15 to pursue a music career. He played in several local skiffle and rock 'n' roll bands, including playing saxophone for Clubsound during practise sessions, before joining the group The Monarchs and touring across Europe. He formed the group Them in 1964 and came to prominence fronting the band. The band had a number of chart hits, most notably the rock standard, "Gloria", subsequently covered by many artists, including The Doors, Shadows of Knight and Jimi Hendrix. At one point in the mid-60's Van also played impromptu in Los Angeles at the Whisky a Go Go club with Jim Morrison, in which the two sang 'Gloria' together. He was quoted, years later during an interview saying, "Of my whole career, the shining moment was when I sang 'Gloria' onstage at the Whisky with Jim Morrison." * Morrison became unhappy with increasing emphasis on the use of studio musicians, and left the band after a U.S. tour in 1966. He returned to Belfast, intending to quit the music business. Them’s one-time producer, Bert Berns, persuaded him to return to New York and record solo for the Bang Records label. From these early sessions emerged one of his best-known songs, "Brown Eyed Girl" (which reached After Berns’s death in 1967, Morrison moved to Boston, Massachusetts. He was soon confronted with personal and financial problems. He had entered an alcohol-induced depression and had trouble finding gigs. However, through the few gigs he could find, he regained his professional footing and started recording with the Warner Bros. label. His first album for them was Astral Weeks (which he had already performed in several clubs around Boston), a mystical song cycle considered by many to be his best work. Released in 1968, the album was critically acclaimed, but received an indifferent response from the public. Morrison, in a Rolling Stone interview in 1970, described the album as a rock opera with a definite story line. Astral Weeks has been placed on several lists of the best albums of all time and is often cited as an early example of a "concept album". 1970s Morrison then moved to Woodstock, New York, ostensibly to be close to the area where Bob Dylan was residing, and released his next album, Moondance in 1970, which reached Over the next few years, he released several acclaimed albums (particularly 1970's His Band and the Street Choir, 1971's Tupelo Honey and 1972's Saint Dominic's Preview), which spawned the hits "Domino" ( By 1972, despite being a performer for nearly 10 years, he began experiencing stage-fright when performing in front of large audiences, in front of thousands of people as opposed to the hundreds he had experienced in his early career. He would get anxious on stage and have difficulty establishing eye-contact with the audience. He once said on an interview about performing on stage, "I dig singing the songs but there are times when it's pretty agonizing for me to be out there." * After a brief break from music, he started performing in clubs and regained his ability to perform live, albeit with a smaller audience. He then formed the backing group, The Caledonia Soul Orchestra and ventured on a three-month US tour with them. This tour was captured for posterity on the live double album, It's Too Late to Stop Now, widely regarded as one of the great live albums in rock history. Soon after recording the album, Morrison restructured the Caledonia Soul Orchestra into a smaller unit, the Caledonia Soul Express. For many years, his parents, George and Violet owned a record store in Fairfax, California named Caledonia Records. In 1973 Morrison divorced his wife of seven years, the violinist Janet Planet, with whom he had a daughter, the singer-songwriter Shana Morrison, with whom he has occasionally duetted. He then released the introspective and poignant album Veedon Fleece in 1974. Though it attracted little attention at the time of its release, its critical stature has grown over the years, and Veedon Fleece is now considered one of Morrison's best works. "You Don't Pull No Punches, But You Don't Push the River", one of the album's side closers, exemplifies the long, hypnotic, cryptic Morrison, with its references to visionary poet William Blake and to the apparently Grail-like Veedon Fleece object. Morrison would not release a follow-up album for the next three years. During this time, he was able to write and record a number of new songs, and in a KSAN radio interview in 1974, Van indicated plans to release a new album, Mechanical Bliss, a mere 4-5 months after Veedon Fleece. The projected February 1975 street date came and went without a release as Morrison continued to work on the album. During this time, the album title underwent a number of changes (at one time, it was to be called Stiff Upper Lip, another time it was retitled Naked In The Jungle), and the painter Zox was even commissioned to create the sleeve-artwork. The project was ultimately abandoned, and much of the work done would have to wait until 1998's Philosopher's Stone to see official release. (Zox's painting was later incorporated into the cover art to The Royal Scam, a Steely Dan album released in 1976.) * In 1976, Morrison performed at the farewell concert for The Band, which took place on Thanksgiving Day. It was his first live performance in quite some time, and Morrison considered skipping his appearance up until the very last minute. Morrison was on good terms with The Band. They were near-neighbours in Woodstock and they had shared experience of stage-fright. At the concert, Van performed two songs, one of them being "Caravan", from his 1970 album, Moondance; which was described by All Movie Guide as "a rousing performance".* The concert was filmed and later issued in Martin Scorsese's 1978 film, The Last Waltz, which is widely considered a landmark concert film. A highlight is Morrison's out-of-character exuberance, exemplified by extraordinary high-kicks. In 1977, Morrison finally released A Period of Transition, a collaboration with Dr. John, who also appeared at The Last Waltz. Universally dismissed as subpar work, it did begin a very prolific period of song making. The following year, Morrison released Wavelength; it, too, was widely dismissed, but the engaging title track became a modest hit. The opening track, "Kingdom Hall" (about Morrison's own childhood experience around Jehovah's Witnesses), also foreshadowed the religious turn in Morrison's next album, Into the Music. Released in 1979, Into The Music was hailed as a masterpiece: "An erotic/religious cycle of songs that culminates in the greatest side of music Morrison has created since Astral Weeks" (Dave Marsh, The Rolling Stone Album Guide, 2nd Edition). It has been called Morrison's last great album by many members of the music press. 1980s Much of the music Morrison released throughout the 80s continued to focus on themes of spirituality and faith as Morrison's compositions steered towards New Age territory. He gave a special thanks to L. Ron Hubbard on his 1983 album, Inarticulate Speech of the Heart, although he has never been formally associated with Scientology or any other Church. * Morrison's 1986 release, No Guru, No Method, No Teacher, earned enthusiastic reviews from many, but not all critics. During the recording, the artist's characteristic deep growl was in grand form and the album featured some of the grittiest acoustic arrangements since the days of Astral Weeks, but not all critics were comfortable with the increasingly religious content. Unflustered, Morrison was slightly less gritty and more adult contemporary with the well received Poetic Champions Compose, considered to be one of his highlights of the '80s.* In 1988, he released Irish Heartbeat with the Irish group, The Chieftains; a popular-selling record, which demonstrated the full range of Morrison's unique vocal power on a collection of traditional Irish folk songs. In 1989, Morrison released an even more popular seller, Avalon Sunset, which featured the hit duet with Cliff Richard, "Whenever God Shines His Light"; and the ballad, "Have I Told You Lately" (also popularised by Rod Stewart). A critical and commercial success, Morrison was able to capitalize on its success with the release of The Best of Van Morrison. Not to be mistaken with a similarly-titled compilation released in 1967 (and long out-of-print), this was the first collection ever to survey his entire career. Compiled by Morrison himself and focusing on his hit singles, it became a multi-platinum success and remains the most popular item in Van Morrison's catalogue. 1990s In 1990, Morrison joined many other guests for Roger Waters' massive performance of The Wall in Berlin. He sang "Comfortably Numb" with Roger Waters, old friend Levon Helm, Garth Hudson and Rick Danko. Though Morrison's commercial success would continue throughout the 1990s, the critical reception to his work began to decline. 1990's Enlightenment yielded one hit single, "Real Real Gone" (first recorded ten years earlier), and 1991's double-CD Hymns to the Silence was one of his most ambitious works, but 1993's Too Long in Exile, 1995's Days Like This, and others were not well received. In contrast, the live (double) album A Night in San Francisco (1994) was a tour-de-force, showing Morrison's talents and his influences in equal measure. This period was also marked by a number of side projects, including the live, jazz performances of 1996's How Long Has This Been Going On, 1997's Tell Me Something: The Songs of Mose Allison, and 2000's The Skiffle Sessions - Live In Belfast 1998, all of which found Morrison paying tribute to his long-time favourites. In 1997, Morrison released The Healing Game, arguably his best album of the 1990s. The following year, Morrison finally released some of his unissued studio recordings in a warmly received two-disc set, The Philosopher's Stone. His next release, 1999's Back on Top, was a modest success, being his highest charting album in the US since 1978's Wavelength. During this decade, Morrison developed a close association with two vocal talents at opposite ends of their careers. Georgie Fame (with whom Morrison had already worked occasionally) lent his smooth voice and Hammond organ skills; and the sweet sound of Brian Kennedy's vocals complemented the grizzled voice of Morrison, both in studio and live performances. Taking this concept of association a stage further, the 90s saw an upsurge in Morrison's collaborations with other artists, a trend that has continued into the new millennium. These include: 2000s
Influence Morrison's influence can be readily seen in the music of many major artists, including U2 (much of The Unforgettable Fire), Bruce Springsteen ("Spirit in the Night", "4th of July (Sandy)", "Backstreets"), John Mellencamp ("A Little Night Dancin'", a cover of Morrison's "Wild Night"), Joan Armatrading, Rickie Lee Jones, Rod Stewart, Patti Smith (her poetic-proto-punk "Gloria" most explicitly), Elvis Costello (who later toured with Morrison), Graham Parker, Daryl Hall, Thin Lizzy, Bob Seger ("I know Springsteen was very much affected by Van Morrison, and so was I." - interview in Creem), Dexys Midnight Runners, Jimi Hendrix ("Gloria"), Jeff Buckley ("The Way Young Lovers Do", "Sweet Thing") and numerous others, including Counting Crows (the "sha-la-la" sequence in Mr Jones, is a tribute to Morrison). Over the years, Morrison has expressed some grudges regarding his pervasive influence. In 1984, Bill Flanagan asked Van Morrison, "so many artists imitate you... but among the people obviously in your debt are some who are fine artists in their own rights. Do you take their borrowings as a compliment or a rip-off?"* Morrison replied, "Well, it's both. And I'm flattered by the compliment. Especially since a lot of these people have said it. Springsteen's acknowledged it, and he's doing his own thing. Seger's acknowledged it. But at the same time you feel sort of ripped off – not in the way one would think you would feel, but in the way that there's just people who 'don't know.' That's the way you feel ripped off – in an academic context." In a later interview taken for the August 1985 edition of New Age magazine, Van Morrison gave a more negative reaction when Stephen Davis asked a similar question. "You see, for a long time I'd never even heard of these people, because I don't really listen to pop radio or any of that," Morrison said. "I have my own preferences for music and my own albums that I play. So I'm not really influenced by what the media are running through. For years people have been saying to me...'have you heard this guy Springsteen? You should really check him out!' I just ignored it. Then four or five months ago I was in Amsterdam, and a friend of mine put on a video. Springsteen came on the video, and that was the first time I ever saw him, and he's definitely ripped me off. There's no doubt about that...he's even ripped my movements off as well. My seventies movements, you know what I mean? 'This' stuff demonstrates...I feel pissed off now that I know about it. I'd never seen it before, so I didn't know." * A year later in 1986, Morrison referenced this topic on No Guru, No Method, No Teacher. One of the album's songs, "A Town Called Paradise", opened with the words, "Copycats ripped off my words / Copycats ripped off my songs / Copycats ripped off my melody..." John Minihan The best known pictures of Morrison were taken by Irish photographer John Minihan, who has photographed him since the mid 1960s and developed such a good relationship with the singer that he has become, in effect, his official photographer. Awards and Recognition Grammy Awards:
Other recognition:
Albums Compilations Selected Singles See also | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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