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|Birth_name=George Ivan Morrison |
|Birth_name=George Ivan Morrison |
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|Alias=Van the Man<br/>The Belfast Cowboy |
|Alias=Van the Man<br/>The Belfast Cowboy |
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|Born={{ |
|Born={{Birth date and age|1945|8|31|df=yes}} |
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|Died= |
|Died= |
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|Origin=[[Belfast]], [[Northern Ireland]] |
|Origin=[[Belfast]], [[Northern Ireland]] |
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|URL=[http://www.vanmorrison.com/ www.vanmorrison.com] |
|URL=[http://www.vanmorrison.com/ www.vanmorrison.com] |
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'''Van Morrison''', [[Order of the British Empire|OBE]] (born '''George Ivan Morrison'''; 31 August 1945) is a [[Northern Ireland|Northern Irish]] singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are regarded as transcendental<ref>{{ |
'''Van Morrison''', [[Order of the British Empire|OBE]] (born '''George Ivan Morrison'''; 31 August 1945) is a [[Northern Ireland|Northern Irish]] singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are regarded as transcendental<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/03/DDU317DM77.DTL|author=Selvin, Joel|newspaper=San Francisco Chronicle|date=2009-05-04|title=Van Morrison's transcendent 'Astral' at Greek|accessdate=2010-05-25}}</ref><ref name="Helen Brown review">{{Cite news|url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturecritics/helenbrown/5186265/Van-Morrison-performing-Astral-Weeks-live-at-the-Albert-Hall-review.html|title=Van Morrison performing Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl review|last=Brown|first= Helen|date=2009-04-20|newspaper=The Daily Telegraph|accessdate=2010-05-25 | location=London}}</ref> and inspired;<ref>{{Cite book|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=EQR3U2pjwrQC&pg=PA105&dq=inspired+Van+Morrison&lr=|title=Back to a shadow in the night|publisher=books.google.com|last=Colt|first= Jonathan|accessdate=2010-05-25 | isbn=9780634035968}}</ref> while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums ''[[Astral Weeks]]'' and ''[[Moondance]]'', and the live album ''[[It's Too Late to Stop Now]]'', are widely viewed as among the greatest ever made.<ref name="Astral Weeks: Van Morrison">{{Cite web|url=http://acclaimedmusic.net/Current/A121.htm|title=Astral Weeks: Van Morrison|publisher=acclaimedmusic.net|accessdate=2008-04-30}}</ref><ref name="Moondance">{{Cite web|url=http://acclaimedmusic.net/Current/A183.htm|title=Acclaimed Music - Moondance|publisher=acclaimedmusic.net|accessdate=2010-01-26}}</ref><ref name="It's Too Late">{{Cite web|url=http://acclaimedmusic.net/Current/A306.htm|title=Acclaimed Music - It's Too Late to Stop Now|publisher=acclaimedmusic.net|accessdate=2009-11-22}}</ref> |
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Known as "Van the Man" to his fans,<ref name="the republican"> |
Known as "Van the Man" to his fans,<ref name="the republican"> |
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{{ |
{{Cite web |
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|url=http://www.masslive.com/entertainment/republican/index.ssf?/base/entertainment-0/125688694981090.xml&coll=1 |
|url=http://www.masslive.com/entertainment/republican/index.ssf?/base/entertainment-0/125688694981090.xml&coll=1 |
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|title=Singer Van Morrison continues to fascinate |
|title=Singer Van Morrison continues to fascinate |
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Morrison started his professional career when, as a young teenager in the late 1950s, he played a variety of instruments including guitar, harmonica, keyboards and saxophone in a range of [[Irish showbands]] who covered the popular hits of the day before rising to prominence in the mid-1960s as the [[lead vocalist|lead singer]] of the gritty Northern Irish R&B band [[Them (band)|Them]] with whom he recorded the [[garage band]] classic, "[[Gloria (Them song)|Gloria]]". His solo career began under the [[pop music|pop]]-hit oriented guidance of [[Bert Berns]] with the release of the hit single "[[Brown Eyed Girl]]" in 1967. |
Morrison started his professional career when, as a young teenager in the late 1950s, he played a variety of instruments including guitar, harmonica, keyboards and saxophone in a range of [[Irish showbands]] who covered the popular hits of the day before rising to prominence in the mid-1960s as the [[lead vocalist|lead singer]] of the gritty Northern Irish R&B band [[Them (band)|Them]] with whom he recorded the [[garage band]] classic, "[[Gloria (Them song)|Gloria]]". His solo career began under the [[pop music|pop]]-hit oriented guidance of [[Bert Berns]] with the release of the hit single "[[Brown Eyed Girl]]" in 1967. |
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After Berns' death, [[Warner Bros. Records]] bought out his contract and allowed him three sessions to record ''Astral Weeks'' in 1968.<ref>Turner (1993). pages 86 – 90</ref> Even though this album would gradually garner high praise, it was initially poorly received; however, the next one, ''Moondance'', established Morrison as a major artist,<ref>{{ |
After Berns' death, [[Warner Bros. Records]] bought out his contract and allowed him three sessions to record ''Astral Weeks'' in 1968.<ref>Turner (1993). pages 86 – 90</ref> Even though this album would gradually garner high praise, it was initially poorly received; however, the next one, ''Moondance'', established Morrison as a major artist,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://mixonline.com/mag/audio_van_morrisons_moondance/|publisher=mixonline.com|title=Classic Tracks: Van Morrison's Moondance|date=2005-04-01|author=Eskow, Gary|accessdate=2009-05-26}}</ref> and throughout the 1970s he built on his reputation with a series of critically acclaimed albums and live performances. Morrison continues to record and tour, producing albums and live performances that sell well and are generally warmly received, sometimes collaborating with other artists, such as [[Georgie Fame]] and [[The Chieftains]]. In 2008 he performed ''Astral Weeks'' live for the first time since 1968. |
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Much of Morrison's music is structured around the conventions of [[soul music]] and [[R&B]], such as the popular singles, "Brown Eyed Girl", "[[Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When You Smile)]]", "[[Domino (Van Morrison song)|Domino]]" and "[[Wild Night]]". 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 mode)|stream-of-consciousness]] narrative, such as ''Astral Weeks'' and lesser-known works such as ''[[Veedon Fleece]]'' and ''[[Common One]]''.<ref>{{ |
Much of Morrison's music is structured around the conventions of [[soul music]] and [[R&B]], such as the popular singles, "Brown Eyed Girl", "[[Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When You Smile)]]", "[[Domino (Van Morrison song)|Domino]]" and "[[Wild Night]]". 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 mode)|stream-of-consciousness]] narrative, such as ''Astral Weeks'' and lesser-known works such as ''[[Veedon Fleece]]'' and ''[[Common One]]''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/index.php/exhibits/bio/C333S|title=SHOF: Van Morrison biography|publisher=songwritersshalloffame.org|accessdate=2008-07-07}}</ref><ref name="VF review">{{Cite web|url=http://www.musthear.com/reviews/veedonfleece.html|author=Ballon, John|date=2008-12-28|title=Musthear review: Veedon Fleece|publisher=musthear.com|accessdate=2010-05-18}}</ref> The two strains together are sometimes referred to as "Celtic Soul".<ref name= "Astral Weeks, Light">{{Cite news|url=http://www.time.com/time/2006/100albums/0,27693,Astral_Weeks,00.html|publisher=time.com|date=2006-11-13|author=Light, Alan|title=The All-Time 100 Albums|accessdate=2010-05-06}}</ref> |
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Morrison has received considerable acclaim, including six [[Grammy Award]]s, being inducted into both the [[Rock and Roll Hall of Fame]] and the [[Songwriters Hall of Fame]], and appearing on several "Greatest Artists" lists. |
Morrison has received considerable acclaim, including six [[Grammy Award]]s, being inducted into both the [[Rock and Roll Hall of Fame]] and the [[Songwriters Hall of Fame]], and appearing on several "Greatest Artists" lists. |
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==Early life and musical roots: 1945–64== |
==Early life and musical roots: 1945–64== |
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George Ivan (Van) Morrison was born on 31 August 1945, in [[Bloomfield, Belfast|Bloomfield]], [[Belfast]], [[Northern Ireland]] as the [[only child]] of George Morrison, a [[shipyard]] electrician, and Violet Stitt Morrison, a singer and [[tap dance]]r in her youth.<ref name="Van the Mam">{{ |
George Ivan (Van) Morrison was born on 31 August 1945, in [[Bloomfield, Belfast|Bloomfield]], [[Belfast]], [[Northern Ireland]] as the [[only child]] of George Morrison, a [[shipyard]] electrician, and Violet Stitt Morrison, a singer and [[tap dance]]r in her youth.<ref name="Van the Mam">{{Cite web| date=2007-09-22|url=http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/its-van-the-mam-13478426.html|author=McNeilly, Claire|title=It's Van: The Mam|publisher=Belfast Telegraph|accessdate=2007-09-26}}</ref> Van Morrison's family roots descend from the [[Ulster Scots people|Ulster Scots]] population that settled in Belfast.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/musician.php?id=16537|publisher=allaboutjazz.com|title=Van Morrison at All About Jazz|accessdate=2009-12-12}}</ref><ref name="HintonPage18">Hinton (1997), page 18.</ref><ref name="HeylinPage4">Heylin (2003), page 4.</ref> From 1950 to 1956, Morrison, who began to be known as "Van" during this time, attended Elmgrove Primary School.<ref name="TurnerPage20">Turner (1993). page 20</ref> Morrison's father had what was at the time one of the largest record collections in [[Ulster]] (acquired during his sojourn in [[Detroit]], [[Michigan]] in the early 1950s),<ref name="HintonPage19">Hinton (1997), page 19.</ref> and the young Morrison grew up listening to artists such as [[Jelly Roll Morton]], [[Ray Charles]], [[Lead Belly]], and [[Solomon Burke]];<ref name="TurnerPage20">Turner (1993), page 20.</ref><ref name="HintonPage20">Hinton (1997), page 20.</ref> of whom Morrison later said, "If it weren't for guys like Ray and Solomon, I wouldn't be where I am today. 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."<ref name="Renaissance Van">{{Cite web|date=2005-06-02|archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20080618182003/www.rollingstone.com/artists/vanmorrison/articles/story/7371946/renaissance_van|archivedate=2008-06-18|title=Renaissance Van|author=Wild, David|publisher=Rolling Stone|accessdate=2010-04-30}}</ref> His father's record collection exposed him to various musical genres, such as the [[blues]] of [[Muddy Waters]]; the [[Gospel music|gospel]] of [[Mahalia Jackson]]; the [[jazz]] of [[Charlie Parker]]; the [[folk music]] of [[Woody Guthrie]]; and [[country music]] from [[Hank Williams]] and [[Jimmie Rodgers (country singer)|Jimmie Rodgers]],<ref name="TurnerPage20">Turner 1993. p20.</ref> while the first record he ever bought was by blues musician [[Sonny Terry]].<ref name="Listening Party">{{Cite journal|url=http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2009/03/09/090309ta_talk_greenman|title=Listening Party|magazine=New Yorker|author=Greenman, Ben|date=2009-03-09|accessdate=2010-05-18}}</ref> When [[Lonnie Donegan]] had a hit with "[[Rock Island Line (song)|Rock Island Line]]", written by Huddie Ledbetter (Lead Belly), Morrison felt he was familiar with and able to connect with [[skiffle|skiffle music]] as he had been hearing Lead Belly before that.<ref name="CollisPage 33">Collis (1996), page 33.</ref><ref name="Van Morrison - salon.com">{{Cite web|url=http://www.salon.com/people/bc/2000/09/19/morrison/index.html|title=http://www.salon.com/people/bc/2000/09/19/morrison/index.html|title=Van Morrison|publisher=salon.com|author=Elder, Sean|date=2000-09-19|accessdate=2010-05-18}}</ref> |
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Morrison's father bought him his first acoustic guitar when he was eleven, and he learned to play rudimentary [[chord (music)|chord]]s from the song book, ''The [[Carter Family]] Style'', edited by [[Alan Lomax]].<ref name="TurnerPage25">Turner (1993), page 25.</ref> A year later, when he was twelve years old, Morrison formed his first band,<ref> |
Morrison's father bought him his first acoustic guitar when he was eleven, and he learned to play rudimentary [[chord (music)|chord]]s from the song book, ''The [[Carter Family]] Style'', edited by [[Alan Lomax]].<ref name="TurnerPage25">Turner (1993), page 25.</ref> A year later, when he was twelve years old, Morrison formed his first band,<ref> |
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{{ |
{{Cite web |
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|url=http://www2.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/arts/story.html?id=d25c7b6a-7ddb-4540-84db-9dc6cd09f632 |
|url=http://www2.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/arts/story.html?id=d25c7b6a-7ddb-4540-84db-9dc6cd09f632 |
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|title=Van Morrison: The Irascible Mystic |
|title=Van Morrison: The Irascible Mystic |
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</ref> a skiffle group, "The Sputniks", named after the recently launched Soviet satellite, [[Sputnik 1]].<ref name="HintonPage22">Hinton (1997), page 22.</ref> In 1958, the band played at some of the local cinemas, and Morrison took the lead, contributing most of the singing and arranging. Other short-lived groups followed – at fourteen, he formed Midnight Special, another modified skiffle band and played at a school concert.<ref name="TurnerPage25"/> Then, when he heard [[Jimmy Giuffre]] playing saxophone on "The Train and The River", he talked his father into buying him a saxophone,<ref name="HeylinPage34">Heylin (2003), page 34.</ref> and took lessons in tenor sax and music reading.<ref name="TurnerPage26">Turner (1993), page 26.</ref> |
</ref> a skiffle group, "The Sputniks", named after the recently launched Soviet satellite, [[Sputnik 1]].<ref name="HintonPage22">Hinton (1997), page 22.</ref> In 1958, the band played at some of the local cinemas, and Morrison took the lead, contributing most of the singing and arranging. Other short-lived groups followed – at fourteen, he formed Midnight Special, another modified skiffle band and played at a school concert.<ref name="TurnerPage25"/> Then, when he heard [[Jimmy Giuffre]] playing saxophone on "The Train and The River", he talked his father into buying him a saxophone,<ref name="HeylinPage34">Heylin (2003), page 34.</ref> and took lessons in tenor sax and music reading.<ref name="TurnerPage26">Turner (1993), page 26.</ref> |
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Now playing the saxophone, Morrison joined with various local bands, including one called Deanie Sands and the Javelins, with whom he played guitar and shared singing.<ref name="Rolling Stone Interview">{{ |
Now playing the saxophone, Morrison joined with various local bands, including one called Deanie Sands and the Javelins, with whom he played guitar and shared singing.<ref name="Rolling Stone Interview">{{Cite journal |
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|url=http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/14639/80271 | last =Grissim Jr. | first =John | title =Van Morrison: The Rolling Stone Interview | magazine =Rolling Stone | date=22 June 1972 | accessdate=2010-07-23}}</ref> Later the four main musicians of the Javelins, with the addition of Wesley Black as keyboard player, became known as the Monarchs.<ref name="TurnerPage28">Turner (1993), page 28.</ref> |
|url=http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/14639/80271 | last =Grissim Jr. | first =John | title =Van Morrison: The Rolling Stone Interview | magazine =Rolling Stone | date=22 June 1972 | accessdate=2010-07-23}}</ref> Later the four main musicians of the Javelins, with the addition of Wesley Black as keyboard player, became known as the Monarchs.<ref name="TurnerPage28">Turner (1993), page 28.</ref> |
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Morrison attended [[Orangefield High School]], leaving in July 1960 with no qualifications.<ref name="O'Hagan"> |
Morrison attended [[Orangefield High School]], leaving in July 1960 with no qualifications.<ref name="O'Hagan"> |
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{{ |
{{Cite news |
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|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/nov/02/vanmorrison-popandrock |
|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/nov/02/vanmorrison-popandrock |
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|title=Is this the best album ever made? | Music | The Observer |
|title=Is this the best album ever made? | Music | The Observer |
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At age 17, he toured Europe for the first time with the Monarchs, now calling themselves the International Monarchs. This [[Irish showband]],<ref> |
At age 17, he toured Europe for the first time with the Monarchs, now calling themselves the International Monarchs. This [[Irish showband]],<ref> |
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{{ |
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|url=http://www.oocities.com/the_strath/1963.htm |
|url=http://www.oocities.com/the_strath/1963.htm |
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|title=1963 |
|title=1963 |
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</ref> with Morrison playing saxophone, guitar and harp, in addition to back-up duty on bass and drums, toured steamy clubs and US Army bases in Scotland, England, and Germany, often playing five sets a night.<ref name="Rolling Stone Interview"/> While in Germany, the band recorded a single, "Boozoo Hully Gully"/"Twingy Baby", under the name Georgie and The Monarchs. This was Morrison's first recording, taking place in November 1963 at Ariola Studios in Cologne with Morrison on saxophone; it made the lower reaches of the German charts.<ref> |
</ref> with Morrison playing saxophone, guitar and harp, in addition to back-up duty on bass and drums, toured steamy clubs and US Army bases in Scotland, England, and Germany, often playing five sets a night.<ref name="Rolling Stone Interview"/> While in Germany, the band recorded a single, "Boozoo Hully Gully"/"Twingy Baby", under the name Georgie and The Monarchs. This was Morrison's first recording, taking place in November 1963 at Ariola Studios in Cologne with Morrison on saxophone; it made the lower reaches of the German charts.<ref> |
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{{ |
{{Cite web |
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|url=http://www.oocities.com/tracybjazz/hayward/van-the-man.info/miscellaneous/themchrono.html |
|url=http://www.oocities.com/tracybjazz/hayward/van-the-man.info/miscellaneous/themchrono.html |
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|title=Van Morrison with The Monarchs / Them Chronology 1947/8-1969 |
|title=Van Morrison with The Monarchs / Them Chronology 1947/8-1969 |
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</ref><ref> |
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{{ |
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|url=http://www.iangallagher.com/monarchsvanmorrison.html |
|url=http://www.iangallagher.com/monarchsvanmorrison.html |
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|title=monarchsvanmorrison |
|title=monarchsvanmorrison |
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{{Main|Them (band)}} |
{{Main|Them (band)}} |
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The roots of Them, the band that first broke Morrison on the international scene, came in April 1964 when Morrison responded to an advert for musicians to play at a new [[Rhythm and blues|R&B]] club at the Maritime Hotel – an old dance hall frequented by sailors.<ref> |
The roots of Them, the band that first broke Morrison on the international scene, came in April 1964 when Morrison responded to an advert for musicians to play at a new [[Rhythm and blues|R&B]] club at the Maritime Hotel – an old dance hall frequented by sailors.<ref> |
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{{ |
{{Cite web |
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|url=http://www.superseventies.com/ssvanmorrison.html |
|url=http://www.superseventies.com/ssvanmorrison.html |
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|title=Van Morrison – In His Own Words |
|title=Van Morrison – In His Own Words |
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</ref> The new R&B club needed a band for its opening night; however, Morrison had left the Golden Eagles (the group with which he had been performing at the time), so he created a new band out of The Gamblers, an [[Belfast East (UK Parliament constituency)|East Belfast]] group formed by Ronnie Millings, Billy Harrison, and Alan Henderson in 1962.<ref name="The rough guide"> |
</ref> The new R&B club needed a band for its opening night; however, Morrison had left the Golden Eagles (the group with which he had been performing at the time), so he created a new band out of The Gamblers, an [[Belfast East (UK Parliament constituency)|East Belfast]] group formed by Ronnie Millings, Billy Harrison, and Alan Henderson in 1962.<ref name="The rough guide"> |
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{{ |
{{Cite book |
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|url=http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=haEfq-nKqjgC&pg=RA1-PA424&dq=The+Gamblers+van+morrison&as_brr=3&client=firefox-a |
|url=http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=haEfq-nKqjgC&pg=RA1-PA424&dq=The+Gamblers+van+morrison&as_brr=3&client=firefox-a |
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|title=The rough guide to rock – Google Book Search |
|title=The rough guide to rock – Google Book Search |
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</ref><ref name="The Belfast Blues"> |
</ref><ref name="The Belfast Blues"> |
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{{ |
{{Cite web |
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|url=http://www.thembelfast.com/ |
|url=http://www.thembelfast.com/ |
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|title=THEM the Belfast Blues-Band |
|title=THEM the Belfast Blues-Band |
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</ref> Eric Wrixon, still a schoolboy, was the piano player and [[keyboardist]].<ref> |
</ref> Eric Wrixon, still a schoolboy, was the piano player and [[keyboardist]].<ref> |
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{{ |
{{Cite web |
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|url=http://music.aol.com/artist/eric-wrixon/biography/1166048 |
|url=http://music.aol.com/artist/eric-wrixon/biography/1166048 |
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|title=Eric Wrixon Biography – AOL Music |
|title=Eric Wrixon Biography – AOL Music |
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</ref> Morrison played saxophone and harmonica and shared vocals with Billy Harrison. They followed Eric Wrixon's suggestion for a new name, and The Gamblers morphed into [[Them (band)|Them]], their name taken from the Fifties horror movie ''[[Them!]]''.<ref>Rogan (2006), pp. 79-83</ref> |
</ref> Morrison played saxophone and harmonica and shared vocals with Billy Harrison. They followed Eric Wrixon's suggestion for a new name, and The Gamblers morphed into [[Them (band)|Them]], their name taken from the Fifties horror movie ''[[Them!]]''.<ref>Rogan (2006), pp. 79-83</ref> |
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The band's strong R&B performances at the Maritime attracted attention. Them performed without a routine and Morrison [[ad lib]]bed, creating his songs live as he performed.<ref name="HintonPage40">Hinton (1997), page 40.</ref> While the band did covers, they also played some of Morrison's early songs, such as "Could You Would You", which he had written in [[Camden Town]] while touring with The Manhattan Showband.<ref>Rogan (2006), page 76</ref> The debut of Morrison's "Gloria" took place on stage here. Sometimes, depending on his mood, the song could last up to twenty minutes. Morrison has stated that "Them lived and died on the stage at the Maritime Hotel," believing that the band did not manage to capture the spontaneity and energy of their live performances on their records.<ref name="TurnerPage44">Turner (1993), page 44.</ref> The statement also reflected the instability of the Them lineup, with numerous members passing through the ranks after the definitive Maritime period. Morrison and Henderson would remain the only constants, and a highly unsuccessful version of Them even soldiered on after Morrison's departure.<ref>Heylin, Can You Feel the Silence?, p.118</ref> |
The band's strong R&B performances at the Maritime attracted attention. Them performed without a routine and Morrison [[ad lib]]bed, creating his songs live as he performed.<ref name="HintonPage40">Hinton (1997), page 40.</ref> While the band did covers, they also played some of Morrison's early songs, such as "Could You Would You", which he had written in [[Camden Town]] while touring with The Manhattan Showband.<ref>Rogan (2006), page 76</ref> The debut of Morrison's "Gloria" took place on stage here. Sometimes, depending on his mood, the song could last up to twenty minutes. Morrison has stated that "Them lived and died on the stage at the Maritime Hotel," believing that the band did not manage to capture the spontaneity and energy of their live performances on their records.<ref name="TurnerPage44">Turner (1993), page 44.</ref> The statement also reflected the instability of the Them lineup, with numerous members passing through the ranks after the definitive Maritime period. Morrison and Henderson would remain the only constants, and a highly unsuccessful version of Them even soldiered on after Morrison's departure.<ref>Heylin, Can You Feel the Silence?, p.118</ref> |
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[[Dick Rowe]] of [[Decca Records]] became aware of the band's performances, and signed Them to a standard two-year contract. In that period, they released two albums and ten singles, with two more singles released after Morrison departed the band. They had three [[record chart|chart]] hits, "[[Baby, Please Don't Go]]" (1964), "[[Here Comes the Night (Them song)|Here Comes the Night]]" (1965), and "[[Mystic Eyes]]" (1965),<ref> |
[[Dick Rowe]] of [[Decca Records]] became aware of the band's performances, and signed Them to a standard two-year contract. In that period, they released two albums and ten singles, with two more singles released after Morrison departed the band. They had three [[record chart|chart]] hits, "[[Baby, Please Don't Go]]" (1964), "[[Here Comes the Night (Them song)|Here Comes the Night]]" (1965), and "[[Mystic Eyes]]" (1965),<ref> |
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{{ |
{{Cite book |
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|url=http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7ctjc6UWCm4C&pg=PT1077&dq=Baby+Please+Don%27t+Go+/+Gloria&as_brr=3#PPT1077,M1 |
|url=http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7ctjc6UWCm4C&pg=PT1077&dq=Baby+Please+Don%27t+Go+/+Gloria&as_brr=3#PPT1077,M1 |
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|title=The rough guide to rock – Google Book Search |
|title=The rough guide to rock – Google Book Search |
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| isbn=9781843531050 |
| isbn=9781843531050 |
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</ref> though it was the b-side of "Baby, Please Don't Go", the [[garage band]] classic, "[[Gloria (Them song)|Gloria]]",<ref name="TurnerPage48-51">Turner (1993), pages 48-51</ref> that went on to become a rock standard covered by [[Patti Smith]], [[The Doors]], [[Shadows of Knight]], [[Jimi Hendrix]] and others.<ref>{{ |
</ref> though it was the b-side of "Baby, Please Don't Go", the [[garage band]] classic, "[[Gloria (Them song)|Gloria]]",<ref name="TurnerPage48-51">Turner (1993), pages 48-51</ref> that went on to become a rock standard covered by [[Patti Smith]], [[The Doors]], [[Shadows of Knight]], [[Jimi Hendrix]] and others.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=33:3pfexcqgldse |publisher=allmusic.com|author=Janovitz, Bill|title=Gloria:Them:song review|accessdate=2010-05-21}}</ref> |
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|title = "Gloria"|description=Morrison's garage rock classic was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. As described by [[Paul Williams (Crawdaddy! creator)|Paul Williams]]: "Van Morrison's voice a fierce beacon in the darkness, the lighthouse at the end of the world. Resulting in one of the most perfect rock anthems known to humankind."<ref>{{ |
|title = "Gloria"|description=Morrison's garage rock classic was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. As described by [[Paul Williams (Crawdaddy! creator)|Paul Williams]]: "Van Morrison's voice a fierce beacon in the darkness, the lighthouse at the end of the world. Resulting in one of the most perfect rock anthems known to humankind."<ref>{{Cite book|last=Williams |first=Paul |authorlink=Paul Williams (Crawdaddy! creator) |coauthors=Berryhill, Cindy Lee |title=Rock and Roll: The 100 Best Singles |edition=Hardcover |year=1993 |month=December |publisher=Entwhistle Books |location=United States |isbn=9780934558419 |pages=71–72 |chapter=Baby Please Don't Go / Gloria – Them (1964)}}</ref> |
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Building on the success of their singles in the United States, and riding on the back of the [[British Invasion]], Them undertook a two month tour of America in May and June 1966 that included a residency from 30 May to 18 June at the [[Whisky a Go Go]] in Los Angeles.<ref name="TurnerPage65">Turner (1993), pages 65 – 66.</ref> [[The Doors]] were the supporting act on the last week,<ref>{{ |
Building on the success of their singles in the United States, and riding on the back of the [[British Invasion]], Them undertook a two month tour of America in May and June 1966 that included a residency from 30 May to 18 June at the [[Whisky a Go Go]] in Los Angeles.<ref name="TurnerPage65">Turner (1993), pages 65 – 66.</ref> [[The Doors]] were the supporting act on the last week,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://archives.waiting-forthe-sun.net/Pages/Venues/whisky_them.html|author=Lawrence, Paul (2002)|title=The Doors and Them: twin Morrisons of different mothers|publisher=waiting-forthe-sun.net|accessdate=2008-07-07}}</ref> and Morrison's influence on The Doors singer, [[Jim Morrison]], was noted by [[John Densmore]] in his book ''Riders On The Storm''. [[Brian Hinton]] relates how "Jim Morrison learned quickly from his near namesake's stagecraft, his apparent recklessness, his air of subdued menace, the way he would improvise poetry to a rock beat, even his habit of crouching down by the bass drum during instrumental breaks."<ref name="HintonPage67">Hinton (1997), page 67.</ref> On the final night, the two Morrisons and the two bands jammed together on "Gloria".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.chickenonaunicycle.com/Whisky-A-Go-Go%20History.htm|author=Arnold, Corry|date=2006-01-23|title=The History of the Whisky-A-Go-Go|publisher=chickenonaunicyle.com|accessdate=2008-06-30}}</ref><ref name="VanM">{{Cite web|url=http://www.harbour.sfu.ca/~hayward/van/glossary/doors.html|title=Glossary entry for The Doors|archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20070310195120/http://www.harbour.sfu.ca/~hayward/van/glossary/doors.html|archivedate=2007-03-10}} from Van Morrison website. Photo of both Morrisons on stage. Access date 2007-05-26.</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.doorshistory.com/doors1966.html|title=Doors 1966 – June 1966|publisher=doorshistory.com|accessdate=2008-10-13}}</ref> |
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Toward the end of the tour the band members became involved in a dispute with their manager, Decca Records' Phil Solomon, over the revenues paid to the band; that, coupled with the expiry of their work visas, meant the band returned from America dejected. After two more concerts in Ireland, Them split up. Morrison concentrated on writing some of the songs that would appear on ''Astral Weeks'', while the remnants of the band reformed in 1967 and relocated in America.<ref name="TurnerPage72-73">Turner (1993), pages 72-73.</ref> |
Toward the end of the tour the band members became involved in a dispute with their manager, Decca Records' Phil Solomon, over the revenues paid to the band; that, coupled with the expiry of their work visas, meant the band returned from America dejected. After two more concerts in Ireland, Them split up. Morrison concentrated on writing some of the songs that would appear on ''Astral Weeks'', while the remnants of the band reformed in 1967 and relocated in America.<ref name="TurnerPage72-73">Turner (1993), pages 72-73.</ref> |
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|title = "Brown Eyed Girl"|description=Morrison's classic 1967 hit single which appeared on the album ''Blowin' Your Mind!''. In 2007, it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.<ref>{{ |
|title = "Brown Eyed Girl"|description=Morrison's classic 1967 hit single which appeared on the album ''Blowin' Your Mind!''. In 2007, it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.grammy.com/Recording_Academy/Awards/Hall_Of_Fame/|title=Grammy Hall of Fame award|publisher=grammy.com|accessdate=2008-12-18}}</ref> |
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[[Bert Berns]], Them’s producer and composer of their 1965 hit, "[[Here Comes the Night (Them song)|Here Comes the Night]]", persuaded Morrison to return to New York to record solo for his new label, [[Bang Records]].<ref name="RoganPagep188">Rogan (2006), page 188.</ref> Morrison flew over and signed a contract he had not fully studied.<ref>Heylin, Can You Feel the Silence. p.144-147</ref> Then, during a two-day recording session at A & R Studios starting 28 March 1967, eight songs were recorded originally intended to be used as four singles.<ref>Turner, Too Late to Stop Now. p.76</ref> Instead, these songs were released as the album ''[[Blowin' Your Mind!]]'' without Morrison being consulted. He said he only became aware of the album's release when a friend mentioned on a phone call that he had just bought a copy of it. He later commented to Donal Corvin in a 1973 interview: "I wasn't really happy with it. He picked the bands and tunes. I had a different concept of it."<ref name="RoganPage204">Rogan (2006), page 204.</ref> |
[[Bert Berns]], Them’s producer and composer of their 1965 hit, "[[Here Comes the Night (Them song)|Here Comes the Night]]", persuaded Morrison to return to New York to record solo for his new label, [[Bang Records]].<ref name="RoganPagep188">Rogan (2006), page 188.</ref> Morrison flew over and signed a contract he had not fully studied.<ref>Heylin, Can You Feel the Silence. p.144-147</ref> Then, during a two-day recording session at A & R Studios starting 28 March 1967, eight songs were recorded originally intended to be used as four singles.<ref>Turner, Too Late to Stop Now. p.76</ref> Instead, these songs were released as the album ''[[Blowin' Your Mind!]]'' without Morrison being consulted. He said he only became aware of the album's release when a friend mentioned on a phone call that he had just bought a copy of it. He later commented to Donal Corvin in a 1973 interview: "I wasn't really happy with it. He picked the bands and tunes. I had a different concept of it."<ref name="RoganPage204">Rogan (2006), page 204.</ref> |
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However, from these early sessions, emerged "[[Brown Eyed Girl]]". Captured on the 22nd take on the first day,<ref>Heylin, Can You Feel the Silence?, p.152</ref> this song was released as a single in mid-June 1967,<ref>Rogan, No Surrender. p.201</ref> reaching number ten in the US charts in 1967. "Brown Eyed Girl" became Morrison's most played song and over the years it has remained a classic; forty years later in 2007, it was the fourth most requested song of [[Disc jockeys|DJ]]s in the US.<ref>{{ |
However, from these early sessions, emerged "[[Brown Eyed Girl]]". Captured on the 22nd take on the first day,<ref>Heylin, Can You Feel the Silence?, p.152</ref> this song was released as a single in mid-June 1967,<ref>Rogan, No Surrender. p.201</ref> reaching number ten in the US charts in 1967. "Brown Eyed Girl" became Morrison's most played song and over the years it has remained a classic; forty years later in 2007, it was the fourth most requested song of [[Disc jockeys|DJ]]s in the US.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.aperfectdj.com/Z%20Most%20played%20songs.htm#200%20from%202007//www.aperfectdj.com/Z%20Most%20played%20songs.htm#101|title=Most played 2007|publisher=aperfectdj.com|accessdate=2008-09-11}}</ref> |
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Following the death of Berns in 1967, Morrison became involved in a contract dispute with Berns' widow that prevented him from performing on stage or recording in the New York area.<ref name="RoganPage212-215">Rogan (2006), pages 212-215.</ref> The song, "Big Time Operators", released in 1993, is thought to allude to his dealings with the New York [[music industry|music business]] during this time period.<ref name="RoganPage216">Rogan (2006) page 216.</ref> He then moved to [[Boston|Boston, Massachusetts]] and was soon confronted with personal and financial problems; he had "slipped into a malaise" and had trouble finding concert bookings.<ref name="RoganPage217">Rogan (2006) page 217.</ref> However, through the few gigs he could find, he regained his professional footing and started recording with the [[Warner Bros. Records]] label.<ref name="HeylinPage170">Heylin (2003), page 170.</ref><ref name= "HeylinPage176,177">Heylin (2003), pages 176-177.</ref> The record company managed to buy out his contract with Bang Records. Morrison fulfilled a clause that bound him to submit thirty-six original songs within a year to Web IV Music, Berns' music publishing company, by recording thirty-one songs in one session; however, Ilene Berns thought the songs "nonsense music ... about ringworms" and didn't use them.<ref name="RoganPage212-222">Rogan (2006), pages 212-222.</ref><ref>Turner (1993), page 80</ref> The throwaway compositions would come to be known as the "revenge" songs.<ref>Heylin, Can You Feel the Silence?, p.159</ref> |
Following the death of Berns in 1967, Morrison became involved in a contract dispute with Berns' widow that prevented him from performing on stage or recording in the New York area.<ref name="RoganPage212-215">Rogan (2006), pages 212-215.</ref> The song, "Big Time Operators", released in 1993, is thought to allude to his dealings with the New York [[music industry|music business]] during this time period.<ref name="RoganPage216">Rogan (2006) page 216.</ref> He then moved to [[Boston|Boston, Massachusetts]] and was soon confronted with personal and financial problems; he had "slipped into a malaise" and had trouble finding concert bookings.<ref name="RoganPage217">Rogan (2006) page 217.</ref> However, through the few gigs he could find, he regained his professional footing and started recording with the [[Warner Bros. Records]] label.<ref name="HeylinPage170">Heylin (2003), page 170.</ref><ref name= "HeylinPage176,177">Heylin (2003), pages 176-177.</ref> The record company managed to buy out his contract with Bang Records. Morrison fulfilled a clause that bound him to submit thirty-six original songs within a year to Web IV Music, Berns' music publishing company, by recording thirty-one songs in one session; however, Ilene Berns thought the songs "nonsense music ... about ringworms" and didn't use them.<ref name="RoganPage212-222">Rogan (2006), pages 212-222.</ref><ref>Turner (1993), page 80</ref> The throwaway compositions would come to be known as the "revenge" songs.<ref>Heylin, Can You Feel the Silence?, p.159</ref> |
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==''Astral Weeks'' – 1968== |
==''Astral Weeks'' – 1968== |
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{{Main|Astral Weeks}} |
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<blockquote class="toccolours" style="text-align:left; width:27%; float:right; margin: 10px 0px 5px 10px; padding:10px 10px 10px 10px; display:table;">"Astral Weeks is about the power of the human voice — ecstatic agony, agonising ecstacy. Here is an Irish tenor reborn as a White Negro — a Caucasian Soul Man — pleading and beseeching over a bed of dreamy folk-jazz instrumentation: acoustic bass, brushed drums, vibes and acoustic guitar, the odd string quartet — and of course flute." <p style="text-align: right;"> [[Barney Hoskyns]] – ''[[Mojo (magazine)|Mojo]]''<ref>{{ |
<blockquote class="toccolours" style="text-align:left; width:27%; float:right; margin: 10px 0px 5px 10px; padding:10px 10px 10px 10px; display:table;">"Astral Weeks is about the power of the human voice — ecstatic agony, agonising ecstacy. Here is an Irish tenor reborn as a White Negro — a Caucasian Soul Man — pleading and beseeching over a bed of dreamy folk-jazz instrumentation: acoustic bass, brushed drums, vibes and acoustic guitar, the odd string quartet — and of course flute." <p style="text-align: right;"> [[Barney Hoskyns]] – ''[[Mojo (magazine)|Mojo]]''<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://beatpatrol.wordpress.com/2009/06/07/barney-hoskyns-nothin-but-a-stranger-in-this-world-van-morrison-and-astral-weeks-2001/|title=Barney Hoskyns-Nothing But a Stranger in this World: Van Morrison and 'Astral Weeks'|author=Hoskyns, Barney|publisher=beatpatrol.wordpress.com|date=2009-06-07|accessdate=2009-09-14}}</ref> </blockquote> |
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[[Image:VanMorrisonAstralWeeks.jpg|thumb|left||A mix of [[folk music]], [[jazz]] and [[Stream of consciousness (narrative mode)|stream of consciousness]] but ultimately in a music genre of its own, ''Astral Weeks'' (1968) is often considered one of the best albums ever made.<ref name="Astral Weeks: Van Morrison"/>]] |
[[Image:VanMorrisonAstralWeeks.jpg|thumb|left||A mix of [[folk music]], [[jazz]] and [[Stream of consciousness (narrative mode)|stream of consciousness]] but ultimately in a music genre of its own, ''Astral Weeks'' (1968) is often considered one of the best albums ever made.<ref name="Astral Weeks: Van Morrison"/>]] |
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|title = Astral Weeks|description= The 1968 title song featuring the opening lines of the album: "If I ventured in the slipstream between the viaducts of your dream". His early voice was described as "flinty and tender, beseeching and plaintive".<ref name="O'Hagan, Sean"/>}} |
|title = Astral Weeks|description= The 1968 title song featuring the opening lines of the album: "If I ventured in the slipstream between the viaducts of your dream". His early voice was described as "flinty and tender, beseeching and plaintive".<ref name="O'Hagan, Sean"/>}} |
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His first album for Warner Bros. Records was ''Astral Weeks'' (which he had already performed in several clubs around Boston), a mystical [[song cycle]], often considered to be his best work.<ref name="RoganPage223">Rogan (2006), page 223.</ref> Morrison has said, "When ''Astral Weeks'' came out, I was starving, ''literally.''"<ref name="HintonPage100">Hinton (1997), page 100.</ref> Released in 1968, the album eventually achieved critical acclaim, but it originally received an indifferent response from the public. To this day, it remains in an unclassifiable [[music genre]] and has been described variously as hypnotic, meditative, and as possessing a unique musical power.<ref>{{ |
His first album for Warner Bros. Records was ''Astral Weeks'' (which he had already performed in several clubs around Boston), a mystical [[song cycle]], often considered to be his best work.<ref name="RoganPage223">Rogan (2006), page 223.</ref> Morrison has said, "When ''Astral Weeks'' came out, I was starving, ''literally.''"<ref name="HintonPage100">Hinton (1997), page 100.</ref> Released in 1968, the album eventually achieved critical acclaim, but it originally received an indifferent response from the public. To this day, it remains in an unclassifiable [[music genre]] and has been described variously as hypnotic, meditative, and as possessing a unique musical power.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:h9ftxqw5ld0e|title=Astral Weeks Review|publisher=Allmusic|author=Ruhlmann, William|accessdate=2010-05-22}}</ref> It has been compared to French [[Impressionism]] and mystical Celtic poetry.<ref>{{Cite news|title=Let's record gratitude for Van's monumental talent|last=Adams|first=David|date=2008-02-28|publisher=The Irish Times}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.oocities.com/sfloman/vanmorrison.html|title=Van Morrison|publisher=Geocities website|accessdate=2007-03-30}}</ref><ref name="HintonPage88,99">Hinton (1997), pages 88-89.</ref> A 2004 ''Rolling Stone'' magazine review begins with the words: "This is music of such enigmatic beauty that thirty-five years after its release, ''Astral Weeks'' still defies easy, admiring description."<ref>{{Cite web|archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20080701220354/http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/6598003/19_astral_weeks|title=(19)Astral Weeks|archivedate=2005-06-02|date=2004-11-03|publisher=Rolling Stone Magazine|accessdate=2010-04-30}}</ref> [[Alan Light (journalist)|Alan Light]] would later describe ''Astral Weeks'' as "like nothing he had done previously—and really, nothing anyone had done previously. Morrison sings of lost love, death, and nostalgia for childhood in the Celtic soul that would become his signature."<ref name="Astral Weeks, Light"/> It has been placed on many lists of best albums of all time.<ref name="Astral Weeks: Van Morrison"/> In the 1995 ''Mojo'' list of 100 Best Albums, it was listed as number two and was number nineteen on the ''Rolling Stone'' magazine's ''[[The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time]]'' in 2003.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/mojo.html|title=Mojo: 100 Greatest albums ever made (1995)|publisher=rocklistmusic.co.uk|accessdate=2010-05-25}}</ref><ref name="500 Greatest Albums">{{Cite web|url=http://www.rockonthenet.com/archive/2003/rs500albums1.htm|title=Rolling Stone: 500 Greatest Albums of all time|publisher=rockonthenet.com|accessdate=2010-04-29}}</ref> In December 2009, it was voted the top Irish album of all time by a poll of leading Irish musicians conducted by ''[[Hot Press]]'' magazine.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.hotpress.com/news/6125654.html|title=Van's album tops musician's poll|publisher=Hotpress|date=2009-12-18|accessdate=2009-12-18}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/1219/1224260976188.html|title=Stellar Van Morrison album tops best album list|author=McGreevy, Ronan|publisher=Irish Times|date=2009-12-19|accessdate=2009-12-21}}</ref> |
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==From ''Moondance'' to ''Into the Music'': 1970–79== |
==From ''Moondance'' to ''Into the Music'': 1970–79== |
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Morrison's third solo album, ''[[Moondance]]'', which was released in 1970, became his first million selling album and reached number twenty-nine on the [[Billboard (magazine)|Billboard]] charts.<ref name="TurnerPage95">Turner (1993), page 95.</ref><ref name="TurnerPage98">Turner (1993), page 98.</ref><ref>{{ |
Morrison's third solo album, ''[[Moondance]]'', which was released in 1970, became his first million selling album and reached number twenty-nine on the [[Billboard (magazine)|Billboard]] charts.<ref name="TurnerPage95">Turner (1993), page 95.</ref><ref name="TurnerPage98">Turner (1993), page 98.</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php?resultpage=1&table=SEARCH_RESULTS&action=&title=&artist=van%20morrison&format=&debutLP=&category=&sex=&releaseDate=&requestNo=&type=&level=&label=&company=&certificationDate=&awardDescription=&catalogNo=&aSex=&rec_id=&charField=&gold=&platinum=&multiPlat=&level2=&certDate=&album=&id=&after=&before=&startMonth=1&endMonth=1&startYear=1958&endYear=2008&sort=Artist&perPage=25|publisher=riaa.com|title=RIAA-Gold and Platinum|accessdate=2009-04-21}}</ref> The style of ''Moondance'' stood in contrast to that of ''[[Astral Weeks]]''. Whereas ''Astral Weeks'' had a sorrowful and vulnerable tone, ''Moondance'' restored a more optimistic and cheerful message to his music.<ref name="YorkePage69">Yorke (1975), page 69.</ref> The title track, although not released in the US as a single until 1977, received heavy play in [[FM broadcasting|FM radio]] formats.<ref name="RoganPage250">Rogan (2006), page 250.</ref> "[[Into the Mystic]]" has also gained a wide following over the years.<ref name="allmusic Biography: Van Morrison">{{Cite web|url=http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:jifuxqygldhe~T1 |work=allmusic.com|title=Van Morrison Biography|author=Ankeny, Jason|accessdate=2008-07-07}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.xpn.org/images/pdfs/wxpn_885songslist.pdf|publisher=xpn.org|title=885songslist|accessdate=2009-05-14}}</ref> The single released was "[[Come Running]]", which reached the [[American Top 40]].<ref name="allmusic.com">{{Cite web|url=http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:jifuxqygldhe~T51|publisher=allmusic.com|title=Van Morrison Chart Awards:singles|accessdate=2008-09-24}}</ref> ''Moondance'' was both well received and favourably reviewed. [[Lester Bangs]] and [[Greil Marcus]] had a combined full page review in ''Rolling Stone'', stating that Morrison now had "the striking imagination of a consciousness that is visionary in the strongest sense of the word."<ref name="Marcus, Bangs">{{Cite web|url=http://www.superseventies.com/spmorrisonvan.html|author=Marcus, Greil and Bangs, Lester|title=Moondance:Van Morrison |publisher=superseventies.com|date=1970-03-17|accessdate=2010-04-29}}</ref> "That was the type of band I dig," Morrison said of the ''Moondance'' sessions. "Two horns and a rhythm section — they're the type of bands that I like best." He produced the album himself as he felt like nobody else knew what he wanted.<ref name= "HeylinPage226">Heylin (2003), page 226.</ref> ''Moondance'' was listed at number sixty-five on the ''Rolling Stone'' magazine's ''[[The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time]]''.<ref name="500 Greatest Albums"/> In March 2007, ''Moondance'' was listed as number seventy-two on the [[National Association of Recording Merchandisers|NARM]] [[Rock and Roll Hall of Fame]] list of the "Definitive 200".<ref name="Narm">{{Cite web|url=http://www.timepieces.nl/Top100's/2007NARM.html|publisher=timepieces|title=2007 National Association of Recording Merchandisers|accessdate=2010-05-06}}</ref> |
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Over the next few years, he released a succession of albums, starting with a second one in 1970. ''[[His Band and the Street Choir]]'' had a free, more relaxed sound than ''Moondance'', but not the ''perfection'', in the opinion of critic [[Jon Landau]] who felt like "a few more numbers with a gravity of 'Street Choir' would have made this album as perfect as anyone could have stood."<ref name="HBATSC">{{ |
Over the next few years, he released a succession of albums, starting with a second one in 1970. ''[[His Band and the Street Choir]]'' had a free, more relaxed sound than ''Moondance'', but not the ''perfection'', in the opinion of critic [[Jon Landau]] who felt like "a few more numbers with a gravity of 'Street Choir' would have made this album as perfect as anyone could have stood."<ref name="HBATSC">{{Cite journal|url= http://www.rollingstone.com/music/reviews/album/2747/21378 | last =Landau | first =John | title =His Band and the Street Choir music review | magazine =Rolling Stone | date=4 February 1971| accessdate=2010-07-23}}</ref> It contained the hit single "[[Domino (Van Morrison song)|Domino]]", which charted at number nine in the [[Billboard Hot 100]].<ref name="CollisPage122">Collis (1996), page 122.</ref> |
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In 1971, he released another well-received album, ''[[Tupelo Honey]]''.<ref name="RoganPage259">Rogan (2006), page 259.</ref> This album produced the hit single "[[Wild Night]]" that was later covered by [[John Mellencamp]]. The title song has a notably country-soul feel about it<ref>{{ |
In 1971, he released another well-received album, ''[[Tupelo Honey]]''.<ref name="RoganPage259">Rogan (2006), page 259.</ref> This album produced the hit single "[[Wild Night]]" that was later covered by [[John Mellencamp]]. The title song has a notably country-soul feel about it<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=33:3xfexzualdhe|title=allmusic Tupelo Honey Review|last=Janovitz|first=Bill|accessdate=6 February 2010}}</ref> and the album ended with another country tune, "[[Moonshine Whiskey]]". Morrison said he originally intended to make an all country album.<ref name="RoganPage267-268">Rogan (2006), pages 267-268.</ref> The recordings were as live as possible – after rehearsing the songs the musicians would go into the studio and play a whole set in one take.<ref>Turner (1993), page 107</ref> His co-producer, [[Ted Templeman]], described this recording process as the "scariest thing I've ever seen. When he's got something together, he wants to put it down right away with no overdubbing."<ref name="HintonPage137">Hinton (1997), page 137.</ref> |
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Released in 1972, ''[[Saint Dominic's Preview]]'', revealed Morrison's break from the more accessible style of his previous three albums and moving back towards the more daring, adventurous, and meditative aspects of ''Astral Weeks''. The combination of two styles of music demonstrated a versatility not previously found in his earlier albums.<ref name="Saint Dominic's Preview Music Review">{{ |
Released in 1972, ''[[Saint Dominic's Preview]]'', revealed Morrison's break from the more accessible style of his previous three albums and moving back towards the more daring, adventurous, and meditative aspects of ''Astral Weeks''. The combination of two styles of music demonstrated a versatility not previously found in his earlier albums.<ref name="Saint Dominic's Preview Music Review">{{Cite journal|url=http://www.rollingstone.com/music/reviews/album/2747/21052 | last =Holden | first =Stephen | title =Saint Dominic's Preview Music Review | magazine =Rolling Stone | date=31 August 1972| accessdate=2010-07-23}}</ref> Two songs, "[[Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When You Smile)]]" and "[[Redwood Tree (song)|Redwood Tree]]", reached the Hot 100 singles chart.<ref name="allmusic.com"/> The songs "[[Listen to the Lion]]" and "[[Almost Independence Day]]" are each over ten minutes long and employ the type of poetic imagery not heard since ''Astral Weeks''.<ref name="Saint Dominic's Preview Music Review"/><ref name="HeylinPage255-256">Heylin (2003), pages 255-256.</ref> It was his highest charting album in the US until his Top Ten debut on [[Billboard 200]] in 2008.<ref name="Charts & Awards">{{Cite web|url=http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:jifuxqygldhe~T5|publisher=allmusic.com|title=Charts & Awards: Van Morrison|accessdate=2009-04-09}}</ref> |
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He released his next album ''[[Hard Nose the Highway]]'' in 1973 receiving mixed, but mostly negative, reviews. The album contained the popular song "[[Warm Love]]" but otherwise has been largely dismissed critically.<ref name="HeylinPage265-267">Heylin (2003), pages 265-267.</ref> In a 1973 ''Rolling Stone'' review, it was described as: "psychologically complex, musically somewhat uneven and lyrically excellent."<ref name="HNTH">{{ |
He released his next album ''[[Hard Nose the Highway]]'' in 1973 receiving mixed, but mostly negative, reviews. The album contained the popular song "[[Warm Love]]" but otherwise has been largely dismissed critically.<ref name="HeylinPage265-267">Heylin (2003), pages 265-267.</ref> In a 1973 ''Rolling Stone'' review, it was described as: "psychologically complex, musically somewhat uneven and lyrically excellent."<ref name="HNTH">{{Cite journal|url=http://www.rollingstone.com/music/reviews/album/2747/21055 | last =Holden | first =Stephen | title =Hard Nose the Highway Music Review | magazine =Rolling Stone | date=27 September 1973|accessdate= 2010-07-23}}</ref> |
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During a three-week vacation visit to [[Ireland]] in October 1973, Morrison wrote seven of the songs that would make up his next album, ''[[Veedon Fleece]]''.<ref name="TurnerPage122">Turner (1993), page 122.</ref> Though it attracted scant initial attention, its critical stature grew markedly over the years—with ''Veedon Fleece'' now often considered to be one of Morrison's most impressive and poetic works.<ref name="RoganPage301">Rogan (2006), page 301.</ref><ref>{{ |
During a three-week vacation visit to [[Ireland]] in October 1973, Morrison wrote seven of the songs that would make up his next album, ''[[Veedon Fleece]]''.<ref name="TurnerPage122">Turner (1993), page 122.</ref> Though it attracted scant initial attention, its critical stature grew markedly over the years—with ''Veedon Fleece'' now often considered to be one of Morrison's most impressive and poetic works.<ref name="RoganPage301">Rogan (2006), page 301.</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:f9fyxqw5ld0e|publisher=allmusic.com|title=Veedon Fleece: Review|author=Ankeny, Jason & Jurek, Thom|accessdate=2009-05-13}}</ref> In a 2008 ''Rolling Stone'' review, Andy Greene writes that when released in late 1974: "it was greeted by a collective shrug by the rock critical establishment" and concludes: "He's released many wonderful albums since, but he's never again hit the majestic heights of this one."<ref name="Veedon Fleece">{{Cite journal| url=http://www.rollingstone.com/music/reviews/album/7910/38434 | last =Greene | first =Andy | title =Veedon Fleece Music Review | magazine =Rolling Stone | date=14 July 2008| accessdate=2010-07-23}}</ref> "[[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 seemingly [[Holy Grail|Grail]]-like Veedon Fleece object.<ref name="RoganPage300">Rogan (2006), page 300.</ref> |
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Morrison would not release a follow-up album for another three years. After a decade without taking time off, he said in an interview, he needed to get away from music completely and ceased listening to it for several months.<ref name="RoganPage306">Rogan (2006), page 306.</ref> Also suffering from [[writer's block]], he seriously considered leaving the music business for good.<ref name= "HeylinPage305">Heylin (2003), page 305.</ref> Speculation that an extended [[jam session]] would be released either under the title ''Mechanical Bliss'', or ''Naked in the Jungle'', or ''Stiff Upper Lip'', came to nothing,<ref name="RoganPages304-306">Rogan (2006), pages 304-306.</ref> and Morrison's next album was ''[[A Period of Transition]]'' in 1977, a collaboration with [[Dr. John]], who had appeared at ''[[The Last Waltz]]'' concert with Morrison in 1976. The album received a mild critical reception and marked the beginning of a very prolific period of song making. |
Morrison would not release a follow-up album for another three years. After a decade without taking time off, he said in an interview, he needed to get away from music completely and ceased listening to it for several months.<ref name="RoganPage306">Rogan (2006), page 306.</ref> Also suffering from [[writer's block]], he seriously considered leaving the music business for good.<ref name= "HeylinPage305">Heylin (2003), page 305.</ref> Speculation that an extended [[jam session]] would be released either under the title ''Mechanical Bliss'', or ''Naked in the Jungle'', or ''Stiff Upper Lip'', came to nothing,<ref name="RoganPages304-306">Rogan (2006), pages 304-306.</ref> and Morrison's next album was ''[[A Period of Transition]]'' in 1977, a collaboration with [[Dr. John]], who had appeared at ''[[The Last Waltz]]'' concert with Morrison in 1976. The album received a mild critical reception and marked the beginning of a very prolific period of song making. |
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(Scott Thomas Review')</blockquote> |
(Scott Thomas Review')</blockquote> |
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The following year, Morrison released ''[[Wavelength (album)|Wavelength]]''; it became at that time the fastest-selling album of his career and soon went gold.<ref name="HintonPage210">Hinton (1997), page 210.</ref> The title track became a modest hit, peaking at number forty-two. Making use of 1970s [[synthesizer]]s, it mimics the sounds of the [[shortwave]] radio stations that he listened to in his youth.<ref name="Wavelength song review">{{ |
The following year, Morrison released ''[[Wavelength (album)|Wavelength]]''; it became at that time the fastest-selling album of his career and soon went gold.<ref name="HintonPage210">Hinton (1997), page 210.</ref> The title track became a modest hit, peaking at number forty-two. Making use of 1970s [[synthesizer]]s, it mimics the sounds of the [[shortwave]] radio stations that he listened to in his youth.<ref name="Wavelength song review">{{Cite web|url=http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=33:gpfrxzlaldfe|title=Wavelength:song review|author=Janovitz, Bill|publisher=allmusic.com|accessdate=2008-09-11}}</ref> The opening track, "Kingdom Hall" evoked Morrison's own childhood experiences attending church with his mother<ref name="HintonPage210">Hinton (1997), page 210.</ref> and foretold a religious theme that would be more evident in his next album, ''[[Into the Music]]''.<ref name="Timepieces ITM">{{Cite web|url=http://www.timepieces.nl/Albums-M/VanMorrisonIntoTheMusic.htm|author= Cocks, Jay|date=1979-11-01|publisher=timepieces|title=Van Morrison: Into the Music |accessdate=2010-04-29}}</ref> |
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Considered by [[Allmusic]] as "the definitive post-classic-era Morrison",<ref> |
Considered by [[Allmusic]] as "the definitive post-classic-era Morrison",<ref> |
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</ref> ''Into the Music'', was released in the last year of the 1970s. Songs on this album for the first time alluded to the healing power of music, which would become an abiding interest of Morrison's.<ref name="HagePage89">Hage (2009), page 89.</ref> "[[Bright Side of the Road]]" was a joyful, uplifting song that would appear on the soundtrack of the movie, ''[[Michael (1996 film)|Michael]]''.<ref name="Van Morrison at IMDb">{{ |
</ref> ''Into the Music'', was released in the last year of the 1970s. Songs on this album for the first time alluded to the healing power of music, which would become an abiding interest of Morrison's.<ref name="HagePage89">Hage (2009), page 89.</ref> "[[Bright Side of the Road]]" was a joyful, uplifting song that would appear on the soundtrack of the movie, ''[[Michael (1996 film)|Michael]]''.<ref name="Van Morrison at IMDb">{{Cite web|url=http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0607341/|title=Van Morrison at IMDb|publisher=imdb.com|accessdate=2009-01-12}}</ref> |
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==''Common One'' to ''Avalon Sunset'': 1980–89== |
==''Common One'' to ''Avalon Sunset'': 1980–89== |
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With his next album, the new decade found Morrison following his [[muse]] into uncharted territory and merciless reviews.<ref name="HeylinPage364">Heylin (2003), page 364.</ref><ref name="RoganPage330">Rogan (2006), page 330.</ref> In February 1980, Morrison and a group of musicians traveled to Super Bear, a studio in the [[French Alps]], to record (on the site of a former [[abbey]]) what is considered to be the most controversial album in his discography; later "Morrison admitted that his original concept was even more esoteric than the final product."<ref name="HintonPage230">Hinton (1997), page 230.</ref><ref name="HeylinPage365">Heylin (2003), page 365.</ref> The album, ''[[Common One]]'', consisted of six songs, each of varying length. The longest, "[[Summertime in England]]", lasted fifteen and one-half minutes and ended with the words,''"Can you feel the silence?"''. ''[[NME]]'' magazine's Paul Du Noyer called the album "colossally smug and cosmically dull; an interminable, vacuous and drearily egotistical stab at spirituality: Into the muzak."<ref name="HintonPage230">Hinton (1997), page 230.</ref> Even [[Greil Marcus]], whose previous writings had been favourably inclined towards Morrison, said: "It's Van acting the part of the 'mystic poet' he thinks he's supposed to be."<ref name="HeylinPage364">Heylin (2003), page 364.</ref> Morrison insisted that the album was never "meant to be a commercial album."<ref name="HeylinPage364">Heylin (2003), page 364.</ref> Biographer Clinton Heylin concludes: "He would not attempt anything so ambitious again. Henceforth every radical idea would be tempered by some notion of commerciality."<ref name= "HeylinPage365">Heylin (2003), page 365.</ref> Later the critics would reassess the album more favourably with the success of "Summertime in England".<ref name= "HeylinPage365">Heylin (2003), page 365.</ref> [[Lester Bangs]] wrote in 1982, "Van was making holy music even though he thought he was, and us [sic] rock critics had made our usual mistake of paying too much attention to the lyrics."<ref name="HeylinPage364">Heylin (2003), page 364.</ref> |
With his next album, the new decade found Morrison following his [[muse]] into uncharted territory and merciless reviews.<ref name="HeylinPage364">Heylin (2003), page 364.</ref><ref name="RoganPage330">Rogan (2006), page 330.</ref> In February 1980, Morrison and a group of musicians traveled to Super Bear, a studio in the [[French Alps]], to record (on the site of a former [[abbey]]) what is considered to be the most controversial album in his discography; later "Morrison admitted that his original concept was even more esoteric than the final product."<ref name="HintonPage230">Hinton (1997), page 230.</ref><ref name="HeylinPage365">Heylin (2003), page 365.</ref> The album, ''[[Common One]]'', consisted of six songs, each of varying length. The longest, "[[Summertime in England]]", lasted fifteen and one-half minutes and ended with the words,''"Can you feel the silence?"''. ''[[NME]]'' magazine's Paul Du Noyer called the album "colossally smug and cosmically dull; an interminable, vacuous and drearily egotistical stab at spirituality: Into the muzak."<ref name="HintonPage230">Hinton (1997), page 230.</ref> Even [[Greil Marcus]], whose previous writings had been favourably inclined towards Morrison, said: "It's Van acting the part of the 'mystic poet' he thinks he's supposed to be."<ref name="HeylinPage364">Heylin (2003), page 364.</ref> Morrison insisted that the album was never "meant to be a commercial album."<ref name="HeylinPage364">Heylin (2003), page 364.</ref> Biographer Clinton Heylin concludes: "He would not attempt anything so ambitious again. Henceforth every radical idea would be tempered by some notion of commerciality."<ref name= "HeylinPage365">Heylin (2003), page 365.</ref> Later the critics would reassess the album more favourably with the success of "Summertime in England".<ref name= "HeylinPage365">Heylin (2003), page 365.</ref> [[Lester Bangs]] wrote in 1982, "Van was making holy music even though he thought he was, and us [sic] rock critics had made our usual mistake of paying too much attention to the lyrics."<ref name="HeylinPage364">Heylin (2003), page 364.</ref> |
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Morrison's next album, ''[[Beautiful Vision]]'', released in 1982, had him returning once again to the music of his Northern Irish roots.<ref name="RoganPage338">Rogan (2006), page 338.</ref> Well received by the critics and public, it produced a minor UK hit single, "[[Cleaning Windows]]", that referenced one of Morrison's first jobs after leaving school.<ref name="RoganPage337-338">Rogan (2006), pages 337-338.</ref> Several other songs on the album, "[[Vanlose Stairway]]", "She Gives Me Religion", and the instrumental, "[[Scandinavia (composition)|Scandinavia]]" show the presence of a new personal muse in his life: a Danish public relations agent, who would share Morrison's spiritual interests and serve as a steadying influence on him throughout most of the 1980s.<ref name="HeylinPage371">Heylin (2003), page 371.</ref> "Scandinavia", with Morrison on piano,<ref name="Inarticulate Speech of the Heart">{{ |
Morrison's next album, ''[[Beautiful Vision]]'', released in 1982, had him returning once again to the music of his Northern Irish roots.<ref name="RoganPage338">Rogan (2006), page 338.</ref> Well received by the critics and public, it produced a minor UK hit single, "[[Cleaning Windows]]", that referenced one of Morrison's first jobs after leaving school.<ref name="RoganPage337-338">Rogan (2006), pages 337-338.</ref> Several other songs on the album, "[[Vanlose Stairway]]", "She Gives Me Religion", and the instrumental, "[[Scandinavia (composition)|Scandinavia]]" show the presence of a new personal muse in his life: a Danish public relations agent, who would share Morrison's spiritual interests and serve as a steadying influence on him throughout most of the 1980s.<ref name="HeylinPage371">Heylin (2003), page 371.</ref> "Scandinavia", with Morrison on piano,<ref name="Inarticulate Speech of the Heart">{{Cite journal| url=http://www.rollingstone.com/music/reviews/album/3045/21723 | last =Fricke | first =David | title =Inarticulate Speech of the Heart Music Review | magazine =Rolling Stone | date=28 April 1983| accessdate=2010-07-23}}</ref> was nominated in the ''Best Rock Instrumental Performance'' category for the 25th Annual [[Grammy Awards]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.rockonthenet.com/archive/1983/grammys.htm|title=Rock on the Net: 25th Annual Grammy Awards-1983|publisher=rockonthenet|accessdate=2009-10-08}}</ref> |
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Much of the music Morrison released throughout the 1980s continued to focus on the themes of [[spirituality]] and faith. His 1983 album, ''[[Inarticulate Speech of the Heart]]'' was "a move towards creating music for meditation" with synthesisers, uilleann pipes and flute sounds and four of the tracks were instrumentals.<ref name="TurnerPage153">Turner (1993), page 153.</ref> The titling of the album and the presence of the instrumentals were noted to be indicative of Morrison's long-held belief that "it's not the words one uses but the force of conviction behind those words that matters."<ref name="Inarticulate Speech of the Heart"/> During this period of time, Morrison had studied [[Scientology]] and gave "Special Thanks" to [[L. Ron Hubbard]] on the album's credits.<ref name="TurnerPage150">Turner (1993), page 150</ref> |
Much of the music Morrison released throughout the 1980s continued to focus on the themes of [[spirituality]] and faith. His 1983 album, ''[[Inarticulate Speech of the Heart]]'' was "a move towards creating music for meditation" with synthesisers, uilleann pipes and flute sounds and four of the tracks were instrumentals.<ref name="TurnerPage153">Turner (1993), page 153.</ref> The titling of the album and the presence of the instrumentals were noted to be indicative of Morrison's long-held belief that "it's not the words one uses but the force of conviction behind those words that matters."<ref name="Inarticulate Speech of the Heart"/> During this period of time, Morrison had studied [[Scientology]] and gave "Special Thanks" to [[L. Ron Hubbard]] on the album's credits.<ref name="TurnerPage150">Turner (1993), page 150</ref> |
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''[[A Sense of Wonder]]'', Morrison's 1985 album, pulled together the spiritual themes contained in his last four albums, which were defined in a ''[[Rolling Stone]]'' review as: "rebirth (''Into the Music''), deep contemplation and meditation, (''Common One''); ecstasy and humility (''Beautiful Vision''); and blissful, mantra like languor (''Inarticulate Speech of the Heart'')."<ref name="A Sense of Wonder">{{ |
''[[A Sense of Wonder]]'', Morrison's 1985 album, pulled together the spiritual themes contained in his last four albums, which were defined in a ''[[Rolling Stone]]'' review as: "rebirth (''Into the Music''), deep contemplation and meditation, (''Common One''); ecstasy and humility (''Beautiful Vision''); and blissful, mantra like languor (''Inarticulate Speech of the Heart'')."<ref name="A Sense of Wonder">{{Cite journal| url=http://www.rollingstone.com/music/reviews/album/3045/21725 | last =Puterbaugh | first =Parke | title =A Sense of Wonder Music Review | magazine =Rolling Stone | date=9 May 1985| accessdate=2010-07-23}}</ref> The single, "[[Tore Down a la Rimbaud]]" was a reference to [[Arthur Rimbaud|Rimbaud]] and an earlier bout of [[writer's block]] that Morrison had encountered in 1974.<ref name="HeylinPage308">Heylin (2003), page 308.</ref> In 1985, Morrison also wrote the musical score for the movie, ''[[Lamb (film)|Lamb]]'' starring [[Liam Neeson]].<ref name="CollisPage162">Collis (1996), page 162.</ref> |
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Morrison's 1986 release, ''[[No Guru, No Method, No Teacher]]'', was said to contain a "genuine holiness...and musical freshness that needs to be set in context to understand."<ref name="HintonPage255">Hinton (1997), page 255.</ref> Critical response was favourable with a ''Sounds'' reviewer calling the album "his most intriguingly involved since ''Astral Weeks''" and "Morrison at his most mystical, magical best."<ref name="HeylinPage396">Heylin (2003), page 396.</ref><ref name="RoganPage360">Rogan (2006), page 360.</ref> It contains the song, "[[In the Garden (Van Morrison song)|In the Garden]]" that, according to Morrison, had a "definite meditation process which is a 'form' of transcendental meditation as its basis. It's not TM".<ref name="HintonPage255">Hinton (1997), page 255.</ref> He entitled the album as a rebuttal to [[News media|media]] attempts to place him in various creeds.<ref name="HintonPage253">Hinton (1997), page 253.</ref> In an interview in the Observer he told Anthony Denselow: |
Morrison's 1986 release, ''[[No Guru, No Method, No Teacher]]'', was said to contain a "genuine holiness...and musical freshness that needs to be set in context to understand."<ref name="HintonPage255">Hinton (1997), page 255.</ref> Critical response was favourable with a ''Sounds'' reviewer calling the album "his most intriguingly involved since ''Astral Weeks''" and "Morrison at his most mystical, magical best."<ref name="HeylinPage396">Heylin (2003), page 396.</ref><ref name="RoganPage360">Rogan (2006), page 360.</ref> It contains the song, "[[In the Garden (Van Morrison song)|In the Garden]]" that, according to Morrison, had a "definite meditation process which is a 'form' of transcendental meditation as its basis. It's not TM".<ref name="HintonPage255">Hinton (1997), page 255.</ref> He entitled the album as a rebuttal to [[News media|media]] attempts to place him in various creeds.<ref name="HintonPage253">Hinton (1997), page 253.</ref> In an interview in the Observer he told Anthony Denselow: |
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{{Quote|There have been many lies put out about me and this finally states my position. I have never joined any organisation, nor plan to. I am not affiliated to any guru, don't subscribe to any method and for those people who don't know what a guru is, I don't have a teacher either.<ref name="HintonPage253-254">Hinton (1997), page 253-254.</ref>}} |
{{Quote|There have been many lies put out about me and this finally states my position. I have never joined any organisation, nor plan to. I am not affiliated to any guru, don't subscribe to any method and for those people who don't know what a guru is, I don't have a teacher either.<ref name="HintonPage253-254">Hinton (1997), page 253-254.</ref>}} |
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After releasing the "No Guru" album, Morrison's music appeared less gritty and more [[adult contemporary music|adult contemporary]] with the well-received 1987 album, ''[[Poetic Champions Compose]]'', considered to be one of his recording highlights of the 1980s.<ref>{{ |
After releasing the "No Guru" album, Morrison's music appeared less gritty and more [[adult contemporary music|adult contemporary]] with the well-received 1987 album, ''[[Poetic Champions Compose]]'', considered to be one of his recording highlights of the 1980s.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:o6jwear04xs7|author=Erlewine, Stephen Thomas|title=AllMusic review:Poetic Champions Compose|publisher=allmusic.com|accessdate=2008-07-07}}</ref> The romantic ballad from this album, "[[Someone Like You (Van Morrison song)|Someone Like You]]", has been featured subsequently in the soundtracks of several movies, including 1995's ''[[French Kiss (film)|French Kiss]]'', and in 2001, both ''[[Someone Like You (film)|Someone Like You]]'' and ''[[Bridget Jones's Diary (film)|Bridget Jones's Diary]]''.<ref name="Van Morrison at IMDb"/><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,104926,00.html|author=Bonin, Liane|date=2001-04-04|title=Song Sung Blue|publisher=EW.com|accessdate=2008-07-13}}</ref> |
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In 1988, he released ''[[Irish Heartbeat]]'', a collection of traditional [[Folk music of Ireland|Irish folk songs]] recorded with the Irish group, [[The Chieftains]], which reached number 18 in the UK album charts. The title song, "[[Irish Heartbeat (song)|Irish Heartbeat]]", was originally recorded on his 1983 album ''Inarticulate Speech of the Heart''.<ref>{{ |
In 1988, he released ''[[Irish Heartbeat]]'', a collection of traditional [[Folk music of Ireland|Irish folk songs]] recorded with the Irish group, [[The Chieftains]], which reached number 18 in the UK album charts. The title song, "[[Irish Heartbeat (song)|Irish Heartbeat]]", was originally recorded on his 1983 album ''Inarticulate Speech of the Heart''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=33:0bfqxqydldse|title=Allmusic: Irish Heartbeat|publisher=allmusic.com|accessdate=2008-07-07}}</ref> |
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The 1989 album, ''[[Avalon Sunset]]'', which featured the hit duet with [[Cliff Richard]] "[[Whenever God Shines His Light]]" and the ballad "[[Have I Told You Lately]]" (on which "earthly love transmutes into that for God."([[Brian Hinton|Hinton]]),<ref name="HintonPage278">Hinton (1997), page 278.</ref> reached 13 on the UK album chart. Although considered to be a deeply spiritual album,<ref>{{ |
The 1989 album, ''[[Avalon Sunset]]'', which featured the hit duet with [[Cliff Richard]] "[[Whenever God Shines His Light]]" and the ballad "[[Have I Told You Lately]]" (on which "earthly love transmutes into that for God."([[Brian Hinton|Hinton]]),<ref name="HintonPage278">Hinton (1997), page 278.</ref> reached 13 on the UK album chart. Although considered to be a deeply spiritual album,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:83220r2ac48b|publisher=allmusic.com|title=Avalon Sunset Review|accessdate=2009-05-14}}</ref> it also contained "Daring Night" which "deals with full, blazing sex, whatever it's churchy organ and gentle lilt suggest."(Hinton)<ref name="HintonPage280">Hinton (1997), page 280.</ref> Morrison's familiar themes of "God, woman, his childhood in Belfast and those enchanted moments when time stands still" were prominent in the songs.<ref name="TurnerPage163">Turner (1993), page 163.</ref> He can be heard calling out the change of [[tempo]] at the end of this song, repeating the numbers "1 - 4" to cue the [[chord progression|chord changes]] (the first and fourth chord in the key of the music). He often completed albums in two days, frequently releasing first takes.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.electricrev.net/archive/2004/july/features-profiles1.html |author=Aiello, John|date=2002-07-18|title=July 2004 archives Wild Veils|publisher=electricrev.net|accessdate=2008-07-03}}</ref><ref name="HeylinPage429-463">Heylin (2003) pages 429-463.</ref> |
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==''The Best of Van Morrison'' to ''Back on Top'': 1990–99== |
==''The Best of Van Morrison'' to ''Back on Top'': 1990–99== |
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The early to middle 1990s were commercially successful for Morrison with three albums reaching the top five of the UK charts, sold out concerts, and a more visible public profile; but this period also marked a decline in the critical reception to his work.<ref name="HeylinPage450-458">Heylin (2003), pages 450-458.</ref> The decade began with the release of ''[[The Best of Van Morrison]]''; compiled by Morrison himself, the album was focused on his hit singles, and became a multi-platinum success remaining a year and a half on the UK charts. [[Allmusic]] determined it to be "far and away the best selling album of his career."<ref name="allmusic Biography: Van Morrison"/><ref>{{ |
The early to middle 1990s were commercially successful for Morrison with three albums reaching the top five of the UK charts, sold out concerts, and a more visible public profile; but this period also marked a decline in the critical reception to his work.<ref name="HeylinPage450-458">Heylin (2003), pages 450-458.</ref> The decade began with the release of ''[[The Best of Van Morrison]]''; compiled by Morrison himself, the album was focused on his hit singles, and became a multi-platinum success remaining a year and a half on the UK charts. [[Allmusic]] determined it to be "far and away the best selling album of his career."<ref name="allmusic Biography: Van Morrison"/><ref>{{Cite web|url =http://www.theirishworld.com/article.asp?SubSection_Id=7&Article_Id=4318|author=Marsden, Shelley|date=2007-11-12|title=He's still Got It |
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|publisher=The Irish World|accessdate=2008-07-07}}</ref> |
|publisher=The Irish World|accessdate=2008-07-07}}</ref> |
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After ''[[Enlightenment (album)|Enlightenment]]'' which included the hit single, "[[Real Real Gone]]",<ref name="Heylin Page253">Heylin (2003), page 253.</ref> another compilation album, ''[[The Best of Van Morrison Volume Two]]'' was released in January 1993, followed by ''[[Too Long in Exile]]'' in June, another top five chart success.<ref>{{ |
After ''[[Enlightenment (album)|Enlightenment]]'' which included the hit single, "[[Real Real Gone]]",<ref name="Heylin Page253">Heylin (2003), page 253.</ref> another compilation album, ''[[The Best of Van Morrison Volume Two]]'' was released in January 1993, followed by ''[[Too Long in Exile]]'' in June, another top five chart success.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://tsort.info/music/cy84r9.htm|title=Album artist 49 -Van Morrison|publisher=tsort.info|accessdate=2010-05-21}}</ref> |
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The 1994 live double album ''[[A Night in San Francisco]]'' received favourable reviews as well as commercial success by reaching number eight on the UK charts.<ref name="ANISF">{{ |
The 1994 live double album ''[[A Night in San Francisco]]'' received favourable reviews as well as commercial success by reaching number eight on the UK charts.<ref name="ANISF">{{Cite journal| url=http://www.rollingstone.com/music/reviews/album/7076/36727 | last =Puterbaugh | first =Parke | title =A Night in San Francisco Music Review | magazine =Rolling Stone | date=14 July 1994| accessdate=2010-07-23}}</ref><ref> |
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|url=http://www.chartstats.com/artistinfo.php?id=645 |
|url=http://www.chartstats.com/artistinfo.php?id=645 |
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|title=Chart Stats – Van Morrison |
|title=Chart Stats – Van Morrison |
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</ref> 1995's ''[[Days Like This]]'' also had large sales – though the critical reviews were not always favourable.<ref name="Heylin Page458">Heylin (2003), page 458.</ref> This period also saw a number of side projects, including the live jazz performances of 1996's ''[[How Long Has This Been Going On]]'', from the same year ''[[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 early musical influences. |
</ref> 1995's ''[[Days Like This]]'' also had large sales – though the critical reviews were not always favourable.<ref name="Heylin Page458">Heylin (2003), page 458.</ref> This period also saw a number of side projects, including the live jazz performances of 1996's ''[[How Long Has This Been Going On]]'', from the same year ''[[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 early musical influences. |
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In 1997, Morrison released ''[[The Healing Game]]''. The album received mixed reviews, with the lyrics being described as "tired" and "dull",<ref name="RoganPage450">Rogan (2006), page 450.</ref> though critic Greil Marcus praised the musical complexity of the album by saying: "It carries the listener into a musical home so perfect and complete he or she might have forgotten that music could call up such a place, and then populate it with people, acts, wishes, fears."<ref name="MarcusPage111">Marcus (2010), page 111.</ref> The following year, Morrison finally released some of his previously unissued studio recordings in a two-disc set, ''[[The Philosopher's Stone (album)|The Philosopher's Stone]]''. His next release, 1999's ''[[Back on Top]]'', achieved a modest success, being his highest charting album in the US since 1978's ''[[Wavelength (album)|Wavelength]]''.<ref>{{ |
In 1997, Morrison released ''[[The Healing Game]]''. The album received mixed reviews, with the lyrics being described as "tired" and "dull",<ref name="RoganPage450">Rogan (2006), page 450.</ref> though critic Greil Marcus praised the musical complexity of the album by saying: "It carries the listener into a musical home so perfect and complete he or she might have forgotten that music could call up such a place, and then populate it with people, acts, wishes, fears."<ref name="MarcusPage111">Marcus (2010), page 111.</ref> The following year, Morrison finally released some of his previously unissued studio recordings in a two-disc set, ''[[The Philosopher's Stone (album)|The Philosopher's Stone]]''. His next release, 1999's ''[[Back on Top]]'', achieved a modest success, being his highest charting album in the US since 1978's ''[[Wavelength (album)|Wavelength]]''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&searchlink=VAN|MORRISON&sql=11:jifuxqygldhe~T5|title=Van Morrison: Billboard albums|publisher=Allmusic|accessdate=2008-09-12}}</ref> |
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==Recent years: since 2000== |
==Recent years: since 2000== |
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Van Morrison continued to record and tour in the 2000s, often performing two or three times a week.<ref name="concerts">{{ |
Van Morrison continued to record and tour in the 2000s, often performing two or three times a week.<ref name="concerts">{{Cite web|url=http://ivan.vanomatic.de/|title=concerts|publisher=ivan.vanomatic.de|accessdate=2008-10-16}}</ref> He formed his own independent label, Exile Productions Ltd, which enables him to maintain full production control of each album he records, which he then delivers as a finished product to the recording label that he chooses, for marketing and distribution.<ref name="CollisPage181">Collis (1996), page 181.</ref> |
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The album, ''[[Down the Road (Van Morrison album)|Down the Road]]'' released in May 2002, received a good critical reception and proved to be his highest charting album in the US since 1972's ''Saint Dominic's Preview''.<ref name="Charts & Awards"/> It had a nostalgic tone, with its fifteen tracks representing the various musical genres that Morrison had previously covered—including R&B, blues, country and folk;<ref>{{ |
The album, ''[[Down the Road (Van Morrison album)|Down the Road]]'' released in May 2002, received a good critical reception and proved to be his highest charting album in the US since 1972's ''Saint Dominic's Preview''.<ref name="Charts & Awards"/> It had a nostalgic tone, with its fifteen tracks representing the various musical genres that Morrison had previously covered—including R&B, blues, country and folk;<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:fvez975skr5t|publisher=Allmusic|title=Down the Road Review|author=Ruhlmann, William|accessdate=2010-05-21}}</ref> one of the tracks was written as a tribute to his late father George, who had played a pivotal role in nurturing his early musical tastes.<ref name="TurnerPage20">Turner (1993), page 20.</ref> |
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Morrison's 2005 album, ''[[Magic Time]]'', debuted at number twenty-five on the US [[Billboard 200]] charts upon its May release, some forty years after Morrison first entered the public's eye as the frontman of Them. ''Rolling Stone'' listed it as number seventeen on ''The Top 50 Records of 2005''.<ref>{{ |
Morrison's 2005 album, ''[[Magic Time]]'', debuted at number twenty-five on the US [[Billboard 200]] charts upon its May release, some forty years after Morrison first entered the public's eye as the frontman of Them. ''Rolling Stone'' listed it as number seventeen on ''The Top 50 Records of 2005''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/rolling.htm#2005|publisher =rocklistmusic|title=Rolling Stone 2005 Critics|accessdate=2010-05-06}}</ref> Also in July 2005, Morrison was named by [[Amazon.com|Amazon]] as one of their top twenty-five all-time best-selling artists and inducted into the Amazon.com Hall of Fame.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2005_July_11/ai_n14731632|title=Amazon.com Inducts 25 musicians into Hall of Fame |publisher=Bnet|date=2005-07-11|accessdate=2008-10-12}}</ref> Later in the year, Morrison also donated a previously unreleased studio track to a charity album, ''[[Hurricane Relief: Come Together Now]]'', which raised money for relief efforts intended for [[Gulf Coast of the United States|Gulf Coast]] victims devastated by hurricanes, [[Hurricane Katrina|Katrina]] and [[Hurricane Rita|Rita]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.sting.com/news/news.php?uid=3907|publisher=sting.com/news|title=Sting and Chris Botti on Katrina benefit CD|accessdate=2010-05-21}}</ref> Morrison composed the song, "Blue and Green", featuring [[Foggy Lyttle]] on guitar. This song was released in 2007 on the album, ''[[The Best of Van Morrison Volume 3]]'' and also as a single in the UK. Van Morrison was a headline act at the international celtic music festival, The [[Hebridean Celtic Festival]] in [[Stornoway, Outer Hebrides|Stornoway]] [[Outer Hebrides]] in the summer of 2005.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.hebceltfest.com/past/2005/thursday.php|title=2005 Festival Reviews- FÈIS 2005|author=MacNeil, Kevin|publisher=hebceltfest.com|accessdate=2010-05-21}}</ref> |
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He released an album with a country music theme, entitled ''[[Pay the Devil]]'', on 7 March 2006 and appeared at the [[Ryman Auditorium]] where the tickets sold out immediately after they went on sale.<ref>{{ |
He released an album with a country music theme, entitled ''[[Pay the Devil]]'', on 7 March 2006 and appeared at the [[Ryman Auditorium]] where the tickets sold out immediately after they went on sale.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.cmt.com/news/articles/1525667/03082006/morrison_van.jhtml|title=Van Morrison offers country songs|publisher=CMT|date=2006-03-08|author=Gilbert, Calvin|accessdate=2009-12-10}}</ref> ''Pay the Devil'' debuted at number twenty-six on The Billboard 200 and peaked at number seven on Top Country Albums.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://articles.latimes.com/2006/mar/16/news/wk-albums16|title=Rapper Juvenile tops the charts|author=Boucher, Geoff|date=2006-03-16|publisher=LA Times|accessdate=2010-05-21}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.cmt.com/artists/news/1526478/20060317/lost_trailers.jhtml |title=Van Morrison, Norah Jones visit the country top 10|author=Gilbert, Calvin|date=2006-03-18|publisher=CMT|accessdate=2010-05-21}}</ref> Amazon Best of 2006 Editor's Picks in Country listed the country album at number ten in December 2006. Still promoting the country album, Morrison's performance as the headline act on the first night of the [[Austin City Limits Music Festival]] on 15 September 2006 was reviewed by ''Rolling Stone'' magazine as one of the top ten shows of the 2006 festival.<ref name="10 Best Shows">{{Cite journal|last=Rogulewski & Smith|first= Charley, Dane|date=2006-09-18|title=10 Best Shows at Austin City Limits|magazine=Rolling Stone}}</ref> In November 2006, a limited edition album, ''[[Live at Austin City Limits Festival]]'' was issued by Exile Productions, Ltd. A later deluxe CD/DVD release of ''Pay the Devil'', in the summer of 2006 contained tracks from the Ryman performance.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.losthighwayrecords.com/artist/releases/release.aspx?pid=1684&aid=248|title=Van Morrison-Pay the Devil|publisher=losthighwayrecords.com|accessdate=2008-08-06}}</ref> In October 2006, Morrison had released his first commercial DVD, ''[[Live at Montreux 1980/1974]]'' with concerts taken from two separate appearances at the [[Montreux Jazz Festival]]. |
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A new double CD [[compilation album]] ''[[The Best of Van Morrison Volume 3]]'' was released in June 2007 containing thirty-one tracks, some of which were previously unreleased. Morrison selected the tracks, which ranged from the 1993 album ''Too Long in Exile'' to the song "[[Stranded (Van Morrison song)|Stranded]]" from the 2005 album ''Magic Time''.<ref>{{ |
A new double CD [[compilation album]] ''[[The Best of Van Morrison Volume 3]]'' was released in June 2007 containing thirty-one tracks, some of which were previously unreleased. Morrison selected the tracks, which ranged from the 1993 album ''Too Long in Exile'' to the song "[[Stranded (Van Morrison song)|Stranded]]" from the 2005 album ''Magic Time''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/04-16-2007/0004566380&EDATE=|title=Van Morrison's TBOVM Vol. 3 to be released June 19|publisher=prnewswire.com|accessdate=2008-01-30}}</ref> On 3 September 2007, Morrison's complete catalogue of albums from 1971 through 2002 were made available exclusively at the [[ITunes Store]] in Europe and Australia and during the first week of October 2007, the albums became available at the US |
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ITunes Store.<ref>{{ |
ITunes Store.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://weblogs.variety.com/thesetlist/2007/10/van-morrison-fi.html|author=Gallo, Phil|date=2007-10-30|title=Van Morrison finds a fantabulous time to join Itunes|publisher=variety.com|accessdate=2007-11-01}}</ref> |
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''[[Still on Top - The Greatest Hits]]'', a thirty-seven track double CD compilation album was released on 22 October 2007 in the UK on the Polydor label. On 29 October 2007, the album charted at number two on the Official UK Top 75 Albums—his highest UK charting.<ref>{{ |
''[[Still on Top - The Greatest Hits]]'', a thirty-seven track double CD compilation album was released on 22 October 2007 in the UK on the Polydor label. On 29 October 2007, the album charted at number two on the Official UK Top 75 Albums—his highest UK charting.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.uncut.co.uk/news/van_morrison/news/10548|title=Van Morrison Scores Highest Ever Album Chart Placing|publisher=Uncut|accessdate=2007-11-11}}</ref> The November release in the US and Canada contains twenty-one selected tracks.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.musicremedy.com/v/Van_Morrison/album/Still_On_Top-4439.html|title=Van Morrison Still on Top|publisher=Music Remedy|accessdate=2010-05-21}}</ref> The hits that were released on albums with the copyrights owned by Morrison as Exile Productions Ltd.—1971 and later—had been remastered in 2007. |
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''[[Keep It Simple]]'', Morrison's 33rd studio album of completely new material was released by Exile/Polydor Records on 17 March 2008 in the UK and released by Exile/[[Lost Highway Records]] in the US and Canada on 1 April 2008.<ref>{{ |
''[[Keep It Simple]]'', Morrison's 33rd studio album of completely new material was released by Exile/Polydor Records on 17 March 2008 in the UK and released by Exile/[[Lost Highway Records]] in the US and Canada on 1 April 2008.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.indielondon.co.uk/Music-Review/van-morrison-to-release-new-album-keep-it-simple|title=Van Morrison to release new album-Keep It Simple|publisher=indielondon.co.uk|author=Foley, Jack|accessdate=2008-01-23}}</ref> It comprised eleven self-penned tracks. Morrison promoted the album with a short US tour including an appearance at the [[South by Southwest|SXSW]] music conference,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/Artists/M/Morrison_Van/ConcertReviews/2008/03/14/pf-5002231.html|author=Sterdan, Darryl|date=2008-03-14|title=South by Southwest Music Festival Review|publisher=canoe.ca|accessdate=2008-07-09}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.austin360.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/music/entries/2008/03/13/sxsw_review_van_morrison.html|author=Davis, John T.|date=2008-03-13|title=SXSW Review: Van Morrison|publisher=austin360.com|accessdate=2008-09-08}}</ref> and a UK concert broadcast on [[BBC Radio 2]]. In the first week of release ''Keep It Simple'' debuted on the Billboard 200 chart at number ten, Morrison's first Top Ten charting in the US.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003787340|author=Hasty, Katie N.Y.|date=2008-04-09|title=Strait Speeds Past REM to debut at No. 1|publisher=billboard.com|accessdate=2008-09-08}}</ref> |
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==Live performances== |
==Live performances== |
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By 1972, after being a performer for nearly ten years, Morrison began experiencing [[stage fright]] when performing for audiences of thousands, as opposed to the hundreds as he had experienced in his early career. He became anxious on stage and would have difficulty establishing eye contact with the audience. He once said in 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 appearing in clubs, regaining his ability to perform live, albeit with smaller audiences.<ref name="Rolling Stone Interview"/> |
By 1972, after being a performer for nearly ten years, Morrison began experiencing [[stage fright]] when performing for audiences of thousands, as opposed to the hundreds as he had experienced in his early career. He became anxious on stage and would have difficulty establishing eye contact with the audience. He once said in 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 appearing in clubs, regaining his ability to perform live, albeit with smaller audiences.<ref name="Rolling Stone Interview"/> |
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The 1974 live double album, ''[[It's Too Late to Stop Now]]'', has been on lists of greatest live albums of all time.<ref name="It's Too Late"/><ref name="MOJO Top 50 LIve Albums">{{ |
The 1974 live double album, ''[[It's Too Late to Stop Now]]'', has been on lists of greatest live albums of all time.<ref name="It's Too Late"/><ref name="MOJO Top 50 LIve Albums">{{Cite web|url=http://www.muzieklijstjes.nl/MojoBestLiveAlbums.htm|title=MOJO Top 50 Live Albums|publisher=Muziek|accessdate=2007-03-31}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/vox.html#live|title=VOX The Greatest live albums ever| publisher=rocklistmusic.co.uk|accessdate=2010-05-21}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web| url=http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/weekly_article/stylus-magazines-top-50-live-albums-of-all-time.htm| title=Top 50 Live Albums|publisher=Stylus |accessdate= 2007-03-31}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/release/j9hj/|title=BBC Review of the remastered CD reissue|publisher=BBC|author=Jones, Chris|date=2008-01-24|accessdate=2010-05-21}}</ref> Biographer [[Johnny Rogan]] states that "Morrison was in the midst of what was arguably his greatest phase as a performer."<ref>Rogan, No Surrender, p. 282</ref> Performances on the album were from tapes made during a three month tour of the US and Europe in 1973 with the backing group [[The Caledonia Soul Orchestra]]. Soon after recording the album, Morrison restructured the Caledonia Soul Orchestra into a smaller unit, the Caledonia Soul Express.<ref name="HeylinPage284">Heylin (2003), page 284.</ref> |
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[[Image:The Last Waltz.jpg|250px|left|thumbnail|Morrison performs in 1976 at [[The Band]]'s final concert filmed for ''[[The Last Waltz]]''.]] |
[[Image:The Last Waltz.jpg|250px|left|thumbnail|Morrison performs in 1976 at [[The Band]]'s final concert filmed for ''[[The Last Waltz]]''.]] |
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On [[Thanksgiving (United States)|Thanksgiving Day]] 1976, Morrison performed at the farewell concert for [[The Band]]. Morrison's first live performance in several years, he considered skipping his appearance until the last minute, even refusing to go on stage when they announced his name. His manager, [[Harvey Goldsmith]], said he "literally kicked him out there."<ref name="HeylinPage313">Heylin (2003), page 313.</ref> Morrison was on good terms with The Band as near-neighbours in [[Woodstock, New York|Woodstock]], and they had the shared experience of stage-fright. At the concert, he performed two songs, including "[[Caravan (Van Morrison song)|Caravan]]", from his 1970 album ''Moondance''. [[Greil Marcus]], in attendance at the concert, wrote: "Van Morrison turned the show around...singing to the rafters and ...burning holes in the floor. It was a triumph, and as the song ended Van began to kick his leg into the air out of sheer exuberance and he kicked his way right offstage like a Rockette. The crowd had given him a fine welcome and they cheered wildly when he left."<ref>{{ |
On [[Thanksgiving (United States)|Thanksgiving Day]] 1976, Morrison performed at the farewell concert for [[The Band]]. Morrison's first live performance in several years, he considered skipping his appearance until the last minute, even refusing to go on stage when they announced his name. His manager, [[Harvey Goldsmith]], said he "literally kicked him out there."<ref name="HeylinPage313">Heylin (2003), page 313.</ref> Morrison was on good terms with The Band as near-neighbours in [[Woodstock, New York|Woodstock]], and they had the shared experience of stage-fright. At the concert, he performed two songs, including "[[Caravan (Van Morrison song)|Caravan]]", from his 1970 album ''Moondance''. [[Greil Marcus]], in attendance at the concert, wrote: "Van Morrison turned the show around...singing to the rafters and ...burning holes in the floor. It was a triumph, and as the song ended Van began to kick his leg into the air out of sheer exuberance and he kicked his way right offstage like a Rockette. The crowd had given him a fine welcome and they cheered wildly when he left."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://theband.hiof.no/articles/lwgm.html|author=Marcus, Greil|date=1976-12-30|title=The Bands Last Waltz (Rolling Stone Magazine)|publisher=theband.hiof.no|accessdate=2007-03-31}}</ref> The filmed concert served as the basis for [[Martin Scorsese]]'s 1978 film, ''[[The Last Waltz]]''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.totalfilm.com/dvd_reviews/the_last_waltz|title=The Last Waltz|publisher=totalfilm.com|accessdate=2007-09-17}}</ref> |
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It was during his association with The Band that Morrison acquired the [[nickname]]s: "Belfast Cowboy" and "Van the Man". When Morrison sang the duet "4% Pantomime" (that he co-wrote with [[Robbie Robertson]]), [[Richard Manuel]] calls him, "Oh, Belfast Cowboy". It would be included in The Band's album ''[[Cahoots (album)|Cahoots]]''. When he left the stage, after performing "Caravan" on ''The Last Waltz'', Robertson calls out "''Van the Man!"''<ref name="Timepieces ITM"/> |
It was during his association with The Band that Morrison acquired the [[nickname]]s: "Belfast Cowboy" and "Van the Man". When Morrison sang the duet "4% Pantomime" (that he co-wrote with [[Robbie Robertson]]), [[Richard Manuel]] calls him, "Oh, Belfast Cowboy". It would be included in The Band's album ''[[Cahoots (album)|Cahoots]]''. When he left the stage, after performing "Caravan" on ''The Last Waltz'', Robertson calls out "''Van the Man!"''<ref name="Timepieces ITM"/> |
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On 21 July 1990, Morrison joined many other guests for [[Roger Waters]]' massive performance of ''[[The Wall - Live in Berlin]]'' with an estimated crowd of between three hundred thousand to half a million people and broadcast live on television.<ref>{{ |
On 21 July 1990, Morrison joined many other guests for [[Roger Waters]]' massive performance of ''[[The Wall - Live in Berlin]]'' with an estimated crowd of between three hundred thousand to half a million people and broadcast live on television.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.rogerwaters.org/about_berlin.html|title=The Wall Live in Berlin|publisher=rogerwaters.org|accessdate=2998-07-07}}</ref> He sang "[[Comfortably Numb]]" with Roger Waters, and several members from The Band: [[Levon Helm]], [[Garth Hudson]] and [[Rick Danko]]. At concert's end, he and the other performers sang "[[The Tide Is Turning]]". |
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Morrison performed before an estimated audience of sixty to eighty thousand people when US President [[Bill Clinton]] visited Belfast, Northern Ireland on 30 November 1995. His song "[[Days Like This (song)|Days Like This]]" had become the official [[anthem]] for the [[Northern Ireland peace process|Northern Irish peace movement]].<ref name="RoganPage437">Rogan (2006), page 437.</ref> |
Morrison performed before an estimated audience of sixty to eighty thousand people when US President [[Bill Clinton]] visited Belfast, Northern Ireland on 30 November 1995. His song "[[Days Like This (song)|Days Like This]]" had become the official [[anthem]] for the [[Northern Ireland peace process|Northern Irish peace movement]].<ref name="RoganPage437">Rogan (2006), page 437.</ref> |
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Van Morrison continued performing concerts in the 2000s throughout the year rather than touring.<ref name="concerts"/> Playing few of his best-known songs in concert, he has firmly resisted relegation to a nostalgia act.<ref name="LA Weekly snags a rare one-on-one">{{ |
Van Morrison continued performing concerts in the 2000s throughout the year rather than touring.<ref name="concerts"/> Playing few of his best-known songs in concert, he has firmly resisted relegation to a nostalgia act.<ref name="LA Weekly snags a rare one-on-one">{{Cite web|url=http://www.laweekly.com/2008-11-06/music/van-morrison-and-astal-weeks-la-weekly-snags-a-rare-one-on-one-interview-with-the-elusive-singer/1|title=Van Morrison and Astral Weeks: LA Weekly snags a rare one-on-one interview with the elusive singer|publisher=laweekly.com|author=Foundas, Scott|date=2008-11-05|accessdate=2009-02-08}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.pastemagazine.com/action/article/2377/listening_to_old_voices_van_morrison |title=Van Morrison: The Lion in Winter |publisher=Paste Magazine |date=2005-11-14|author=Whitman, Andy|accessdate=2009-05-15}}</ref> During a 2006 interview, he told Paul Sexton: |
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{{Quote|I don't really tour. This is another misconception. I stopped touring in the true sense of the word in the late 1970s, early 1980s, possibly. I just do gigs now. I average two gigs a week. Only in America do I do more, because you can't really do a couple of gigs there, so I do more, 10 gigs or something there.<ref>{{ |
{{Quote|I don't really tour. This is another misconception. I stopped touring in the true sense of the word in the late 1970s, early 1980s, possibly. I just do gigs now. I average two gigs a week. Only in America do I do more, because you can't really do a couple of gigs there, so I do more, 10 gigs or something there.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/van-morrison-seeking-the-man-inside-473055.html|author=Sexton, Paul|date=2006-04-07|title= Van Morrison: seeking the man inside|publisher=independent.co.uk|accessdate=2008-01-25 | location=London}}</ref>}} |
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{{listen |
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|title = Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl|description= The 2008 titled song, "Astral Weeks (I Believe I've Transcended)" with the opening lines: "If I ventured in the slipstream between the viaducts of your dream" shows "a deeper, louder roar than the blue-eyed soul voice of his youth – softer on the diction – but none the less impressively powerful."<ref name="McNulty, Bernadette"/>}} |
|title = Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl|description= The 2008 titled song, "Astral Weeks (I Believe I've Transcended)" with the opening lines: "If I ventured in the slipstream between the viaducts of your dream" shows "a deeper, louder roar than the blue-eyed soul voice of his youth – softer on the diction – but none the less impressively powerful."<ref name="McNulty, Bernadette"/>}} |
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On 7 and 8 November 2008, at the [[Hollywood Bowl]] in [[Los Angeles, California]], Morrison performed the entire ''Astral Weeks'' album live for the first time. The ''Astral Weeks'' band featured guitarist [[Jay Berliner]], who played on the album that was released forty years previously in November 1968. Also featured on piano was [[Roger Kellaway]]. A live album entitled ''[[Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl]]'' resulted from these two performances.<ref>{{ |
On 7 and 8 November 2008, at the [[Hollywood Bowl]] in [[Los Angeles, California]], Morrison performed the entire ''Astral Weeks'' album live for the first time. The ''Astral Weeks'' band featured guitarist [[Jay Berliner]], who played on the album that was released forty years previously in November 1968. Also featured on piano was [[Roger Kellaway]]. A live album entitled ''[[Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl]]'' resulted from these two performances.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-morrison1-2008nov01,0,3773763.story?track=ntothtml|title=Van Morrison discusses Astral Weeks which he performs at the Hollywood Bowl|publisher=LA Times|author=Lewis, Randy|date=2008-11-01|accessdate=2008-11-03}}</ref> The new live album on CD was released on 24 February 2009,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123543248786353835.html|title=Van Morrison revisits 'Astral Weeks'|date=2009-02-24|publisher=wsj.com|author=Fusilli, Jim|accessdate=2009-02-24}}</ref> followed by a DVD from the performances.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://blurt-online.com/reviews/view/849/|publisher=blurt-online.com|date=2009-02-18|author=Rosen, Steven|title=Van Morrison: Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl|accessdate=2009-02-24}}</ref> The DVD, ''[[Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl: The Concert Film]]'' was released via Amazon Exclusive on 19 May 2009. |
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Morrison began a week of ''Astral Week Live'' concerts, interviews and TV appearances with concerts at the WaMu Theater at [[Madison Square Garden]] in New York City in late February 2009<ref>{{ |
Morrison began a week of ''Astral Week Live'' concerts, interviews and TV appearances with concerts at the WaMu Theater at [[Madison Square Garden]] in New York City in late February 2009<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www3.timeoutny.com/newyork/tonyblog/?p=8580|publisher=timeoutny.com|author=Shteamer, Hank|date=2009-01-07|title=Van Morrison brings Astral Weeks to NYC 28 and 29 February|accessdate=2009-01-23}}</ref> and at the [[Beacon Theatre (New York City)|Beacon Theatre]] in early March<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.wnew.com/2009/02/am-nuggets-van-morrison-twofer-at-beacon-theater-playing-astral-weeks-in-entirety.html|publisher=wnew.com|title=A.M. Nuggets: Van Morrison Two-fer at Beacon Theater, Playing Astral Weeks in Entirety|author=Simpson, Matt|accessdate=2009-02-06}}</ref> with a twenty-four minute interview to [[Don Imus]] on his ''[[Imus in the Morning]]'' radio show on 26 February. [http://www.ilike.com/artist/Van+Morrison/track/Imus+In+The+Morning+Radio+Interview Listen]<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.ilike.com/artist/Van+Morrison/track/Imus+In+The+Morning+Radio+Interview |publisher=ilike.com|title=Imus in the Morning: Van Morrison 26 February 2009|accessdate=2009-12-12}}</ref> Midway between the scheduled concerts at the WaMu and Beacon, he made a guest appearance on [[Jimmy Fallon]]'s debut show as host of ''[[Late Night with Jimmy Fallon]]'' on 2 March 2009 performing "[[Sweet Thing (Van Morrison song)|Sweet Thing]]" from the ''Astral Weeks'' album.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/zontv/2009/03/jimmy_fallon_van_morrison_just.html|publisher=baltimoresun.com|title=Z on TV: Fallon stumbles in debut even with DeNiro, Morrison|author=Zurawick, David|date=2009-03-03|accessdate=2009-04-10}}</ref> Morrison also performed "Sweet Thing" and "[[Brown Eyed Girl]]", on ''[[Live with Regis and Kelly]]'' the next morning on 3 March 2009.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.locatetv.com/tv/live-with-regis-and-kelly/6126710|publisher=locatetv.com|title=Live with Regis and Kelly:Episode 93|accessdate=2009-02-24}}</ref> Morrison continued with the ''Astral Weeks'' performances with two concerts at the [[Royal Albert Hall]] in London in April<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/live_reviews/article6128843.ece|publisher=timesonline.co.uk|title=Van Morrison at the Royal Albert Hall|author=Paphides, Pete|date=2009-04-20|accessdate=2009-04-25 | location=London}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturecritics/helenbrown/5186265/Van-Morrison-performing-Astral-Weeks-live-at-the-Albert-Hall-review.html|author=Brown, Helen|date=2009-04-20|publisher=telegraph.co.uk|title=Van Morrison performing Astral Weeks live at the Albert Hall, review|accessdate=2009-04-26 | location=London}}</ref> and then returned to California in May 2009 performing the ''Astral Weeks'' songs at the [[Hearst Greek Theatre]] in [[Berkeley, California|Berkeley]] and the [[Orpheum Theatre (Los Angeles, California)|Orpheum Theatre]] in Los Angeles, California.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php?id=32421|publisher=allaboutjazz.com|title=Van Morrison will bring 'Astral Weeks' shows back to California|date=2009-03-24|accessdate=2009-03-24}}</ref> Morrison filmed the concerts at the Orpheum Theatre so that they could be viewed by [[Farrah Fawcett]], confined to bed with cancer and who therefore could not attend the concerts.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/story/morrison-films-la-shows-for-farrah_1103538|publisher=contactmusic.com|title=Morrison films LA show for Fawcett|accessdate=2009-10-25}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/marc_malkin/b124066_farrah_fawcett_gets_comfort_from_fave.html|publisher=eonline.com|title=Farrah Fawcett gets comfort from fave musician|author=Malkin, Marc|date=2009-05-14|accessdate=2009-05-16}}</ref> On 6 May 2009, Morrison appeared on ''[[The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (1992 TV series)|The Tonight Show with Jay Leno]]'' performing the updated version of "[[Slim Slow Slider|Slim Slow Slider (I Start Breaking Down)]]" from ''Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl''. |
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In addition to ''It's Too Late to Stop Now'' and ''Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl'', Morrison has released three other live albums: ''[[Live at the Grand Opera House Belfast]]'' in 1984; ''[[A Night in San Francisco]]'' in 1994 that ''[[Rolling Stone]]'' magazine felt stood out as: "the culmination of a career's worth of soul searching that finds Morrison's eyes turned toward heaven and his feet planted firmly on the ground";<ref name="ANISF"/> and ''[[The Skiffle Sessions - Live in Belfast 1998]]'' recorded with [[Lonnie Donegan]] and [[Chris Barber]] and released in 2000. |
In addition to ''It's Too Late to Stop Now'' and ''Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl'', Morrison has released three other live albums: ''[[Live at the Grand Opera House Belfast]]'' in 1984; ''[[A Night in San Francisco]]'' in 1994 that ''[[Rolling Stone]]'' magazine felt stood out as: "the culmination of a career's worth of soul searching that finds Morrison's eyes turned toward heaven and his feet planted firmly on the ground";<ref name="ANISF"/> and ''[[The Skiffle Sessions - Live in Belfast 1998]]'' recorded with [[Lonnie Donegan]] and [[Chris Barber]] and released in 2000. |
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Morrison was scheduled to perform at the [[Rock and Roll Hall of Fame]]'s 25th anniversary concert on 30 October 2009, but cancelled.<ref>{{ |
Morrison was scheduled to perform at the [[Rock and Roll Hall of Fame]]'s 25th anniversary concert on 30 October 2009, but cancelled.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2009/10/leonard_cohen_a_2.html|title=Leonard Cohen and Van Morrison at MSG this weekend but Van will not be back for Rock Hall of Fame|publisher=brooklynvegan.com|accessdate=2009-10-30}}</ref> In an interview on 26 October, Morrison told his host [[Don Imus]] that he had planned to play "a couple of songs" with [[Eric Clapton]] (who had cancelled on 22 October due to [[gallstone]] surgery),<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.ericclapton.com/eric-clapton-news/eric-clapton-cancels-rock-roll-hall-fame-concert|title=Eric Clapton cancels Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concert|publisher=ericclapton.com|accessdate=2009-10-30}}</ref> but that they would do something else together at "some other stage of the game".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.tv.com/imus-in-the-morning/show/17256/episode.html|title=Imus in the morning Season 13 Episode Guidel|publisher=imus.com|accessdate=2009-12-13}}</ref> |
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Morrison performed for the [[Edmonton Folk Music Festival]] in [[Edmonton]], [[Alberta]], [[Canada]] on 4 August 2010 as the headline act for the fundraiser.<ref>{{ |
Morrison performed for the [[Edmonton Folk Music Festival]] in [[Edmonton]], [[Alberta]], [[Canada]] on 4 August 2010 as the headline act for the fundraiser.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://communities.canada.com/edmontonjournal/blogs/pluggedin/archive/2010/05/31/morrison-is-a-go.aspx|newspaper=Edmonton Journal|last=Sperounes|first=Sandra|date=2010-05-31|title=Morrison is a go! - Plugged In|accessdate=2010-06-03}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/Artists/M/Morrison_Van/ConcertReviews/2010/08/05/14928946.html|title=Concert Review: Van Morrison|date=2010-08-05|author=Ross, Mike|publisher=canoe.ca|accessdate=2010-08-05}}</ref> |
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==Collaborations== |
==Collaborations== |
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During the 1990s, 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 voice and Hammond organ skills to Morrison's band; and [[Brian Kennedy (singer)|Brian Kennedy]]'s vocals complemented the grizzled voice of Morrison, both in studio and live performances. |
During the 1990s, 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 voice and Hammond organ skills to Morrison's band; and [[Brian Kennedy (singer)|Brian Kennedy]]'s vocals complemented the grizzled voice of Morrison, both in studio and live performances. |
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The 1990s also saw an upsurge in collaborations by Morrison with other artists, a trend continuing into the new millennium. He recorded with Irish folk band [[The Chieftains]] on their 1995 album, ''[[The Long Black Veil]]''. Morrison's song, "[[Have I Told You Lately]]" would win a Grammy Award for [[Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals]] in 1996.<ref>{{ |
The 1990s also saw an upsurge in collaborations by Morrison with other artists, a trend continuing into the new millennium. He recorded with Irish folk band [[The Chieftains]] on their 1995 album, ''[[The Long Black Veil]]''. Morrison's song, "[[Have I Told You Lately]]" would win a Grammy Award for [[Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals]] in 1996.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.rockonthenet.com/archive/1996/grammys.htm|publisher=rockonthenet.com|title=38th Grammy awards-1996|accessdate=2008-09-24}}</ref> He also produced and was featured on several tracks with blues legend [[John Lee Hooker]] on Hooker's 1997 album, ''[[Don't Look Back (John Lee Hooker album)|Don't Look Back]].'' This album would win a Grammy Award for [[Best Traditional Blues Album]] in 1998 and the title track "[[Don't Look Back (John Lee Hooker song)|Don't Look Back]]", a duet featuring Morrison and Hooker, would also win a Grammy Award for "Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals" in 1998.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.rockonthenet.com/archive/1998/grammys.htm|publisher=rockonthenet.com|title=40th annual Grammy awards – 1998|accessdate=2009-04-10}}</ref> Morrison additionally collaborated with [[Tom Jones (singer)|Tom Jones]] on his 1999 album ''[[Reload (Tom Jones album)|Reload]]'', performing a duet on "[[Sometimes We Cry]]", and he also sang vocals on a track entitled "The Last Laugh" on [[Mark Knopfler]]'s 2000 album, ''[[Sailing to Philadelphia]]''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://georgegraham.com/reviews/knopflr2.html|author=Graham, George D.|date=2000-10-25|title=Mark Knopfler:Sailing to Philadelphia|publisher=georgegraham.com|accessdate=2008-07-04}}</ref> In 2004, Morrison was one of the guests on [[Ray Charles]]' album, ''[[Genius Loves Company]]'', featuring the two artists performing Morrison's "[[Crazy Love (Van Morrison song)|Crazy Love]]". |
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==Music== |
==Music== |
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===Vocals=== |
===Vocals=== |
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<blockquote class="toccolours" style="text-align:left; width:30%; float:right; margin: 10px 10px 5px 5px; padding:10px 10px 10px 10px; display:table;">It is at the heart of Morrison’s presence as a singer that when he lights on certain sounds, certain small moments inside a song—hesitations, silences, shifts in pressure, sudden entrances, slamming doors—can then suggest whole territories, completed stories, indistinct ceremonies, far outside anything that can be literally traced in the compositions that carry them.<p style="text-align: right;"> [[Greil Marcus]]<ref name="MarcusPage108">Marcus (2010), page 108.</ref></blockquote> |
<blockquote class="toccolours" style="text-align:left; width:30%; float:right; margin: 10px 10px 5px 5px; padding:10px 10px 10px 10px; display:table;">It is at the heart of Morrison’s presence as a singer that when he lights on certain sounds, certain small moments inside a song—hesitations, silences, shifts in pressure, sudden entrances, slamming doors—can then suggest whole territories, completed stories, indistinct ceremonies, far outside anything that can be literally traced in the compositions that carry them.<p style="text-align: right;"> [[Greil Marcus]]<ref name="MarcusPage108">Marcus (2010), page 108.</ref></blockquote> |
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Featuring his characteristic growl—a mix of [[folk music|folk]], [[blues]], [[soul music|soul]], [[jazz]], [[gospel music|gospel]], and [[Ulster Scots people|Ulster Scots]] [[Celtic music|Celtic]] influences—Morrison is widely considered by many rock historians to be one of the most unusual and influential vocalists in the history of [[rock and roll]].<ref name="Van Morrison Biography: Rolling Stone">{{ |
Featuring his characteristic growl—a mix of [[folk music|folk]], [[blues]], [[soul music|soul]], [[jazz]], [[gospel music|gospel]], and [[Ulster Scots people|Ulster Scots]] [[Celtic music|Celtic]] influences—Morrison is widely considered by many rock historians to be one of the most unusual and influential vocalists in the history of [[rock and roll]].<ref name="Van Morrison Biography: Rolling Stone">{{Cite web|archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20080622011927/http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/vanmorrison/biography|title=Van Morrison Biography: Rolling Stone|archivedate=2008-06-22|publisher=Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll (Simon and Shulster, 2001)|accessdate=2010-05-17}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:jifuxqygldhe~T1|title=Allmusic: Van Morrison biography|author=Ankeny, Jason|publisher=allmusic.com|accessdate=2008-07-06}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.rockhall.com/inductee/van-morrison/|title=R&R Hall of Fame:Van Morrison|publisher=rockhall.com|accessdate=2008-07-07}}</ref> Critic [[Greil Marcus]] has gone so far as to say that "no white man sings like Van Morrison."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.inthenews.co.uk/entertainment/reviews/music/van-morrison-still-on-top-greatest-hits-$1153228.htm|title=Van Morrison: Still on Top – The Greatest Hits|author=Meghan, Graham|date=2007-10-07|publisher=inthenews.co.uk|accessdate=2008-10-17}}</ref> As Morrison began live performances of the 40 year old album ''Astral Weeks'' in 2008, there were comparisons to his youthful voice of 1968.—His early voice was described as "flinty and tender, beseeching and plaintive".<ref name="O'Hagan, Sean">{{Cite news|url= http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/nov/02/vanmorrison-popandrock|publisher=guardian.co.uk|author=O'Hagan, Sean|date=2008-11-02|title=Is this the best album ever made?|accessdate=2009-05-02 | location=London}}</ref> Forty years later, the difference in his vocal range and power were noticeable but reviewers and critic's comments were favourable: "Morrison's voice has expanded to fill his frame; a deeper, louder roar than the blue-eyed soul voice of his youth – softer on the diction – but none the less impressively powerful."<ref name="McNulty, Bernadette">{{Cite news|url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturecritics/bernadettemcnulty/5245540/On-another-Astral-plane.html|publisher=telegraph.co.uk|title=On Another Astral Plane|author=McNulty, Bernadette|date=2009-04-29|accessdate=2009-05-02 | location=London}}</ref> Morrison also commented on the changes in his approach to singing: |
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"The approach now is to sing from lower down [the diaphragm] so I do not ruin my voice. Before, I sang in the upper area of my throat, which tends to wreck the vocal cords over time. Singing from lower in the belly allows my resonance to carry far. I can stand four feet from a mic and be heard quite resonantely."<ref name = "Astral Traveller">Neil, Chris, ''Performing Songwriter'', Issue 116, March/April 2009, Pages 44-50</ref> |
"The approach now is to sing from lower down [the diaphragm] so I do not ruin my voice. Before, I sang in the upper area of my throat, which tends to wreck the vocal cords over time. Singing from lower in the belly allows my resonance to carry far. I can stand four feet from a mic and be heard quite resonantely."<ref name = "Astral Traveller">Neil, Chris, ''Performing Songwriter'', Issue 116, March/April 2009, Pages 44-50</ref> |
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===Songwriting and lyrics=== |
===Songwriting and lyrics=== |
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Morrison has written hundreds of songs<ref>{{ |
Morrison has written hundreds of songs<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1882001,00.html|publisher=time.com|title=10 Questions for Van Morrison|date=2009-02-26|accessdate=2009-05-06}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:jifuxqygldhe~T3|publisher=allmusic.com|title=Van Morison songs|accessdate=2009-05-07}}</ref> during his career with a recurring theme reflecting a nostalgic yearning for the carefree days of his childhood in Belfast.<ref name="Astral Travels">{{Cite web|url=http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-02-18/music/the-astral-travels-of-van-morrison/|date=2009-02-17|publisher=villagevoice.com|author=Foundas, Scott|title=The Astral Travels of Van Morrison|accessdate=2009-02-18}}</ref> Some of his song titles derive from familiar locations in his childhood such as: "[[Cyprus Avenue]]" (a nearby street), "[[Orangefield (song)|Orangefield]]" (the boys school he attended), "On Hyndford Street" (where he was born). Also frequently present in Morrison's best love songs is a blending of the sacred-profane as evidenced in "[[Into the Mystic]]" and "So Quiet in Here".<ref name="HintonPage13">Hinton (1997), page 13.</ref><ref name="Enlightenment">{{Cite journal|magazine=Rolling Stone|title=Enlightenment: Van Morrison review|author=Swenson, John|date=15 November 1990}}</ref> Beginning with his 1979 album, ''[[Into the Music]]'' and the song "[[And the Healing Has Begun]]", a frequent theme of his music and lyrics has been based on his belief in the healing power of music combined with a form of [[mysticism|mystic]] [[Christianity]]. This theme has become one of the predominant qualities of his work.<ref name="CollisPage 149">Collis (1996), page 149.</ref> His lyrics show an influence of the visionary poets [[William Blake]] and [[W. B. Yeats]]<ref name ="HintonPage12">Hinton (1997), page 12.</ref> and others such as [[Samuel Coleridge|Samuel Taylor Coleridge]] and [[William Wordsworth]].<ref name=TurnerPage145>Turner (1993), page 145</ref> Biographer [[Brian Hinton]] believes "like any great poet from Blake to [[Seamus Heaney]] he takes words back to their origins in magic...Indeed, Morrison is returning poetry to its earliest roots – as in [[Homer]] or Old English epics like [[Beowulf]] or the Psalms or folk song – in all of which words and music combine to form a new reality."<ref name="HintonPage13">Hinton (1997), page 13.</ref> Another biographer John Collis believes that Morrison's style of jazz singing and repeating phrases preclude his lyrics from being regarded as poetry or as Collis asserts: "he is more likely to repeat a phrase like a mantra, or burst into scat singing. The words may often be prosaic, and so can hardly be poetry."<ref name="CollisPage12">Collis (1996), page 10.</ref> Morrison has described his songwriting method by remarking that: "I write from a different place. I do not even know what it is called or if it has a name. It just comes and I sculpt it, but it is also a lot of hard work doing the sculpting."<ref name = "Astral Traveller"/> |
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===Performance style |
===Performance style=== |
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<blockquote class="toccolours" style="text-align:left; width:27%; float:right; margin: 10px 0px 5px 10px; padding:10px 10px 10px 10px; display:table;">"Van Morrison is interested, ''obsessed'' with how much musical or verbal information he can compress into a small space, and, almost, conversely, how far he can spread one note, word, sound, or picture. To capture one moment, be it a caress or a twitch. He repeats certain phrases to extremes that from anybody else would seem ridiculous, because he's waiting for a vision to unfold, trying as unobtrusively as possible to nudge it along...It's the great search, fueled by the belief that through these musical and mental processes illumination is attainable. Or may at least be glimpsed." <p style="text-align: right;"> [[Lester Bangs]]<ref>{{ |
<blockquote class="toccolours" style="text-align:left; width:27%; float:right; margin: 10px 0px 5px 10px; padding:10px 10px 10px 10px; display:table;">"Van Morrison is interested, ''obsessed'' with how much musical or verbal information he can compress into a small space, and, almost, conversely, how far he can spread one note, word, sound, or picture. To capture one moment, be it a caress or a twitch. He repeats certain phrases to extremes that from anybody else would seem ridiculous, because he's waiting for a vision to unfold, trying as unobtrusively as possible to nudge it along...It's the great search, fueled by the belief that through these musical and mental processes illumination is attainable. Or may at least be glimpsed." <p style="text-align: right;"> [[Lester Bangs]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://personal.cis.strath.ac.uk/~murray/astral.html|title= Lester Bangs on ''Astral Weeks''|author=Lester Bangs|publisher=personal.cis.strath.ac.uk|accessdate=2009-02-08}}</ref></blockquote> |
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Critic [[Greil Marcus]] argues that given the truly distinctive breadth and complexity of Morrison's work, it is almost impossible to cast his work among that of others: "Morrison remains a singer who can be compared to no other in the history of rock & roll, a singer who cannot be pinned down, dismissed, or fitted into anyone's expectations."<ref name="MarcusPage447">Marcus (1992), page 447.</ref> Or in the words of [[Jay Cocks]]: "He extends himself only to express himself. Alone among rock's great figures—and even in that company he is one of the greatest—Morrison is adamantly inward. And unique. Although he freely crosses musical boundaries—R. and B., Celtic melodies, jazz, rave-up rock, hymns, down-and-dirty blues—he can unfailingly be found in the same strange place: on his own wavelength."<ref name="Listen to the Lion">{{ |
Critic [[Greil Marcus]] argues that given the truly distinctive breadth and complexity of Morrison's work, it is almost impossible to cast his work among that of others: "Morrison remains a singer who can be compared to no other in the history of rock & roll, a singer who cannot be pinned down, dismissed, or fitted into anyone's expectations."<ref name="MarcusPage447">Marcus (1992), page 447.</ref> Or in the words of [[Jay Cocks]]: "He extends himself only to express himself. Alone among rock's great figures—and even in that company he is one of the greatest—Morrison is adamantly inward. And unique. Although he freely crosses musical boundaries—R. and B., Celtic melodies, jazz, rave-up rock, hymns, down-and-dirty blues—he can unfailingly be found in the same strange place: on his own wavelength."<ref name="Listen to the Lion">{{Cite news|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,974140-1,00.html|title=Listen to the Lion|publisher=time.com|author=Cocks, Jay|date=1991-10-28|accessdate=2009-01-12}}</ref> His [[transcendence (religion)|transcendental]] signature style came into full expression with his 1968 classic, ''[[Astral Weeks]]''. This musical art form was based on stream of consciousness songwriting and emotional vocalizing of lyrics that have no basis in normal structure or symmetry. His live performances are dependent on building dynamics with spontaniety between himself and his band, whom he controls with hand gestures throughout, sometimes signaling impromptu solos from a selected band member. The music and vocals build towards a hypnotic and trance-like state that depends on in-the-moment creativity.<ref name="Astral Travels" /> He has said he believes in the [[jazz]] [[improvisational]] technique of never performing a song the same way twice and except for the unique rendition of the ''Astral Weeks'' songs live, doesn't perform a concert from a preconceived set list.<ref name="LA Weekly snags a rare one-on-one"/> Morrison has said he prefers to perform at smaller venues or symphony halls noted for their good [[acoustics]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.dailycal.org/article/105492/famed_artist_van_morrison_talks_about_musical_career|publisher=dailycal.org|title=Famed artist Van Morrison talks about his musical career|date=2009-04-30|author=Lee, Stefanie|accessdate=2009-05-01}}</ref> His ban against [[alcoholic beverage]]s, which made entertainment news during 2008, was an attempt to prevent the disruptive and distracting movement of audience members leaving their seats during the performances.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.ok.co.uk/celebnews/view/3368/Morrison-bans-alcohol-at-gigs/|title=Morrison bans alcohol at gigs|publisher=OK!|date=2008-09-18|accessdate=2010-05-25}}</ref> In a 2009 interview, Morrison stated: "I do not consciously aim to take the listener anywhere. If anything, I aim to take myself there in my music. If the listener catches the wavelength of what I am saying or singing, or gets whatever point whatever line means to them, then I guess as a writer I may have done a day's work."<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-morrison9-2009jan09,0,5414358.story|title=Van Morrison takes listeners on his spiritual journey|publisher=latimes.com|date=2009-01-09|author=Lewis, Randy|accessdate=2009-01-12}}</ref> |
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===Genre=== |
===Genre=== |
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The music of Van Morrison has encompassed many genres since his early days as a [[blues]] and [[rhythm and blues|R&B]] singer in Belfast. Over the years he has recorded songs from a varying list of genres drawn from many influences and interests. As well as blues and R&B, his compositions and [[cover versions|covers]] have moved between [[pop music]], [[jazz]], [[rock music|rock]], [[folk music|folk]], [[country music|country]], [[gospel music|gospel]], [[folk music of Ireland|Irish folk]] and [[Irish traditional music|traditional]], [[big band]], [[skiffle]], [[rock and roll]], [[New age music|new age]], [[classical music|classic]] and sometimes [[spoken word]] ("[[Coney Island (song)|Coney Island]]") and [[instrumental]]s.<ref name="HintonPage15">Hinton (1997), page 15.</ref> Morrison defines himself as a soul singer.<ref>{{ |
The music of Van Morrison has encompassed many genres since his early days as a [[blues]] and [[rhythm and blues|R&B]] singer in Belfast. Over the years he has recorded songs from a varying list of genres drawn from many influences and interests. As well as blues and R&B, his compositions and [[cover versions|covers]] have moved between [[pop music]], [[jazz]], [[rock music|rock]], [[folk music|folk]], [[country music|country]], [[gospel music|gospel]], [[folk music of Ireland|Irish folk]] and [[Irish traditional music|traditional]], [[big band]], [[skiffle]], [[rock and roll]], [[New age music|new age]], [[classical music|classic]] and sometimes [[spoken word]] ("[[Coney Island (song)|Coney Island]]") and [[instrumental]]s.<ref name="HintonPage15">Hinton (1997), page 15.</ref> Morrison defines himself as a soul singer.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://mvremix.com/rock_blogs/2009/01/08/van-morrisons-astral-weeks-live-at-the-hollywood-bowl-chronicles-the-first-ever-live-performance-of-legendary-soul-singers-revered-1968-album/|publisher=mvremix.com|date=2009-01-08|title=Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl"|accessdate=2009-05-29}}</ref> |
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Some of Morrison's music has been classified in a genre of its own and referred to as "Celtic soul"<ref name = "Astral Weeks, Light"/> or what biographer Brian Hinton referred to as a new alchemy called "Caledonian soul."<ref name="HintonPage13">Hinton (1997), page 13.</ref> Another biographer, [[Ritchie Yorke]] quoted Morrison as believing that he has "the spirit of Caledonia in his soul and his music reflects it."<ref name="Yorke Page159">Yorke (1975), page 159.</ref> According to Yorke, Morrison claimed to have discovered "a certain quality of soul" when he first visited Scotland (his Belfast ancestors were of [[Ulster Scots people|Ulster Scots]] descent) and Morrison has said he believes there is some connection between soul music and Caledonia. Yorke relates that Morrison "discovered several years after he first began composing music that some of his songs lent themselves to a unique major modal scale (without sevenths) which of course is the same scale as that used by [[bagpipes|bagpipe]] players and old Irish and Scottish folk music."<ref name="Yorke Page159">Yorke (1975), page 159.</ref> |
Some of Morrison's music has been classified in a genre of its own and referred to as "Celtic soul"<ref name = "Astral Weeks, Light"/> or what biographer Brian Hinton referred to as a new alchemy called "Caledonian soul."<ref name="HintonPage13">Hinton (1997), page 13.</ref> Another biographer, [[Ritchie Yorke]] quoted Morrison as believing that he has "the spirit of Caledonia in his soul and his music reflects it."<ref name="Yorke Page159">Yorke (1975), page 159.</ref> According to Yorke, Morrison claimed to have discovered "a certain quality of soul" when he first visited Scotland (his Belfast ancestors were of [[Ulster Scots people|Ulster Scots]] descent) and Morrison has said he believes there is some connection between soul music and Caledonia. Yorke relates that Morrison "discovered several years after he first began composing music that some of his songs lent themselves to a unique major modal scale (without sevenths) which of course is the same scale as that used by [[bagpipes|bagpipe]] players and old Irish and Scottish folk music."<ref name="Yorke Page159">Yorke (1975), page 159.</ref> |
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==Caledonia== |
==Caledonia== |
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The name "[[Caledonia]]" has played a prominent role in Morrison's life and career. Biographer [[Ritchie Yorke]] had pointed out already by 1975 that Morrison has referred to Caledonia so many times in his career that he "seems to be obsessed with the word."<ref name="Yorke Page159">Yorke (1975), page 159.</ref> In his 2009 biography, [[Erik Hage]] found that "Morrison seemed deeply interested in his paternal Scottish roots during his early career, and later in the ancient countryside of England, hence his repeated use of the term ''Caledonia'' (an ancient Roman name for Scotland/northern Britain)."<ref>Hage (2009), page 52.</ref> As well as being his daughter's middle name, it's the name of his first production company, his studio, his publishing company, two of his backing groups, and he also recorded a cover of the song, "Caldonia" (with the name spelled "Caledonia") in 1974.<ref name="Yorke Page159">Yorke (1975), page 159.</ref> Morrison used "Caledonia" in what has been called a quintessential Van Morrison moment in the song, "[[Listen to the Lion]]" with the lyrics, "And we sail, and we sail, way up to Caledonia".<ref>{{ |
The name "[[Caledonia]]" has played a prominent role in Morrison's life and career. Biographer [[Ritchie Yorke]] had pointed out already by 1975 that Morrison has referred to Caledonia so many times in his career that he "seems to be obsessed with the word."<ref name="Yorke Page159">Yorke (1975), page 159.</ref> In his 2009 biography, [[Erik Hage]] found that "Morrison seemed deeply interested in his paternal Scottish roots during his early career, and later in the ancient countryside of England, hence his repeated use of the term ''Caledonia'' (an ancient Roman name for Scotland/northern Britain)."<ref>Hage (2009), page 52.</ref> As well as being his daughter's middle name, it's the name of his first production company, his studio, his publishing company, two of his backing groups, and he also recorded a cover of the song, "Caldonia" (with the name spelled "Caledonia") in 1974.<ref name="Yorke Page159">Yorke (1975), page 159.</ref> Morrison used "Caledonia" in what has been called a quintessential Van Morrison moment in the song, "[[Listen to the Lion]]" with the lyrics, "And we sail, and we sail, way up to Caledonia".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2005/11/listening-to-old-voices-van-morrison.html|publisher=pastemagazine.com|author=Whitman, Andy|title=Listening to Old Voices: Van Morrison The Lion In Winter|date=2005-11-14|accessdate=2009-01-17}}</ref> As late as 2008, Morrison used "Caledonia" as a [[mantra]] in the live performance of the song, "[[Astral Weeks (song)|Astral Weeks]]" recorded at the two [[Hollywood Bowl]] concerts.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-morrison9-2009jan09,0,5414358.story|title=Van Morrison takes listeners on his spiritual journey|publisher=latimes.com|date=2009-01-09|author=Lewis, Randy|accessdate=2009-01-22}}</ref> |
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==Influence== |
==Influence== |
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Morrison's influence can readily be heard in the music of a diverse array of major artists and according to ''The Rolling Stone's Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll'' (Simon & Shuster, 2001), "his influence among rock singers/song writers is unrivaled by any living artist outside of that other prickly legend, [[Bob Dylan]]. Echoes of Morrison's rugged literateness and his gruff, feverish emotive vocals can be heard in latter day icons ranging from [[Bruce Springsteen]] to [[Elvis Costello]]".<ref name="Van Morrison Biography: Rolling Stone"/> His influence includes [[U2]] (much of ''The Unforgettable Fire''); [[Bono]] ("I am in awe of a musician like Van Morrison. I had to stop listening to Van Morrison records about six months before we made ''The Unforgettable Fire'' because I didn't want his very original soul voice to overpower my own.");<ref>Bayles, Martha. ''Hole in Our Soul: Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular Music.'' New York: Free Press, 1994, p.321.</ref> [[John Mellencamp]] ("[[Wild Night]]");<ref>{{ |
Morrison's influence can readily be heard in the music of a diverse array of major artists and according to ''The Rolling Stone's Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll'' (Simon & Shuster, 2001), "his influence among rock singers/song writers is unrivaled by any living artist outside of that other prickly legend, [[Bob Dylan]]. Echoes of Morrison's rugged literateness and his gruff, feverish emotive vocals can be heard in latter day icons ranging from [[Bruce Springsteen]] to [[Elvis Costello]]".<ref name="Van Morrison Biography: Rolling Stone"/> His influence includes [[U2]] (much of ''The Unforgettable Fire''); [[Bono]] ("I am in awe of a musician like Van Morrison. I had to stop listening to Van Morrison records about six months before we made ''The Unforgettable Fire'' because I didn't want his very original soul voice to overpower my own.");<ref>Bayles, Martha. ''Hole in Our Soul: Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular Music.'' New York: Free Press, 1994, p.321.</ref> [[John Mellencamp]] ("[[Wild Night]]");<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:aifyxqrgld6e|title=John Mellencamp Biography|publisher=Allmusic|author=Erlewine, Stephen Thomas|accessdate=2010-05-22}}</ref> [[Jim Morrison]];<ref name="HintonPage67">Hinton 1997. p67.</ref> [[Joan Armatrading]] (the only musical influence she will acknowledge);<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DEFD6103AF937A1575BC0A96E948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all|title=The Pop Life|author=Holden, Stephen|date =1988-08-24|publisher=New York Times|accessdate=2008-07-04}}</ref> [[Rod Stewart]];<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/02/15/have-i-told-you-lately-rod-steward-coming-singapore.html|title=Have I told you lately that Rod Stewart is coming to Singapore?|publisher=The Jakarta Post|author=Petite, Kathy|date=2009-02-15|accessdate=2010-05-22}}</ref> [[Tom Petty]];<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php?id=21113|author=Lang, Joe|date=2008-07-29|title=Tom Petty and Steve Winwood|publisher=jazz.com|accessdate=2008-09-08}}</ref> [[Rickie Lee Jones]] (recognises both Laura Nyro and Van Morrison as the main influences on her career);<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/rickie-lee-jones-the-devil-in-miss-jones-573273.html|title=Rickie Lee Jones: The devil in Miss Jones|author=Gill, Andy|date=2004-01-16|newspaper=The Independent|location=London|accessdate=2010-05-22}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.vh1.com/artists/news/1786/19971107/jones_rickie_lee.jhtml|title=You say it's your birthday: Rickie Lee Jones|date=1997-11-07|publisher=vh1.com|accessdate=2010-05-22}}</ref> [[Elton John]];<ref>"Elton had clamored to get his new band on [[Tumbleweed Connection]] and succeeded with "Amoreena" ... He also plays organ on the song and sings the lyrics in a lower voice than in the rest of the album. He would later attribute this to Van Morrison's influence." see, Rosenthal, ''His Song: The Musical Journey of Elton John'', pages 25-26.</ref> [[Graham Parker]];<ref name="segerfile.com">{{Cite web|url=http://www.segerfile.com/influences.html|title=The Seger File|publisher=segerfile.com|accessdate=2008-07-04}}</ref> [[Sinéad O'Connor]];<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.sinead-oconnor.com/home/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=193&Itemid=179|title=No woman, No cry-Hot Press 1995 |publisher=sinead-oconnor.com|accessdate=2008-09-28}}</ref> [[Phil Lynott]] of [[Thin Lizzy]];<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:09ftxq85ld6e|title=Phil Lynott Biography|publisher=Allmusic|author=Prato, Greg|accessdate=2008-09-08}}</ref> [[Bob Seger]] ("I know Bruce Springsteen was very much affected by Van Morrison, and so was I." from ''Creem'' interview)<ref name="segerfile.com"/> ("[[I've Been Working]]");<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:i6fe4j870wae~T1|author=Erlewine, Stephen Thomas|title=''Back in '72'' Allmusic review|publisher=Allmusic|accessdate=2008-09-27}}</ref> [[Kevin Rowland]] of [[Dexys Midnight Runners]] ("[[Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When You Smile)|Jackie Wilson Said]]");<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.uncut.co.uk/music/dexys_midnight_runners/reviews/10194|title=Dexy's Midnight Runners - Too Rye Ay|author=Stephen Trousse|publisher=''Uncut''|accessdate=2010-07-29}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:h9fpxqy5ld6e|title=Dexys Midnight Runners Biography|publisher=Allmusic|author=Huey, Steve|accessdate=2010-05-22}}</ref> [[Jimi Hendrix]] ("[[Gloria (Them song)|Gloria]]");<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.cmt.com/lyrics/jimi-hendrix/gloria/3343797/lyrics.jhtml |title=Music: lyrics Gloria|publisher=CMT|accessdate=2008-08-06}}</ref> [[Jeff Buckley]] ("[[The Way Young Lovers Do]]", "[[Sweet Thing (Van Morrison song)|Sweet Thing]]");<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88091608|title=Assisted Listen: TV homage boosts Buckley|publisher=NPR|accessdate=2008-07-04}}</ref> [[Nick Drake]];<ref name="Moon Page236">Moon (2008), page 238.</ref> and numerous others, including the [[Counting Crows]] (their "sha-la-la" sequence in ''Mr Jones'', is a tribute to Morrison).<ref name="Salon VM bio">{{Cite web|url=http://www.salon.com/people/bc/2000/09/19/morrison|publisher=salon.com|title=Van Morrison Biography|accessdate=2010-04-30}}</ref> Morrison's influence reaches into the country music genre, with [[Hal Ketchum]] acknowledging, "He (Van Morrison) was a major influence in my life."<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/may/20/songwriter-singer-nds-right-mix-his-life/|author=Fink, Jerry|date=2008-05-20|title=Songwriter, singer finds the right mix for his life|publisher=Las Vegas Sun|accessdate=2008-07-13}}</ref> |
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Morrison's influence on the younger generation of singer-songwriters is pervasive: including Irish singer [[Damien Rice]], who has been described as on his way to becoming the "natural heir to Van Morrison";<ref>{{ |
Morrison's influence on the younger generation of singer-songwriters is pervasive: including Irish singer [[Damien Rice]], who has been described as on his way to becoming the "natural heir to Van Morrison";<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://arts.independent.co.uk/music/reviews/article3038395.ece|author=Perrone, Pierre|date=2007-10-08|title=Damien Rice, Wembley Arena London|publisher=The Independent|accessdate=2007-11-17}}</ref> [[Ray Lamontagne]];<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:3jfpxqt5ldje~T0|author=Leggett, Steve|title=Ray Lamontagne Biography |publisher=Allmusic|accessdate=2008-12-08}}</ref> [[James Morrison (singer)|James Morrison]];<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.popmatters.com/pm/music/reviews/31606/james-morrison-undiscovered/ |author=Joseph, Mike|date=2007-03-13|title=James Morrison Undiscovered|publisher=popmatters.com|accessdate=2007-03-30}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/Artists/M/Morrison_James/2007/04/10/3972282.html|author=Daniell, Mark|title=Morrison Tries to Live up to Hype|publisher=canoe.ca|accessdate=2007-04-14}}</ref> [[Paolo Nutini]];<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/album-paolo-nutini-sunny-side-up-atlantic-1692411.html|title=Album: Sunny Side Up Review|newspaper=The Independent|location=London|author=Gill, Andy|date=2009-05-29|accessdate=2010-05-22}}</ref> [[Eric Lindell]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://blog.nola.com/keithspera/2008/01/eric_lindell_shines_on_new_low.html|author=Spera, Keith|date=2008-01-25|title=Eric Lindell shines on new Low on Cash, Rich in Love|publisher=nola.com|accessdate=2007-02-03}}</ref> and [[David Gray (musician)|David Gray]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.scaruffi.com/vol6/gray.html|author=Scaruffi, Piero (1999)|title=David Gray|publisher=scaruffi.com|accessdate=2007-11-18}}</ref> are also several of the younger artists influenced by Morrison. [[Glen Hansard]] of the Irish rock band [[The Frames]] (who lists Van Morrison as being part of his holy trinity with Bob Dylan and [[Leonard Cohen]]) commonly covers his songs in concert.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.smh.com.au/news/music/dylan-support-slot-a-dream-come-true/2007/08/15/1186857582503.html?s_cid=rss_entertainment|date=2007-08-15|title=Dylan support slot a dream come true|publisher=The Sydney Morning Herald|accessdate=2010-05-22}}</ref> American rock band, [[The Wallflowers]] have covered "[[Into the Mystic]]".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.rockonthenet.com/artists-w/wallflowers_main.htm|title=The Wallflowers—Timeline|publisher=rockonthenet.com|accessdate=2008-07-13}}</ref> Canadian blues-rock singer [[Colin James]] also covers the song frequently at his concerts.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/Artists/J/James_Colin/2006/10/17/2048468.html|title=Colin James makes big return |publisher=jam.canoe.ca|author=McEwen, Kerra|date=2006-10-17|accessdate=2010-05-22}}</ref> Actor and musician [[Robert Pattinson]] has said that Van Morrison was his "influence for doing music in the first place".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.fandango.com/commentator_exclusive+interview3a+robert+pattinson_203?wssac=123&wssaffid=11842|publisher=fandango.com|title=Exclusive interview: Robert Pattinson|author=Atkin, Hillary|date=2008-11-16|accessdate=2008-12-01}}</ref> Morrison has shared the stage with Northern Irish singer-songwriter [[Duke Special]], who admits Morrison has been a big influence.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.greenbelt.org.uk/?a=323&pr=77&day=&genre=|title=Greenbelt – Duke Special|publisher=greenbelt.org.uk|accessdate=2008-12-04}}</ref> |
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Overall, Morrison has typically been supportive of other artists, often willingly sharing the stage with them during his concerts. On the live album, ''[[A Night in San Francisco]]'', he had as his special guests, among others, his childhood idols: [[Jimmy Witherspoon]], [[John Lee Hooker]] and [[Junior Wells]].<ref name="ANISF"/> Although he often expresses his displeasure (in interviews and songs) with the music industry and the media in general, he has been instrumental in promoting the careers of many other musicians and singers, such as [[James Hunter (singer)|James Hunter]],<ref>{{ |
Overall, Morrison has typically been supportive of other artists, often willingly sharing the stage with them during his concerts. On the live album, ''[[A Night in San Francisco]]'', he had as his special guests, among others, his childhood idols: [[Jimmy Witherspoon]], [[John Lee Hooker]] and [[Junior Wells]].<ref name="ANISF"/> Although he often expresses his displeasure (in interviews and songs) with the music industry and the media in general, he has been instrumental in promoting the careers of many other musicians and singers, such as [[James Hunter (singer)|James Hunter]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5364455|title=James Hunter in Concert|publisher=npr.org|accessdate=2007-03-30}}</ref> and fellow Belfast-born brothers, [[Brian Kennedy (singer)|Brian]] and [[Bap Kennedy]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.briankennedy.co.uk/biography.html|date=2006-07|title=Biography-Brian Kennedy|publisher=2006 briankennedy.co.uk|accessdate=2007-03-30}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.culturenorthernireland.org/article.aspx?art_id=65|title=My cultural life: Bap Kennedy|publisher=culturenorthernireland.org|accessdate=2009-08-03}}</ref> |
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==Personal life== |
==Personal life== |
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Morrison lived in [[Belfast]] from birth until 1967, when he moved to [[New York City|New York]] after signing with [[Bang Records]]. Facing deportation due to visa problems, he managed to stay in the US when his American girlfriend Janet (Planet) Rigsbee agreed to marry him.<ref name= "HeylinPage168">Heylin 2003. p168.</ref> Once married, Morrison and his wife moved to [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]], where he found work performing in the local clubs. The couple had one daughter [[Shana Morrison]], who has become a singer-songwriter. Morrison and his family moved around America, living in [[Boston]]; [[Woodstock, New York]]; and a hilltop home in [[Fairfax, California]]. His wife appeared on the cover of the album ''[[Tupelo Honey]]''. They divorced in 1973.<ref name="HeylinPage260">Heylin (2003), page 260.</ref><ref name="RoganPage280">Rogan (2006), page 280.</ref> |
Morrison lived in [[Belfast]] from birth until 1967, when he moved to [[New York City|New York]] after signing with [[Bang Records]]. Facing deportation due to visa problems, he managed to stay in the US when his American girlfriend Janet (Planet) Rigsbee agreed to marry him.<ref name= "HeylinPage168">Heylin 2003. p168.</ref> Once married, Morrison and his wife moved to [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]], where he found work performing in the local clubs. The couple had one daughter [[Shana Morrison]], who has become a singer-songwriter. Morrison and his family moved around America, living in [[Boston]]; [[Woodstock, New York]]; and a hilltop home in [[Fairfax, California]]. His wife appeared on the cover of the album ''[[Tupelo Honey]]''. They divorced in 1973.<ref name="HeylinPage260">Heylin (2003), page 260.</ref><ref name="RoganPage280">Rogan (2006), page 280.</ref> |
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Morrison moved back to Europe in the late 1970s, first settling in London's [[Notting Hill Gate]] area.<ref name="RoganPage342">Rogan (2006), page 342.</ref> Later, he moved to [[Bath, Somerset|Bath]], where he purchased Wool Hall Studios.<ref name="RoganPage400">Rogan (2006), page 400.</ref> He also has a home in the Irish seaside village of [[Dalkey]] near Dublin, where legal actions against two different neighbours concerning safety and privacy issues have been taken to court in 2001 and in 2010.<ref>[http://www.independent.ie/national-news/van-gets-no-encore-for--hardcore-in-driveway-row--with-neighbours-322033.html Van gets 'no encore' for hardcore in driveway row with neighbours], ''Irish Independent'', 2001-12-01. Retrieved 2010-06-08.</ref><ref>{{ |
Morrison moved back to Europe in the late 1970s, first settling in London's [[Notting Hill Gate]] area.<ref name="RoganPage342">Rogan (2006), page 342.</ref> Later, he moved to [[Bath, Somerset|Bath]], where he purchased Wool Hall Studios.<ref name="RoganPage400">Rogan (2006), page 400.</ref> He also has a home in the Irish seaside village of [[Dalkey]] near Dublin, where legal actions against two different neighbours concerning safety and privacy issues have been taken to court in 2001 and in 2010.<ref>[http://www.independent.ie/national-news/van-gets-no-encore-for--hardcore-in-driveway-row--with-neighbours-322033.html Van gets 'no encore' for hardcore in driveway row with neighbours], ''Irish Independent'', 2001-12-01. Retrieved 2010-06-08.</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.rte.ie/news/2002/1210/van.html |title=Van Morrison loses court battle over extension|publisher=''RTÉ News''|date=2002-12-10|accessdate=2010-05-25}}</ref><ref>[http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/parked-plans-may-be-back-on-agenda-for-van-124811.html Parked plans may be back on agenda for Van], ''Sunday Independent'', 2007-04-29. Retrieved 2010-06-08.</ref><ref>[http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0608/breaking64.html Van Morrison house case opens], ''Irish Times'', 2010-06-08.</ref> In the former case, Morrison pursued his action all the way to the Irish Supreme Court.<ref>[http://www.supremecourt.ie/Judgments.nsf/1b0757edc371032e802572ea0061450e/cb435afde08964b680256de8004a7b8d?OpenDocument Text of Irish Supreme Court judgement in the case of ''Alphonsus O'Mara and Claudia O'Mara v. Van Morrison''], ''supremecourt.ie'', 2003-10-13. Accessed 2010-06-08.</ref> |
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Morrison met Irish socialite [[Michelle Rocca]] in the summer of 1992, and they often featured in the Dublin gossip columns, an unusual event for the reclusive Morrison. Rocca also appeared on one of his album covers, ''[[Days Like This]]''.<ref>Rogan, No Surrender, p.406</ref> The couple are married and have two children;<ref name="BBC News">{{ |
Morrison met Irish socialite [[Michelle Rocca]] in the summer of 1992, and they often featured in the Dublin gossip columns, an unusual event for the reclusive Morrison. Rocca also appeared on one of his album covers, ''[[Days Like This]]''.<ref>Rogan, No Surrender, p.406</ref> The couple are married and have two children;<ref name="BBC News">{{Cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8436535.stm|title=Singer Van Morrison denies 'unfounded baby' story|publisher=bbc.co.uk|accessdate=2009-12-31 | date=2009-12-31}}</ref> A daughter was born in January 2006 and a son was born in September 2007.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/why-van-and-michelle-live-their-hymns-to-silence-1997101.html|title=Why Van and Michelle live their hymns to the silence|publisher=independent.ie|author=Egan, Barry|date=2010-01-03|accessdate=2010-01-04}}</ref> |
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==Discography== |
==Discography== |
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{{ |
{{Main|Van Morrison discography}} |
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{{div col|cols=3}} |
{{div col|cols=3}} |
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* ''[[Blowin' Your Mind!]]'' (1967) |
* ''[[Blowin' Your Mind!]]'' (1967) |
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Morrison has received several major music awards in his career, including six [[Grammy Awards]] (1996–2007); inductions into the [[Rock and Roll Hall of Fame]] (January 1993), the [[Songwriters Hall of Fame]] (June 2003), and the [[Irish Music Hall of Fame]] (September 1999); and a [[The Brit Awards|Brit Award]] (February 1994). In addition he has received [[Civil decoration|civil awards]] of an [[Order of the British Empire|OBE]] (June 1996) and an [[Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres]] (1996), and he has [[honorary doctorate]]s from the [[University of Ulster]] (1992) and [[Queen's University Belfast]] (July 2001). |
Morrison has received several major music awards in his career, including six [[Grammy Awards]] (1996–2007); inductions into the [[Rock and Roll Hall of Fame]] (January 1993), the [[Songwriters Hall of Fame]] (June 2003), and the [[Irish Music Hall of Fame]] (September 1999); and a [[The Brit Awards|Brit Award]] (February 1994). In addition he has received [[Civil decoration|civil awards]] of an [[Order of the British Empire|OBE]] (June 1996) and an [[Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres]] (1996), and he has [[honorary doctorate]]s from the [[University of Ulster]] (1992) and [[Queen's University Belfast]] (July 2001). |
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The Grammy Awards were: |
The Grammy Awards were: |
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# [[Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals]], 1996, "[[Have I Told You Lately]]" (with [[The Chieftains]]) |
# [[Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals]], 1996, "[[Have I Told You Lately]]" (with [[The Chieftains]]) |
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# [[Grammy Hall of Fame Award|Hall of Fame]], 2007, "[[Brown Eyed Girl]]" |
# [[Grammy Hall of Fame Award|Hall of Fame]], 2007, "[[Brown Eyed Girl]]" |
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The Hall of Fame inductions began in 1993 with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; Morrison notable for being the first inductee not to attend his own [[List of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees|ceremony]],<ref>{{ |
The Hall of Fame inductions began in 1993 with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; Morrison notable for being the first inductee not to attend his own [[List of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees|ceremony]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.rockhall.com/inductee/van-morrison|publisher=rockhall.com|title=Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: Van Morrison|accessdate=2008-11-09}}</ref><ref name=RoganPage411>Rogan (2006), page 411.</ref> so that [[Robbie Robertson]] from [[The Band]] accepted the award on his behalf.<ref name="TurnerPage177">Turner (1993), page 177.</ref> When Morrison became the initial musician inducted into the Irish Music Hall of Fame, [[Bob Geldof]] presented Morrison with the award.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/435343.stm|title=Van's the man for rock museum|date=1999-09-02|publisher=bbc.co.uk|accessdate=2008-07-04}}</ref> Morrison's third induction was into the [[Songwriters Hall of Fame]] for "recognition of his unique position as one of the most important songwriters of the past century." [[Ray Charles]] presented the award, following a performance during which the pair performed Morrison's "[[Crazy Love (Van Morrison song)|Crazy Love]]", from the album, ''Moondance''.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02E2DA1638F937A25755C0A9659C8B63|title=Songwriting hitmakers donning their laurels|author=Gunnaike, Lola O.|date=2003-06-14|publisher=nytimes.com|accessdate=2008-07-01}}</ref> Morrison's [[The BRIT Awards|BRIT Award]] was for his ''Outstanding Contribution to British Music''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.brits.co.uk/history/shows/1994|title=Brit Award Shows-1994 |
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|publisher=brits.co.uk|accessdate=2009-12-13}}</ref> He was presented with the award by former Beirut hostage, [[John McCarthy (journalist)|John McCarthy]], who while testifying to the importance of Morrison's song, "[[Wonderful Remark]]" called it "a song ... which was very important to us."<ref name="RoganPage419">Rogan (2006), page 419.</ref> |
|publisher=brits.co.uk|accessdate=2009-12-13}}</ref> He was presented with the award by former Beirut hostage, [[John McCarthy (journalist)|John McCarthy]], who while testifying to the importance of Morrison's song, "[[Wonderful Remark]]" called it "a song ... which was very important to us."<ref name="RoganPage419">Rogan (2006), page 419.</ref> |
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Morrison received two civil awards in 1996, first was the [[Order of the British Empire]] for his service to music,<ref name="RoganPage443">Rogan (2006), page 443.</ref> the second was an award by the French government when he was made an Officier de l’[[Ordre des Arts et des Lettres]].<ref>{{ |
Morrison received two civil awards in 1996, first was the [[Order of the British Empire]] for his service to music,<ref name="RoganPage443">Rogan (2006), page 443.</ref> the second was an award by the French government when he was made an Officier de l’[[Ordre des Arts et des Lettres]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.independent.ie/national-news/van-and-jordan-honoured-by-france-437577.html|title=Van and Jordan honoured by France|date=1998-07-01|publisher=independent.ie|accessdate=2009-01-25}}</ref> Along with these state awards he has two [[honorary degree]]s in music; an honorary doctorate in literature from the [[University of Ulster]],<ref name="RoganPage409">Rogan (2006), page 409.</ref> and an honorary doctorate in music from [[Queen's University Belfast|Queen's University]] in his hometown of Belfast.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/1421036.stm|date=2001-07-03|title= Doctorate for Van the Man|publisher=bbc.co.uk|accessdate=2008-07-03}}</ref> |
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Among other awards are the [[Broadcast Music Incorporated|BMI]] ICON award in October 2004 for Morrison's "enduring influence on generations of music makers";<ref>{{ |
Among other awards are the [[Broadcast Music Incorporated|BMI]] ICON award in October 2004 for Morrison's "enduring influence on generations of music makers";<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.bmi.com/news/entry/234191|date=2004-09-22|title=Morrison to be honored as BMI ICON|publisher=bmi.com news|accessdate=2008-09-08}}</ref> an ''Oscar Wilde: Honouring Irish Writing in Film'' award in 2007 for his contribution to over fifty films, presented by [[Al Pacino]] who compared Morrison to [[Oscar Wilde]] as they were both "visionaries who push boundaries";<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.us-irelandalliance.org/wmspage.cfm?parm1=622|title= Van Morrison, Terry George and Bill Monahan honored in LA|publisher= US-Irish Alliance|accessdate=2007-03-30}}</ref> and the Best International Male Singer of 2007 at the inaugural International Awards in [[Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club]], London.<ref>{{Cite web|url= http://www.4ni.co.uk/northern_ireland_news.asp?id=61639|title=Van Morrison receives jazz award|publisher= 4NI.co.uk|accessdate=2007-05-09}}</ref> |
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Morrison has also appeared in a number of Greatest lists, including the ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine list of The All-Time 100 Albums,<ref>{{ |
Morrison has also appeared in a number of Greatest lists, including the ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine list of The All-Time 100 Albums,<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.time.com/time/2006/100albums/index.html|author=Tyrangiel, Josh and Light, Alan|date=2006-11-13|title=The All-Time 100 Albums|publisher= Time/CNN|accessdate=2007-03-31}}</ref> which contained ''Astral Weeks'' and ''Moondance'', and he appeared at number thirteen on the list of [[WXPN]]'s 885 All Time Greatest Artists.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://xpn.org/music-artist/885-countdown/885-greatest-artists|title=885 Countdown: Greatest artists (2006)|publisher=xpn.org|accessdate=2009-04-10}}</ref> In 2000, Morrison ranked twenty-fifth on American cable music channel [[VH1]]'s list of its "100 Greatest Artists of Rock and Roll".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.rockonthenet.com/archive/1998/vh1artists.htm|title=Vh1: 100 greatest artists of Rock & Roll|publisher=rockonthenet|accessdate=2008-09-12}}</ref> In 2004, ''[[Rolling Stone]]'' magazine ranked Van Morrison forty-second on their list of "Greatest Artists of All Time".<ref name="RS 100"> |
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{{ |
{{Cite web |
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|url=http://www.rockonthenet.com/archive/2004/immortals.htm |
|url=http://www.rockonthenet.com/archive/2004/immortals.htm |
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|title=Rolling Stone: The Immortals: 100 Greatest Artists of All-Time |
|title=Rolling Stone: The Immortals: 100 Greatest Artists of All-Time |
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''[[Paste (magazine)|Paste]]'' ranked him twentieth in their list of "100 Greatest Living Songwriters" in 2006.<ref>{{ |
''[[Paste (magazine)|Paste]]'' ranked him twentieth in their list of "100 Greatest Living Songwriters" in 2006.<ref>{{Cite web|title=100 Best Living Songwriters|publisher=Paste Magazine|url=http://www.pastemagazine.com/action/article/3003/feature/music/pastes_100_best_living_songwriters_the_list|accessdate=2007-07-06}}</ref> ''[[Q (magazine)|Q]]'' ranked him twenty-second on their list of "100 Greatest Singers" in April 2007<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/qlistspage3.htm#100%20Greatest%20Singers|publisher=rocklistmusic.co.uk|title=100 Greatest Singers|accessdate=2007-04-08}}</ref> and he was voted twenty-fourth on the November 2008 list of ''Rolling Stone'' magazine's 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.<ref name="RS 100 singers">{{Cite web|url=http://stereogum.com/34931/rolling_stones_100_greatest_singers_of_all_time/list/|title=Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Singers of All Time|publisher=stereogum.com|accessdate=2010-04-29}}</ref> |
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Three of Morrison's songs were included in [[The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll]]: "[[Brown Eyed Girl]]", "[[Madame George]]" and "[[Moondance (song)|Moondance]]".<ref>{{ |
Three of Morrison's songs were included in [[The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll]]: "[[Brown Eyed Girl]]", "[[Madame George]]" and "[[Moondance (song)|Moondance]]".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://rockhall.com/exhibits/500-songs-that-shaped-rock-and/|title=The Songs that shaped Rock and Roll|publisher=rockhall.com|accessdate=2010-05-22}}</ref> |
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Morrison has been announced to be one of the 2010 honorees listed in the [[Hollywood Walk of Fame]].<ref>{{ |
Morrison has been announced to be one of the 2010 honorees listed in the [[Hollywood Walk of Fame]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3i6e2d5b09608cf35c42996cfd92f32849|newspaper=[[The Hollywood Reporter]]|date=2009-06-17|title=2010 Walk of Fame honorees revealed|accessdate=2010-06-16}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.seeing-stars.com/immortalized/walkoffame.shtml|title=The Hollywood Walk of Fame|publisher=seeing-stars.com|accessdate=2010-07-23}}</ref> |
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==See also== |
==See also== |
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* [[List of people on stamps of Ireland]]<ref>{{ |
* [[List of people on stamps of Ireland]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://corkuniversitypress.typepad.com/beautiful_day_40_years_of/2005/07/irish_rock_lege.html|title=Beautiful Day: Irish Rock Legends|publisher=corkuniversitypress|accessdate=2008-09-30}}</ref> |
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==Notes== |
==Notes== |
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*[[Johnny Rogan|Rogan, Johnny]] (2006). ''[[Van Morrison: No Surrender]]'', London: Vintage Books ISBN 978-0-09-943183-1 |
*[[Johnny Rogan|Rogan, Johnny]] (2006). ''[[Van Morrison: No Surrender]]'', London: Vintage Books ISBN 978-0-09-943183-1 |
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*Rosenthal, Elizabeth. (2001) ''His Song: The Musical Journey of Elton John'', Billboard Books, ISBN 0-8230-8893-6 |
*Rosenthal, Elizabeth. (2001) ''His Song: The Musical Journey of Elton John'', Billboard Books, ISBN 0-8230-8893-6 |
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*{{ |
*{{Cite web| title = The Immortals: The First Fifty| work = Rolling Stone Issue 946| publisher = Rolling Stone| url =http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/5939214/the_immortals_the_first_fifty}} |
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*[[Steve Turner (writer)|Turner, Steve]] (1993). ''[[Van Morrison: Too Late to Stop Now]]'', Viking Penguin, ISBN 0-670-85147-7 |
*[[Steve Turner (writer)|Turner, Steve]] (1993). ''[[Van Morrison: Too Late to Stop Now]]'', Viking Penguin, ISBN 0-670-85147-7 |
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*{{ |
*{{Cite web| title = Van Morrison| work = Peter Wolfe. Rolling Stone Issue 946| publisher = Rolling Stone| url =http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/5939236/42_van_morrison}} |
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*[[Ritchie Yorke|Yorke, Ritchie]] (1975). ''Into The Music'', London: Charisma Books, ISBN 0-85947-013-X |
*[[Ritchie Yorke|Yorke, Ritchie]] (1975). ''Into The Music'', London: Charisma Books, ISBN 0-85947-013-X |
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==Further reading== |
==Further reading== |
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*Brooks, Ken (1999). ''In Search of Van Morrison'', Agenda, ISBN 1 89988295 2 |
*Brooks, Ken (1999). ''In Search of Van Morrison'', Agenda, ISBN 1 89988295 2 |
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*Buzacott, Martin; [[Andrew Ford|Ford, Andrew]] (2005) ''Speaking in Tongues: The Songs of Van Morrison'', ABC, ISBN 0-7333-1297-7 |
*Buzacott, Martin; [[Andrew Ford|Ford, Andrew]] (2005) ''Speaking in Tongues: The Songs of Van Morrison'', ABC, ISBN 0-7333-1297-7 |
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*Dawe, Gerald (2007). ''My Mother-City, Belfast'':Lagan Press — (Includes section on Van Morrison from previous edition, The Rest is History, Newry:Abbey Press, 1998) |
*Dawe, Gerald (2007). ''My Mother-City, Belfast'':Lagan Press — (Includes section on Van Morrison from previous edition, The Rest is History, Newry:Abbey Press, 1998) |
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*DeWitt, Howard A. (1983). ''Van Morrison: The Mystic's Music'', Horizon Books, ISBN 0-938840-02-9 |
*DeWitt, Howard A. (1983). ''Van Morrison: The Mystic's Music'', Horizon Books, ISBN 0-938840-02-9 |
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==External links== |
==External links== |
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{{ |
{{Commons category|Van Morrison}} |
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{{ |
{{Wikiquote}} |
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* [http://www.vanmorrison.com vanmorrison.com] —Van Morrison Official website |
* [http://www.vanmorrison.com vanmorrison.com] —Van Morrison Official website |
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* [http://www.rockhall.com/inductee/van-morrison/ Van Morrison] @ [[Rock and Roll Hall of Fame]] |
* [http://www.rockhall.com/inductee/van-morrison/ Van Morrison] @ [[Rock and Roll Hall of Fame]] |
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* [http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/exhibits/C333 Van Morrison] @ [[Songwriters Hall of Fame]] |
* [http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/exhibits/C333 Van Morrison] @ [[Songwriters Hall of Fame]] |
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* [http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/10questions/0,30255,1881447,00.html Photos: Van Morrison: A Life in Music ] [[Time (magazine)|Time]] |
* [http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/10questions/0,30255,1881447,00.html Photos: Van Morrison: A Life in Music ] [[Time (magazine)|Time]] |
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{{Van Morrison}} |
{{Van Morrison}} |
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{{Van Morrison singles}} |
{{Van Morrison singles}} |
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{{The Caledonia Soul Orchestra}} |
{{The Caledonia Soul Orchestra}} |
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Revision as of 06:31, 28 September 2010
Van Morrison |
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Van Morrison, OBE (born George Ivan Morrison; 31 August 1945) is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are regarded as transcendental[1][2] and inspired;[3] while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums Astral Weeks and Moondance, and the live album It's Too Late to Stop Now, are widely viewed as among the greatest ever made.[4][5][6]
Known as "Van the Man" to his fans,[7] Morrison started his professional career when, as a young teenager in the late 1950s, he played a variety of instruments including guitar, harmonica, keyboards and saxophone in a range of Irish showbands who covered the popular hits of the day before rising to prominence in the mid-1960s as the lead singer of the gritty Northern Irish R&B band Them with whom he recorded the garage band classic, "Gloria". His solo career began under the pop-hit oriented guidance of Bert Berns with the release of the hit single "Brown Eyed Girl" in 1967. After Berns' death, Warner Bros. Records bought out his contract and allowed him three sessions to record Astral Weeks in 1968.[8] Even though this album would gradually garner high praise, it was initially poorly received; however, the next one, Moondance, established Morrison as a major artist,[9] and throughout the 1970s he built on his reputation with a series of critically acclaimed albums and live performances. Morrison continues to record and tour, producing albums and live performances that sell well and are generally warmly received, sometimes collaborating with other artists, such as Georgie Fame and The Chieftains. In 2008 he performed Astral Weeks live for the first time since 1968.
Much of Morrison's music is structured around the conventions of soul music and R&B, such as the popular singles, "Brown Eyed Girl", "Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When You Smile)", "Domino" and "Wild Night". 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 Astral Weeks and lesser-known works such as Veedon Fleece and Common One.[10][11] The two strains together are sometimes referred to as "Celtic Soul".[12]
Morrison has received considerable acclaim, including six Grammy Awards, being inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and appearing on several "Greatest Artists" lists.
Early life and musical roots: 1945–64
George Ivan (Van) Morrison was born on 31 August 1945, in Bloomfield, Belfast, Northern Ireland as the only child of George Morrison, a shipyard electrician, and Violet Stitt Morrison, a singer and tap dancer in her youth.[13] Van Morrison's family roots descend from the Ulster Scots population that settled in Belfast.[14][15][16] From 1950 to 1956, Morrison, who began to be known as "Van" during this time, attended Elmgrove Primary School.[17] Morrison's father had what was at the time one of the largest record collections in Ulster (acquired during his sojourn in Detroit, Michigan in the early 1950s),[18] and the young Morrison grew up listening to artists such as Jelly Roll Morton, Ray Charles, Lead Belly, and Solomon Burke;[17][19] of whom Morrison later said, "If it weren't for guys like Ray and Solomon, I wouldn't be where I am today. 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."[20] His father's record collection exposed him to various musical genres, such as the blues of Muddy Waters; the gospel of Mahalia Jackson; the jazz of Charlie Parker; the folk music of Woody Guthrie; and country music from Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers,[17] while the first record he ever bought was by blues musician Sonny Terry.[21] When Lonnie Donegan had a hit with "Rock Island Line", written by Huddie Ledbetter (Lead Belly), Morrison felt he was familiar with and able to connect with skiffle music as he had been hearing Lead Belly before that.[22][23]
Morrison's father bought him his first acoustic guitar when he was eleven, and he learned to play rudimentary chords from the song book, The Carter Family Style, edited by Alan Lomax.[24] A year later, when he was twelve years old, Morrison formed his first band,[25] a skiffle group, "The Sputniks", named after the recently launched Soviet satellite, Sputnik 1.[26] In 1958, the band played at some of the local cinemas, and Morrison took the lead, contributing most of the singing and arranging. Other short-lived groups followed – at fourteen, he formed Midnight Special, another modified skiffle band and played at a school concert.[24] Then, when he heard Jimmy Giuffre playing saxophone on "The Train and The River", he talked his father into buying him a saxophone,[27] and took lessons in tenor sax and music reading.[28] Now playing the saxophone, Morrison joined with various local bands, including one called Deanie Sands and the Javelins, with whom he played guitar and shared singing.[29] Later the four main musicians of the Javelins, with the addition of Wesley Black as keyboard player, became known as the Monarchs.[30]
Morrison attended Orangefield High School, leaving in July 1960 with no qualifications.[31] As a member of a working-class community, it was expected that he would get a regular full-time job,[30] so after several short apprenticeship positions, he settled into a job as a window cleaner— later alluded to in his songs, "Cleaning Windows" and "Saint Dominic's Preview".[32] However, he had been developing his musical interests from an early age and continued playing with the Monarchs part-time. Young Morrison also played with the Harry Mack Showband, the Great Eight, with his older workplace friend, Geordie Sproule whom he later named as one of his biggest influences.[33]
At age 17, he toured Europe for the first time with the Monarchs, now calling themselves the International Monarchs. This Irish showband,[34] with Morrison playing saxophone, guitar and harp, in addition to back-up duty on bass and drums, toured steamy clubs and US Army bases in Scotland, England, and Germany, often playing five sets a night.[29] While in Germany, the band recorded a single, "Boozoo Hully Gully"/"Twingy Baby", under the name Georgie and The Monarchs. This was Morrison's first recording, taking place in November 1963 at Ariola Studios in Cologne with Morrison on saxophone; it made the lower reaches of the German charts.[35][36]
Upon returning to Belfast in November 1963, the group disbanded,[37] so Morrison connected with Geordie Sproule again and played with him in the Manhattan Showband along with guitarist Herbie Armstrong. When Armstrong auditioned to play with Brian Rossi and the Golden Eagles, Morrison went along and was hired as a blues singer.[38]
Them: 1964–66
The roots of Them, the band that first broke Morrison on the international scene, came in April 1964 when Morrison responded to an advert for musicians to play at a new R&B club at the Maritime Hotel – an old dance hall frequented by sailors.[39] The new R&B club needed a band for its opening night; however, Morrison had left the Golden Eagles (the group with which he had been performing at the time), so he created a new band out of The Gamblers, an East Belfast group formed by Ronnie Millings, Billy Harrison, and Alan Henderson in 1962.[40][41] Eric Wrixon, still a schoolboy, was the piano player and keyboardist.[42] Morrison played saxophone and harmonica and shared vocals with Billy Harrison. They followed Eric Wrixon's suggestion for a new name, and The Gamblers morphed into Them, their name taken from the Fifties horror movie Them!.[43]
The band's strong R&B performances at the Maritime attracted attention. Them performed without a routine and Morrison ad libbed, creating his songs live as he performed.[44] While the band did covers, they also played some of Morrison's early songs, such as "Could You Would You", which he had written in Camden Town while touring with The Manhattan Showband.[45] The debut of Morrison's "Gloria" took place on stage here. Sometimes, depending on his mood, the song could last up to twenty minutes. Morrison has stated that "Them lived and died on the stage at the Maritime Hotel," believing that the band did not manage to capture the spontaneity and energy of their live performances on their records.[46] The statement also reflected the instability of the Them lineup, with numerous members passing through the ranks after the definitive Maritime period. Morrison and Henderson would remain the only constants, and a highly unsuccessful version of Them even soldiered on after Morrison's departure.[47]
Dick Rowe of Decca Records became aware of the band's performances, and signed Them to a standard two-year contract. In that period, they released two albums and ten singles, with two more singles released after Morrison departed the band. They had three chart hits, "Baby, Please Don't Go" (1964), "Here Comes the Night" (1965), and "Mystic Eyes" (1965),[48] though it was the b-side of "Baby, Please Don't Go", the garage band classic, "Gloria",[49] that went on to become a rock standard covered by Patti Smith, The Doors, Shadows of Knight, Jimi Hendrix and others.[50]
Building on the success of their singles in the United States, and riding on the back of the British Invasion, Them undertook a two month tour of America in May and June 1966 that included a residency from 30 May to 18 June at the Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles.[52] The Doors were the supporting act on the last week,[53] and Morrison's influence on The Doors singer, Jim Morrison, was noted by John Densmore in his book Riders On The Storm. Brian Hinton relates how "Jim Morrison learned quickly from his near namesake's stagecraft, his apparent recklessness, his air of subdued menace, the way he would improvise poetry to a rock beat, even his habit of crouching down by the bass drum during instrumental breaks."[54] On the final night, the two Morrisons and the two bands jammed together on "Gloria".[55][56][57]
Toward the end of the tour the band members became involved in a dispute with their manager, Decca Records' Phil Solomon, over the revenues paid to the band; that, coupled with the expiry of their work visas, meant the band returned from America dejected. After two more concerts in Ireland, Them split up. Morrison concentrated on writing some of the songs that would appear on Astral Weeks, while the remnants of the band reformed in 1967 and relocated in America.[58]
Start of solo career with Bang Records and "Brown Eyed Girl" – 1967
Bert Berns, Them’s producer and composer of their 1965 hit, "Here Comes the Night", persuaded Morrison to return to New York to record solo for his new label, Bang Records.[60] Morrison flew over and signed a contract he had not fully studied.[61] Then, during a two-day recording session at A & R Studios starting 28 March 1967, eight songs were recorded originally intended to be used as four singles.[62] Instead, these songs were released as the album Blowin' Your Mind! without Morrison being consulted. He said he only became aware of the album's release when a friend mentioned on a phone call that he had just bought a copy of it. He later commented to Donal Corvin in a 1973 interview: "I wasn't really happy with it. He picked the bands and tunes. I had a different concept of it."[63]
However, from these early sessions, emerged "Brown Eyed Girl". Captured on the 22nd take on the first day,[64] this song was released as a single in mid-June 1967,[65] reaching number ten in the US charts in 1967. "Brown Eyed Girl" became Morrison's most played song and over the years it has remained a classic; forty years later in 2007, it was the fourth most requested song of DJs in the US.[66]
Following the death of Berns in 1967, Morrison became involved in a contract dispute with Berns' widow that prevented him from performing on stage or recording in the New York area.[67] The song, "Big Time Operators", released in 1993, is thought to allude to his dealings with the New York music business during this time period.[68] He then moved to Boston, Massachusetts and was soon confronted with personal and financial problems; he had "slipped into a malaise" and had trouble finding concert bookings.[69] However, through the few gigs he could find, he regained his professional footing and started recording with the Warner Bros. Records label.[70][71] The record company managed to buy out his contract with Bang Records. Morrison fulfilled a clause that bound him to submit thirty-six original songs within a year to Web IV Music, Berns' music publishing company, by recording thirty-one songs in one session; however, Ilene Berns thought the songs "nonsense music ... about ringworms" and didn't use them.[72][73] The throwaway compositions would come to be known as the "revenge" songs.[74]
Astral Weeks – 1968
"Astral Weeks is about the power of the human voice — ecstatic agony, agonising ecstacy. Here is an Irish tenor reborn as a White Negro — a Caucasian Soul Man — pleading and beseeching over a bed of dreamy folk-jazz instrumentation: acoustic bass, brushed drums, vibes and acoustic guitar, the odd string quartet — and of course flute."
His first album for Warner Bros. Records was Astral Weeks (which he had already performed in several clubs around Boston), a mystical song cycle, often considered to be his best work.[77] Morrison has said, "When Astral Weeks came out, I was starving, literally."[78] Released in 1968, the album eventually achieved critical acclaim, but it originally received an indifferent response from the public. To this day, it remains in an unclassifiable music genre and has been described variously as hypnotic, meditative, and as possessing a unique musical power.[79] It has been compared to French Impressionism and mystical Celtic poetry.[80][81][82] A 2004 Rolling Stone magazine review begins with the words: "This is music of such enigmatic beauty that thirty-five years after its release, Astral Weeks still defies easy, admiring description."[83] Alan Light would later describe Astral Weeks as "like nothing he had done previously—and really, nothing anyone had done previously. Morrison sings of lost love, death, and nostalgia for childhood in the Celtic soul that would become his signature."[12] It has been placed on many lists of best albums of all time.[4] In the 1995 Mojo list of 100 Best Albums, it was listed as number two and was number nineteen on the Rolling Stone magazine's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003.[84][85] In December 2009, it was voted the top Irish album of all time by a poll of leading Irish musicians conducted by Hot Press magazine.[86][87]
From Moondance to Into the Music: 1970–79
Morrison's third solo album, Moondance, which was released in 1970, became his first million selling album and reached number twenty-nine on the Billboard charts.[88][89][90] The style of Moondance stood in contrast to that of Astral Weeks. Whereas Astral Weeks had a sorrowful and vulnerable tone, Moondance restored a more optimistic and cheerful message to his music.[91] The title track, although not released in the US as a single until 1977, received heavy play in FM radio formats.[92] "Into the Mystic" has also gained a wide following over the years.[93][94] The single released was "Come Running", which reached the American Top 40.[95] Moondance was both well received and favourably reviewed. Lester Bangs and Greil Marcus had a combined full page review in Rolling Stone, stating that Morrison now had "the striking imagination of a consciousness that is visionary in the strongest sense of the word."[96] "That was the type of band I dig," Morrison said of the Moondance sessions. "Two horns and a rhythm section — they're the type of bands that I like best." He produced the album himself as he felt like nobody else knew what he wanted.[97] Moondance was listed at number sixty-five on the Rolling Stone magazine's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[85] In March 2007, Moondance was listed as number seventy-two on the NARM Rock and Roll Hall of Fame list of the "Definitive 200".[98]
Over the next few years, he released a succession of albums, starting with a second one in 1970. His Band and the Street Choir had a free, more relaxed sound than Moondance, but not the perfection, in the opinion of critic Jon Landau who felt like "a few more numbers with a gravity of 'Street Choir' would have made this album as perfect as anyone could have stood."[99] It contained the hit single "Domino", which charted at number nine in the Billboard Hot 100.[100]
In 1971, he released another well-received album, Tupelo Honey.[101] This album produced the hit single "Wild Night" that was later covered by John Mellencamp. The title song has a notably country-soul feel about it[102] and the album ended with another country tune, "Moonshine Whiskey". Morrison said he originally intended to make an all country album.[103] The recordings were as live as possible – after rehearsing the songs the musicians would go into the studio and play a whole set in one take.[104] His co-producer, Ted Templeman, described this recording process as the "scariest thing I've ever seen. When he's got something together, he wants to put it down right away with no overdubbing."[105]
Released in 1972, Saint Dominic's Preview, revealed Morrison's break from the more accessible style of his previous three albums and moving back towards the more daring, adventurous, and meditative aspects of Astral Weeks. The combination of two styles of music demonstrated a versatility not previously found in his earlier albums.[106] Two songs, "Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When You Smile)" and "Redwood Tree", reached the Hot 100 singles chart.[95] The songs "Listen to the Lion" and "Almost Independence Day" are each over ten minutes long and employ the type of poetic imagery not heard since Astral Weeks.[106][107] It was his highest charting album in the US until his Top Ten debut on Billboard 200 in 2008.[108]
He released his next album Hard Nose the Highway in 1973 receiving mixed, but mostly negative, reviews. The album contained the popular song "Warm Love" but otherwise has been largely dismissed critically.[109] In a 1973 Rolling Stone review, it was described as: "psychologically complex, musically somewhat uneven and lyrically excellent."[110]
During a three-week vacation visit to Ireland in October 1973, Morrison wrote seven of the songs that would make up his next album, Veedon Fleece.[111] Though it attracted scant initial attention, its critical stature grew markedly over the years—with Veedon Fleece now often considered to be one of Morrison's most impressive and poetic works.[112][113] In a 2008 Rolling Stone review, Andy Greene writes that when released in late 1974: "it was greeted by a collective shrug by the rock critical establishment" and concludes: "He's released many wonderful albums since, but he's never again hit the majestic heights of this one."[114] "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 seemingly Grail-like Veedon Fleece object.[115]
Morrison would not release a follow-up album for another three years. After a decade without taking time off, he said in an interview, he needed to get away from music completely and ceased listening to it for several months.[116] Also suffering from writer's block, he seriously considered leaving the music business for good.[117] Speculation that an extended jam session would be released either under the title Mechanical Bliss, or Naked in the Jungle, or Stiff Upper Lip, came to nothing,[118] and Morrison's next album was A Period of Transition in 1977, a collaboration with Dr. John, who had appeared at The Last Waltz concert with Morrison in 1976. The album received a mild critical reception and marked the beginning of a very prolific period of song making.
Into the Music: "The album's last four songs, "Angelou", "And the Healing Has Begun", and "It's All in the Game/You Know What They're Writing About" are a veritable tour-de-force with Morrison summoning every vocal trick at his disposal from "Angelou's climactic shouts to the sexually-charged, half-mumbled monologue in "And the Healing Has Begun" to the barely audible whisper that is the album's final sound." (Scott Thomas Review')
The following year, Morrison released Wavelength; it became at that time the fastest-selling album of his career and soon went gold.[119] The title track became a modest hit, peaking at number forty-two. Making use of 1970s synthesizers, it mimics the sounds of the shortwave radio stations that he listened to in his youth.[120] The opening track, "Kingdom Hall" evoked Morrison's own childhood experiences attending church with his mother[119] and foretold a religious theme that would be more evident in his next album, Into the Music.[121]
Considered by Allmusic as "the definitive post-classic-era Morrison",[122] Into the Music, was released in the last year of the 1970s. Songs on this album for the first time alluded to the healing power of music, which would become an abiding interest of Morrison's.[123] "Bright Side of the Road" was a joyful, uplifting song that would appear on the soundtrack of the movie, Michael.[124]
Common One to Avalon Sunset: 1980–89
With his next album, the new decade found Morrison following his muse into uncharted territory and merciless reviews.[125][126] In February 1980, Morrison and a group of musicians traveled to Super Bear, a studio in the French Alps, to record (on the site of a former abbey) what is considered to be the most controversial album in his discography; later "Morrison admitted that his original concept was even more esoteric than the final product."[127][128] The album, Common One, consisted of six songs, each of varying length. The longest, "Summertime in England", lasted fifteen and one-half minutes and ended with the words,"Can you feel the silence?". NME magazine's Paul Du Noyer called the album "colossally smug and cosmically dull; an interminable, vacuous and drearily egotistical stab at spirituality: Into the muzak."[127] Even Greil Marcus, whose previous writings had been favourably inclined towards Morrison, said: "It's Van acting the part of the 'mystic poet' he thinks he's supposed to be."[125] Morrison insisted that the album was never "meant to be a commercial album."[125] Biographer Clinton Heylin concludes: "He would not attempt anything so ambitious again. Henceforth every radical idea would be tempered by some notion of commerciality."[128] Later the critics would reassess the album more favourably with the success of "Summertime in England".[128] Lester Bangs wrote in 1982, "Van was making holy music even though he thought he was, and us [sic] rock critics had made our usual mistake of paying too much attention to the lyrics."[125]
Morrison's next album, Beautiful Vision, released in 1982, had him returning once again to the music of his Northern Irish roots.[129] Well received by the critics and public, it produced a minor UK hit single, "Cleaning Windows", that referenced one of Morrison's first jobs after leaving school.[130] Several other songs on the album, "Vanlose Stairway", "She Gives Me Religion", and the instrumental, "Scandinavia" show the presence of a new personal muse in his life: a Danish public relations agent, who would share Morrison's spiritual interests and serve as a steadying influence on him throughout most of the 1980s.[131] "Scandinavia", with Morrison on piano,[132] was nominated in the Best Rock Instrumental Performance category for the 25th Annual Grammy Awards.[133]
Much of the music Morrison released throughout the 1980s continued to focus on the themes of spirituality and faith. His 1983 album, Inarticulate Speech of the Heart was "a move towards creating music for meditation" with synthesisers, uilleann pipes and flute sounds and four of the tracks were instrumentals.[134] The titling of the album and the presence of the instrumentals were noted to be indicative of Morrison's long-held belief that "it's not the words one uses but the force of conviction behind those words that matters."[132] During this period of time, Morrison had studied Scientology and gave "Special Thanks" to L. Ron Hubbard on the album's credits.[135]
A Sense of Wonder, Morrison's 1985 album, pulled together the spiritual themes contained in his last four albums, which were defined in a Rolling Stone review as: "rebirth (Into the Music), deep contemplation and meditation, (Common One); ecstasy and humility (Beautiful Vision); and blissful, mantra like languor (Inarticulate Speech of the Heart)."[136] The single, "Tore Down a la Rimbaud" was a reference to Rimbaud and an earlier bout of writer's block that Morrison had encountered in 1974.[137] In 1985, Morrison also wrote the musical score for the movie, Lamb starring Liam Neeson.[138]
Morrison's 1986 release, No Guru, No Method, No Teacher, was said to contain a "genuine holiness...and musical freshness that needs to be set in context to understand."[139] Critical response was favourable with a Sounds reviewer calling the album "his most intriguingly involved since Astral Weeks" and "Morrison at his most mystical, magical best."[140][141] It contains the song, "In the Garden" that, according to Morrison, had a "definite meditation process which is a 'form' of transcendental meditation as its basis. It's not TM".[139] He entitled the album as a rebuttal to media attempts to place him in various creeds.[142] In an interview in the Observer he told Anthony Denselow:
There have been many lies put out about me and this finally states my position. I have never joined any organisation, nor plan to. I am not affiliated to any guru, don't subscribe to any method and for those people who don't know what a guru is, I don't have a teacher either.[143]
After releasing the "No Guru" album, Morrison's music appeared less gritty and more adult contemporary with the well-received 1987 album, Poetic Champions Compose, considered to be one of his recording highlights of the 1980s.[144] The romantic ballad from this album, "Someone Like You", has been featured subsequently in the soundtracks of several movies, including 1995's French Kiss, and in 2001, both Someone Like You and Bridget Jones's Diary.[124][145]
In 1988, he released Irish Heartbeat, a collection of traditional Irish folk songs recorded with the Irish group, The Chieftains, which reached number 18 in the UK album charts. The title song, "Irish Heartbeat", was originally recorded on his 1983 album Inarticulate Speech of the Heart.[146]
The 1989 album, Avalon Sunset, which featured the hit duet with Cliff Richard "Whenever God Shines His Light" and the ballad "Have I Told You Lately" (on which "earthly love transmutes into that for God."(Hinton),[147] reached 13 on the UK album chart. Although considered to be a deeply spiritual album,[148] it also contained "Daring Night" which "deals with full, blazing sex, whatever it's churchy organ and gentle lilt suggest."(Hinton)[149] Morrison's familiar themes of "God, woman, his childhood in Belfast and those enchanted moments when time stands still" were prominent in the songs.[150] He can be heard calling out the change of tempo at the end of this song, repeating the numbers "1 - 4" to cue the chord changes (the first and fourth chord in the key of the music). He often completed albums in two days, frequently releasing first takes.[151][152]
The Best of Van Morrison to Back on Top: 1990–99
The early to middle 1990s were commercially successful for Morrison with three albums reaching the top five of the UK charts, sold out concerts, and a more visible public profile; but this period also marked a decline in the critical reception to his work.[153] The decade began with the release of The Best of Van Morrison; compiled by Morrison himself, the album was focused on his hit singles, and became a multi-platinum success remaining a year and a half on the UK charts. Allmusic determined it to be "far and away the best selling album of his career."[93][154] After Enlightenment which included the hit single, "Real Real Gone",[155] another compilation album, The Best of Van Morrison Volume Two was released in January 1993, followed by Too Long in Exile in June, another top five chart success.[156] The 1994 live double album A Night in San Francisco received favourable reviews as well as commercial success by reaching number eight on the UK charts.[157][158][159][160] 1995's Days Like This also had large sales – though the critical reviews were not always favourable.[161] This period also saw a number of side projects, including the live jazz performances of 1996's How Long Has This Been Going On, from the same year 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 early musical influences.
In 1997, Morrison released The Healing Game. The album received mixed reviews, with the lyrics being described as "tired" and "dull",[162] though critic Greil Marcus praised the musical complexity of the album by saying: "It carries the listener into a musical home so perfect and complete he or she might have forgotten that music could call up such a place, and then populate it with people, acts, wishes, fears."[163] The following year, Morrison finally released some of his previously unissued studio recordings in a two-disc set, The Philosopher's Stone. His next release, 1999's Back on Top, achieved a modest success, being his highest charting album in the US since 1978's Wavelength.[164]
Recent years: since 2000
Van Morrison continued to record and tour in the 2000s, often performing two or three times a week.[165] He formed his own independent label, Exile Productions Ltd, which enables him to maintain full production control of each album he records, which he then delivers as a finished product to the recording label that he chooses, for marketing and distribution.[166]
The album, Down the Road released in May 2002, received a good critical reception and proved to be his highest charting album in the US since 1972's Saint Dominic's Preview.[108] It had a nostalgic tone, with its fifteen tracks representing the various musical genres that Morrison had previously covered—including R&B, blues, country and folk;[167] one of the tracks was written as a tribute to his late father George, who had played a pivotal role in nurturing his early musical tastes.[17]
Morrison's 2005 album, Magic Time, debuted at number twenty-five on the US Billboard 200 charts upon its May release, some forty years after Morrison first entered the public's eye as the frontman of Them. Rolling Stone listed it as number seventeen on The Top 50 Records of 2005.[168] Also in July 2005, Morrison was named by Amazon as one of their top twenty-five all-time best-selling artists and inducted into the Amazon.com Hall of Fame.[169] Later in the year, Morrison also donated a previously unreleased studio track to a charity album, Hurricane Relief: Come Together Now, which raised money for relief efforts intended for Gulf Coast victims devastated by hurricanes, Katrina and Rita.[170] Morrison composed the song, "Blue and Green", featuring Foggy Lyttle on guitar. This song was released in 2007 on the album, The Best of Van Morrison Volume 3 and also as a single in the UK. Van Morrison was a headline act at the international celtic music festival, The Hebridean Celtic Festival in Stornoway Outer Hebrides in the summer of 2005.[171]
He released an album with a country music theme, entitled Pay the Devil, on 7 March 2006 and appeared at the Ryman Auditorium where the tickets sold out immediately after they went on sale.[172] Pay the Devil debuted at number twenty-six on The Billboard 200 and peaked at number seven on Top Country Albums.[173][174] Amazon Best of 2006 Editor's Picks in Country listed the country album at number ten in December 2006. Still promoting the country album, Morrison's performance as the headline act on the first night of the Austin City Limits Music Festival on 15 September 2006 was reviewed by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the top ten shows of the 2006 festival.[175] In November 2006, a limited edition album, Live at Austin City Limits Festival was issued by Exile Productions, Ltd. A later deluxe CD/DVD release of Pay the Devil, in the summer of 2006 contained tracks from the Ryman performance.[176] In October 2006, Morrison had released his first commercial DVD, Live at Montreux 1980/1974 with concerts taken from two separate appearances at the Montreux Jazz Festival.
A new double CD compilation album The Best of Van Morrison Volume 3 was released in June 2007 containing thirty-one tracks, some of which were previously unreleased. Morrison selected the tracks, which ranged from the 1993 album Too Long in Exile to the song "Stranded" from the 2005 album Magic Time.[177] On 3 September 2007, Morrison's complete catalogue of albums from 1971 through 2002 were made available exclusively at the ITunes Store in Europe and Australia and during the first week of October 2007, the albums became available at the US ITunes Store.[178]
Still on Top - The Greatest Hits, a thirty-seven track double CD compilation album was released on 22 October 2007 in the UK on the Polydor label. On 29 October 2007, the album charted at number two on the Official UK Top 75 Albums—his highest UK charting.[179] The November release in the US and Canada contains twenty-one selected tracks.[180] The hits that were released on albums with the copyrights owned by Morrison as Exile Productions Ltd.—1971 and later—had been remastered in 2007.
Keep It Simple, Morrison's 33rd studio album of completely new material was released by Exile/Polydor Records on 17 March 2008 in the UK and released by Exile/Lost Highway Records in the US and Canada on 1 April 2008.[181] It comprised eleven self-penned tracks. Morrison promoted the album with a short US tour including an appearance at the SXSW music conference,[182][183] and a UK concert broadcast on BBC Radio 2. In the first week of release Keep It Simple debuted on the Billboard 200 chart at number ten, Morrison's first Top Ten charting in the US.[184]
Live performances
By 1972, after being a performer for nearly ten years, Morrison began experiencing stage fright when performing for audiences of thousands, as opposed to the hundreds as he had experienced in his early career. He became anxious on stage and would have difficulty establishing eye contact with the audience. He once said in 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 appearing in clubs, regaining his ability to perform live, albeit with smaller audiences.[29]
The 1974 live double album, It's Too Late to Stop Now, has been on lists of greatest live albums of all time.[6][185][186][187][188] Biographer Johnny Rogan states that "Morrison was in the midst of what was arguably his greatest phase as a performer."[189] Performances on the album were from tapes made during a three month tour of the US and Europe in 1973 with the backing group The Caledonia Soul Orchestra. Soon after recording the album, Morrison restructured the Caledonia Soul Orchestra into a smaller unit, the Caledonia Soul Express.[190]
On Thanksgiving Day 1976, Morrison performed at the farewell concert for The Band. Morrison's first live performance in several years, he considered skipping his appearance until the last minute, even refusing to go on stage when they announced his name. His manager, Harvey Goldsmith, said he "literally kicked him out there."[191] Morrison was on good terms with The Band as near-neighbours in Woodstock, and they had the shared experience of stage-fright. At the concert, he performed two songs, including "Caravan", from his 1970 album Moondance. Greil Marcus, in attendance at the concert, wrote: "Van Morrison turned the show around...singing to the rafters and ...burning holes in the floor. It was a triumph, and as the song ended Van began to kick his leg into the air out of sheer exuberance and he kicked his way right offstage like a Rockette. The crowd had given him a fine welcome and they cheered wildly when he left."[192] The filmed concert served as the basis for Martin Scorsese's 1978 film, The Last Waltz.[193]
It was during his association with The Band that Morrison acquired the nicknames: "Belfast Cowboy" and "Van the Man". When Morrison sang the duet "4% Pantomime" (that he co-wrote with Robbie Robertson), Richard Manuel calls him, "Oh, Belfast Cowboy". It would be included in The Band's album Cahoots. When he left the stage, after performing "Caravan" on The Last Waltz, Robertson calls out "Van the Man!"[121]
On 21 July 1990, Morrison joined many other guests for Roger Waters' massive performance of The Wall - Live in Berlin with an estimated crowd of between three hundred thousand to half a million people and broadcast live on television.[194] He sang "Comfortably Numb" with Roger Waters, and several members from The Band: Levon Helm, Garth Hudson and Rick Danko. At concert's end, he and the other performers sang "The Tide Is Turning".
Morrison performed before an estimated audience of sixty to eighty thousand people when US President Bill Clinton visited Belfast, Northern Ireland on 30 November 1995. His song "Days Like This" had become the official anthem for the Northern Irish peace movement.[195]
Van Morrison continued performing concerts in the 2000s throughout the year rather than touring.[165] Playing few of his best-known songs in concert, he has firmly resisted relegation to a nostalgia act.[196][197] During a 2006 interview, he told Paul Sexton:
I don't really tour. This is another misconception. I stopped touring in the true sense of the word in the late 1970s, early 1980s, possibly. I just do gigs now. I average two gigs a week. Only in America do I do more, because you can't really do a couple of gigs there, so I do more, 10 gigs or something there.[198]
On 7 and 8 November 2008, at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California, Morrison performed the entire Astral Weeks album live for the first time. The Astral Weeks band featured guitarist Jay Berliner, who played on the album that was released forty years previously in November 1968. Also featured on piano was Roger Kellaway. A live album entitled Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl resulted from these two performances.[200] The new live album on CD was released on 24 February 2009,[201] followed by a DVD from the performances.[202] The DVD, Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl: The Concert Film was released via Amazon Exclusive on 19 May 2009. Morrison began a week of Astral Week Live concerts, interviews and TV appearances with concerts at the WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York City in late February 2009[203] and at the Beacon Theatre in early March[204] with a twenty-four minute interview to Don Imus on his Imus in the Morning radio show on 26 February. Listen[205] Midway between the scheduled concerts at the WaMu and Beacon, he made a guest appearance on Jimmy Fallon's debut show as host of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on 2 March 2009 performing "Sweet Thing" from the Astral Weeks album.[206] Morrison also performed "Sweet Thing" and "Brown Eyed Girl", on Live with Regis and Kelly the next morning on 3 March 2009.[207] Morrison continued with the Astral Weeks performances with two concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in London in April[208][209] and then returned to California in May 2009 performing the Astral Weeks songs at the Hearst Greek Theatre in Berkeley and the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles, California.[210] Morrison filmed the concerts at the Orpheum Theatre so that they could be viewed by Farrah Fawcett, confined to bed with cancer and who therefore could not attend the concerts.[211][212] On 6 May 2009, Morrison appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno performing the updated version of "Slim Slow Slider (I Start Breaking Down)" from Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl.
In addition to It's Too Late to Stop Now and Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl, Morrison has released three other live albums: Live at the Grand Opera House Belfast in 1984; A Night in San Francisco in 1994 that Rolling Stone magazine felt stood out as: "the culmination of a career's worth of soul searching that finds Morrison's eyes turned toward heaven and his feet planted firmly on the ground";[157] and The Skiffle Sessions - Live in Belfast 1998 recorded with Lonnie Donegan and Chris Barber and released in 2000.
Morrison was scheduled to perform at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 25th anniversary concert on 30 October 2009, but cancelled.[213] In an interview on 26 October, Morrison told his host Don Imus that he had planned to play "a couple of songs" with Eric Clapton (who had cancelled on 22 October due to gallstone surgery),[214] but that they would do something else together at "some other stage of the game".[215]
Morrison performed for the Edmonton Folk Music Festival in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada on 4 August 2010 as the headline act for the fundraiser.[216][217]
Collaborations
During the 1990s, 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 voice and Hammond organ skills to Morrison's band; and Brian Kennedy's vocals complemented the grizzled voice of Morrison, both in studio and live performances.
The 1990s also saw an upsurge in collaborations by Morrison with other artists, a trend continuing into the new millennium. He recorded with Irish folk band The Chieftains on their 1995 album, The Long Black Veil. Morrison's song, "Have I Told You Lately" would win a Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals in 1996.[218] He also produced and was featured on several tracks with blues legend John Lee Hooker on Hooker's 1997 album, Don't Look Back. This album would win a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album in 1998 and the title track "Don't Look Back", a duet featuring Morrison and Hooker, would also win a Grammy Award for "Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals" in 1998.[219] Morrison additionally collaborated with Tom Jones on his 1999 album Reload, performing a duet on "Sometimes We Cry", and he also sang vocals on a track entitled "The Last Laugh" on Mark Knopfler's 2000 album, Sailing to Philadelphia.[220] In 2004, Morrison was one of the guests on Ray Charles' album, Genius Loves Company, featuring the two artists performing Morrison's "Crazy Love".
Music
Vocals
It is at the heart of Morrison’s presence as a singer that when he lights on certain sounds, certain small moments inside a song—hesitations, silences, shifts in pressure, sudden entrances, slamming doors—can then suggest whole territories, completed stories, indistinct ceremonies, far outside anything that can be literally traced in the compositions that carry them.
Featuring his characteristic growl—a mix of folk, blues, soul, jazz, gospel, and Ulster Scots Celtic influences—Morrison is widely considered by many rock historians to be one of the most unusual and influential vocalists in the history of rock and roll.[222][223][224] Critic Greil Marcus has gone so far as to say that "no white man sings like Van Morrison."[225] As Morrison began live performances of the 40 year old album Astral Weeks in 2008, there were comparisons to his youthful voice of 1968.—His early voice was described as "flinty and tender, beseeching and plaintive".[76] Forty years later, the difference in his vocal range and power were noticeable but reviewers and critic's comments were favourable: "Morrison's voice has expanded to fill his frame; a deeper, louder roar than the blue-eyed soul voice of his youth – softer on the diction – but none the less impressively powerful."[199] Morrison also commented on the changes in his approach to singing: "The approach now is to sing from lower down [the diaphragm] so I do not ruin my voice. Before, I sang in the upper area of my throat, which tends to wreck the vocal cords over time. Singing from lower in the belly allows my resonance to carry far. I can stand four feet from a mic and be heard quite resonantely."[226]
Songwriting and lyrics
Morrison has written hundreds of songs[227][228] during his career with a recurring theme reflecting a nostalgic yearning for the carefree days of his childhood in Belfast.[229] Some of his song titles derive from familiar locations in his childhood such as: "Cyprus Avenue" (a nearby street), "Orangefield" (the boys school he attended), "On Hyndford Street" (where he was born). Also frequently present in Morrison's best love songs is a blending of the sacred-profane as evidenced in "Into the Mystic" and "So Quiet in Here".[230][231] Beginning with his 1979 album, Into the Music and the song "And the Healing Has Begun", a frequent theme of his music and lyrics has been based on his belief in the healing power of music combined with a form of mystic Christianity. This theme has become one of the predominant qualities of his work.[232] His lyrics show an influence of the visionary poets William Blake and W. B. Yeats[233] and others such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth.[234] Biographer Brian Hinton believes "like any great poet from Blake to Seamus Heaney he takes words back to their origins in magic...Indeed, Morrison is returning poetry to its earliest roots – as in Homer or Old English epics like Beowulf or the Psalms or folk song – in all of which words and music combine to form a new reality."[230] Another biographer John Collis believes that Morrison's style of jazz singing and repeating phrases preclude his lyrics from being regarded as poetry or as Collis asserts: "he is more likely to repeat a phrase like a mantra, or burst into scat singing. The words may often be prosaic, and so can hardly be poetry."[235] Morrison has described his songwriting method by remarking that: "I write from a different place. I do not even know what it is called or if it has a name. It just comes and I sculpt it, but it is also a lot of hard work doing the sculpting."[226]
Performance style
"Van Morrison is interested, obsessed with how much musical or verbal information he can compress into a small space, and, almost, conversely, how far he can spread one note, word, sound, or picture. To capture one moment, be it a caress or a twitch. He repeats certain phrases to extremes that from anybody else would seem ridiculous, because he's waiting for a vision to unfold, trying as unobtrusively as possible to nudge it along...It's the great search, fueled by the belief that through these musical and mental processes illumination is attainable. Or may at least be glimpsed."
Critic Greil Marcus argues that given the truly distinctive breadth and complexity of Morrison's work, it is almost impossible to cast his work among that of others: "Morrison remains a singer who can be compared to no other in the history of rock & roll, a singer who cannot be pinned down, dismissed, or fitted into anyone's expectations."[237] Or in the words of Jay Cocks: "He extends himself only to express himself. Alone among rock's great figures—and even in that company he is one of the greatest—Morrison is adamantly inward. And unique. Although he freely crosses musical boundaries—R. and B., Celtic melodies, jazz, rave-up rock, hymns, down-and-dirty blues—he can unfailingly be found in the same strange place: on his own wavelength."[238] His transcendental signature style came into full expression with his 1968 classic, Astral Weeks. This musical art form was based on stream of consciousness songwriting and emotional vocalizing of lyrics that have no basis in normal structure or symmetry. His live performances are dependent on building dynamics with spontaniety between himself and his band, whom he controls with hand gestures throughout, sometimes signaling impromptu solos from a selected band member. The music and vocals build towards a hypnotic and trance-like state that depends on in-the-moment creativity.[229] He has said he believes in the jazz improvisational technique of never performing a song the same way twice and except for the unique rendition of the Astral Weeks songs live, doesn't perform a concert from a preconceived set list.[196] Morrison has said he prefers to perform at smaller venues or symphony halls noted for their good acoustics.[239] His ban against alcoholic beverages, which made entertainment news during 2008, was an attempt to prevent the disruptive and distracting movement of audience members leaving their seats during the performances.[240] In a 2009 interview, Morrison stated: "I do not consciously aim to take the listener anywhere. If anything, I aim to take myself there in my music. If the listener catches the wavelength of what I am saying or singing, or gets whatever point whatever line means to them, then I guess as a writer I may have done a day's work."[241]
Genre
The music of Van Morrison has encompassed many genres since his early days as a blues and R&B singer in Belfast. Over the years he has recorded songs from a varying list of genres drawn from many influences and interests. As well as blues and R&B, his compositions and covers have moved between pop music, jazz, rock, folk, country, gospel, Irish folk and traditional, big band, skiffle, rock and roll, new age, classic and sometimes spoken word ("Coney Island") and instrumentals.[242] Morrison defines himself as a soul singer.[243]
Some of Morrison's music has been classified in a genre of its own and referred to as "Celtic soul"[12] or what biographer Brian Hinton referred to as a new alchemy called "Caledonian soul."[230] Another biographer, Ritchie Yorke quoted Morrison as believing that he has "the spirit of Caledonia in his soul and his music reflects it."[244] According to Yorke, Morrison claimed to have discovered "a certain quality of soul" when he first visited Scotland (his Belfast ancestors were of Ulster Scots descent) and Morrison has said he believes there is some connection between soul music and Caledonia. Yorke relates that Morrison "discovered several years after he first began composing music that some of his songs lent themselves to a unique major modal scale (without sevenths) which of course is the same scale as that used by bagpipe players and old Irish and Scottish folk music."[244]
Caledonia
The name "Caledonia" has played a prominent role in Morrison's life and career. Biographer Ritchie Yorke had pointed out already by 1975 that Morrison has referred to Caledonia so many times in his career that he "seems to be obsessed with the word."[244] In his 2009 biography, Erik Hage found that "Morrison seemed deeply interested in his paternal Scottish roots during his early career, and later in the ancient countryside of England, hence his repeated use of the term Caledonia (an ancient Roman name for Scotland/northern Britain)."[245] As well as being his daughter's middle name, it's the name of his first production company, his studio, his publishing company, two of his backing groups, and he also recorded a cover of the song, "Caldonia" (with the name spelled "Caledonia") in 1974.[244] Morrison used "Caledonia" in what has been called a quintessential Van Morrison moment in the song, "Listen to the Lion" with the lyrics, "And we sail, and we sail, way up to Caledonia".[246] As late as 2008, Morrison used "Caledonia" as a mantra in the live performance of the song, "Astral Weeks" recorded at the two Hollywood Bowl concerts.[247]
Influence
Morrison's influence can readily be heard in the music of a diverse array of major artists and according to The Rolling Stone's Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll (Simon & Shuster, 2001), "his influence among rock singers/song writers is unrivaled by any living artist outside of that other prickly legend, Bob Dylan. Echoes of Morrison's rugged literateness and his gruff, feverish emotive vocals can be heard in latter day icons ranging from Bruce Springsteen to Elvis Costello".[222] His influence includes U2 (much of The Unforgettable Fire); Bono ("I am in awe of a musician like Van Morrison. I had to stop listening to Van Morrison records about six months before we made The Unforgettable Fire because I didn't want his very original soul voice to overpower my own.");[248] John Mellencamp ("Wild Night");[249] Jim Morrison;[54] Joan Armatrading (the only musical influence she will acknowledge);[250] Rod Stewart;[251] Tom Petty;[252] Rickie Lee Jones (recognises both Laura Nyro and Van Morrison as the main influences on her career);[253][254] Elton John;[255] Graham Parker;[256] Sinéad O'Connor;[257] Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy;[258] Bob Seger ("I know Bruce Springsteen was very much affected by Van Morrison, and so was I." from Creem interview)[256] ("I've Been Working");[259] Kevin Rowland of Dexys Midnight Runners ("Jackie Wilson Said");[260][261] Jimi Hendrix ("Gloria");[262] Jeff Buckley ("The Way Young Lovers Do", "Sweet Thing");[263] Nick Drake;[264] and numerous others, including the Counting Crows (their "sha-la-la" sequence in Mr Jones, is a tribute to Morrison).[265] Morrison's influence reaches into the country music genre, with Hal Ketchum acknowledging, "He (Van Morrison) was a major influence in my life."[266]
Morrison's influence on the younger generation of singer-songwriters is pervasive: including Irish singer Damien Rice, who has been described as on his way to becoming the "natural heir to Van Morrison";[267] Ray Lamontagne;[268] James Morrison;[269][270] Paolo Nutini;[271] Eric Lindell[272] and David Gray[273] are also several of the younger artists influenced by Morrison. Glen Hansard of the Irish rock band The Frames (who lists Van Morrison as being part of his holy trinity with Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen) commonly covers his songs in concert.[274] American rock band, The Wallflowers have covered "Into the Mystic".[275] Canadian blues-rock singer Colin James also covers the song frequently at his concerts.[276] Actor and musician Robert Pattinson has said that Van Morrison was his "influence for doing music in the first place".[277] Morrison has shared the stage with Northern Irish singer-songwriter Duke Special, who admits Morrison has been a big influence.[278]
Overall, Morrison has typically been supportive of other artists, often willingly sharing the stage with them during his concerts. On the live album, A Night in San Francisco, he had as his special guests, among others, his childhood idols: Jimmy Witherspoon, John Lee Hooker and Junior Wells.[157] Although he often expresses his displeasure (in interviews and songs) with the music industry and the media in general, he has been instrumental in promoting the careers of many other musicians and singers, such as James Hunter,[279] and fellow Belfast-born brothers, Brian and Bap Kennedy.[280][281]
Personal life
Morrison lived in Belfast from birth until 1967, when he moved to New York after signing with Bang Records. Facing deportation due to visa problems, he managed to stay in the US when his American girlfriend Janet (Planet) Rigsbee agreed to marry him.[282] Once married, Morrison and his wife moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he found work performing in the local clubs. The couple had one daughter Shana Morrison, who has become a singer-songwriter. Morrison and his family moved around America, living in Boston; Woodstock, New York; and a hilltop home in Fairfax, California. His wife appeared on the cover of the album Tupelo Honey. They divorced in 1973.[283][284]
Morrison moved back to Europe in the late 1970s, first settling in London's Notting Hill Gate area.[285] Later, he moved to Bath, where he purchased Wool Hall Studios.[286] He also has a home in the Irish seaside village of Dalkey near Dublin, where legal actions against two different neighbours concerning safety and privacy issues have been taken to court in 2001 and in 2010.[287][288][289][290] In the former case, Morrison pursued his action all the way to the Irish Supreme Court.[291]
Morrison met Irish socialite Michelle Rocca in the summer of 1992, and they often featured in the Dublin gossip columns, an unusual event for the reclusive Morrison. Rocca also appeared on one of his album covers, Days Like This.[292] The couple are married and have two children;[293] A daughter was born in January 2006 and a son was born in September 2007.[294]
Discography
- Blowin' Your Mind! (1967)
- Astral Weeks (1968)
- Moondance (1970)
- His Band and the Street Choir (1970)
- Tupelo Honey (1971)
- Saint Dominic's Preview (1972)
- Hard Nose the Highway (1973)
- It's Too Late to Stop Now (Live) (1974)
- Veedon Fleece (1974)
- A Period of Transition (1977)
- Wavelength (1978)
- Into the Music (1979)
- Common One (1980)
- Beautiful Vision (1982)
- Inarticulate Speech of the Heart (1983)
- Live at the Grand Opera House Belfast (1984)
- A Sense of Wonder (1985)
- No Guru, No Method, No Teacher (1986)
- Poetic Champions Compose (1987)
- Irish Heartbeat (1988)
- Avalon Sunset (1989)
- Enlightenment (1990)
- Hymns to the Silence (1991)
- Too Long in Exile (1993)
- A Night in San Francisco (Live) (1994)
- Days Like This (1995)
- How Long Has This Been Going On (1996)
- Tell Me Something: The Songs of Mose Allison (1996)
- The Healing Game (1997)
- The Philosopher's Stone (1998)
- Back on Top (1999)
- The Skiffle Sessions - Live in Belfast 1998 (2000)
- You Win Again (2000)
- Down the Road (2002)
- What's Wrong with This Picture? (2003)
- Magic Time (2005)
- Pay the Devil (2006)
- Live at Austin City Limits Festival (Limited edition) (2006)
- Keep It Simple (2008)
- Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl (2009)
Awards and recognition
Morrison has received several major music awards in his career, including six Grammy Awards (1996–2007); inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (January 1993), the Songwriters Hall of Fame (June 2003), and the Irish Music Hall of Fame (September 1999); and a Brit Award (February 1994). In addition he has received civil awards of an OBE (June 1996) and an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (1996), and he has honorary doctorates from the University of Ulster (1992) and Queen's University Belfast (July 2001).
The Grammy Awards were:
- Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals, 1996, "Have I Told You Lately" (with The Chieftains)
- Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals, 1998, "Don't Look Back" (with John Lee Hooker)
- Hall of Fame, 1999, Astral Weeks
- Hall of Fame, 1999, Moondance
- Hall of Fame, 1999, "Gloria"
- Hall of Fame, 2007, "Brown Eyed Girl"
The Hall of Fame inductions began in 1993 with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; Morrison notable for being the first inductee not to attend his own ceremony,[295][296] so that Robbie Robertson from The Band accepted the award on his behalf.[297] When Morrison became the initial musician inducted into the Irish Music Hall of Fame, Bob Geldof presented Morrison with the award.[298] Morrison's third induction was into the Songwriters Hall of Fame for "recognition of his unique position as one of the most important songwriters of the past century." Ray Charles presented the award, following a performance during which the pair performed Morrison's "Crazy Love", from the album, Moondance.[299] Morrison's BRIT Award was for his Outstanding Contribution to British Music.[300] He was presented with the award by former Beirut hostage, John McCarthy, who while testifying to the importance of Morrison's song, "Wonderful Remark" called it "a song ... which was very important to us."[301]
Morrison received two civil awards in 1996, first was the Order of the British Empire for his service to music,[302] the second was an award by the French government when he was made an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.[303] Along with these state awards he has two honorary degrees in music; an honorary doctorate in literature from the University of Ulster,[304] and an honorary doctorate in music from Queen's University in his hometown of Belfast.[305]
Among other awards are the BMI ICON award in October 2004 for Morrison's "enduring influence on generations of music makers";[306] an Oscar Wilde: Honouring Irish Writing in Film award in 2007 for his contribution to over fifty films, presented by Al Pacino who compared Morrison to Oscar Wilde as they were both "visionaries who push boundaries";[307] and the Best International Male Singer of 2007 at the inaugural International Awards in Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club, London.[308]
Morrison has also appeared in a number of Greatest lists, including the Time magazine list of The All-Time 100 Albums,[309] which contained Astral Weeks and Moondance, and he appeared at number thirteen on the list of WXPN's 885 All Time Greatest Artists.[310] In 2000, Morrison ranked twenty-fifth on American cable music channel VH1's list of its "100 Greatest Artists of Rock and Roll".[311] In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked Van Morrison forty-second on their list of "Greatest Artists of All Time".[312] Paste ranked him twentieth in their list of "100 Greatest Living Songwriters" in 2006.[313] Q ranked him twenty-second on their list of "100 Greatest Singers" in April 2007[314] and he was voted twenty-fourth on the November 2008 list of Rolling Stone magazine's 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.[315]
Three of Morrison's songs were included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll: "Brown Eyed Girl", "Madame George" and "Moondance".[316]
Morrison has been announced to be one of the 2010 honorees listed in the Hollywood Walk of Fame.[317][318]
See also
Notes
- ^ Selvin, Joel (2009-05-04). "Van Morrison's transcendent 'Astral' at Greek". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2010-05-25.
- ^ Brown, Helen (2009-04-20). "Van Morrison performing Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl review". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 2010-05-25.
- ^ Colt, Jonathan. Back to a shadow in the night. books.google.com. ISBN 9780634035968. Retrieved 2010-05-25.
- ^ a b c "Astral Weeks: Van Morrison". acclaimedmusic.net. Retrieved 2008-04-30.
- ^ "Acclaimed Music - Moondance". acclaimedmusic.net. Retrieved 2010-01-26.
- ^ a b "Acclaimed Music - It's Too Late to Stop Now". acclaimedmusic.net. Retrieved 2009-11-22.
- ^ O'Hare, Kevin (2009-10-30). "Singer Van Morrison continues to fascinate". The Republican. Retrieved 2010-05-18.
- ^ Turner (1993). pages 86 – 90
- ^ Eskow, Gary (2005-04-01). "Classic Tracks: Van Morrison's Moondance". mixonline.com. Retrieved 2009-05-26.
- ^ "SHOF: Van Morrison biography". songwritersshalloffame.org. Retrieved 2008-07-07.
- ^ Ballon, John (2008-12-28). "Musthear review: Veedon Fleece". musthear.com. Retrieved 2010-05-18.
- ^ a b c Light, Alan (2006-11-13). "The All-Time 100 Albums". time.com. Retrieved 2010-05-06.
- ^ McNeilly, Claire (2007-09-22). "It's Van: The Mam". Belfast Telegraph. Retrieved 2007-09-26.
- ^ "Van Morrison at All About Jazz". allaboutjazz.com. Retrieved 2009-12-12.
- ^ Hinton (1997), page 18.
- ^ Heylin (2003), page 4.
- ^ a b c d Turner (1993). page 20 Cite error: The named reference "TurnerPage20" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ^ Hinton (1997), page 19.
- ^ Hinton (1997), page 20.
- ^ Wild, David (2005-06-02). "Renaissance Van". Rolling Stone.
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References
- Collis, John (1996). Inarticulate Speech of the Heart, Little Brown and Company, ISBN 0-306-80811-0
- Hage, Erik (2009). The Words and Music of Van Morrison, Praeger Publishers, ISBN 978-0-313-35862-3
- Heylin, Clinton (2003). Can You Feel the Silence? Van Morrison: A New Biography, Chicago Review Press, ISBN 1-55652-542-7
- Hinton, Brian (1997). Celtic Crossroads: The Art of Van Morrison, Sanctuary, ISBN 1-86074-169-X
- Marcus, Greil. 1992. "Van Morrison." In: The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll. Anthony DeCurtis and James Henke, with Holly George-Warren, eds. (original ed. Jim Miller): pp442–447. New York: Random House, ISBN 978-0-679-73728-5
- Marcus, Greil (2010). When That Rough God Goes Riding: Listening to Van Morrison, Public Affairs, ISBN 978-1-58648-821-5
- Moon, Tom (2008). 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die, Workman Publishing Company, ISBN 978-0-7611-3963-8
- Rogan, Johnny (2006). Van Morrison: No Surrender, London: Vintage Books ISBN 978-0-09-943183-1
- Rosenthal, Elizabeth. (2001) His Song: The Musical Journey of Elton John, Billboard Books, ISBN 0-8230-8893-6
- "The Immortals: The First Fifty". Rolling Stone Issue 946. Rolling Stone.
- Turner, Steve (1993). Van Morrison: Too Late to Stop Now, Viking Penguin, ISBN 0-670-85147-7
- "Van Morrison". Peter Wolfe. Rolling Stone Issue 946. Rolling Stone.
- Yorke, Ritchie (1975). Into The Music, London: Charisma Books, ISBN 0-85947-013-X
Further reading
- Brooks, Ken (1999). In Search of Van Morrison, Agenda, ISBN 1 89988295 2
- Buzacott, Martin; Ford, Andrew (2005) Speaking in Tongues: The Songs of Van Morrison, ABC, ISBN 0-7333-1297-7
- Dawe, Gerald (2007). My Mother-City, Belfast:Lagan Press — (Includes section on Van Morrison from previous edition, The Rest is History, Newry:Abbey Press, 1998)
- DeWitt, Howard A. (1983). Van Morrison: The Mystic's Music, Horizon Books, ISBN 0-938840-02-9
- Mills, Peter (2010). Hymns To The Silence: Inside the Music and Lyrics of Van Morrison, Continuum, ISBN 978-0-8264-2976-6
External links
- vanmorrison.com —Van Morrison Official website
- Van Morrison @ Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
- Van Morrison @ Songwriters Hall of Fame
- Photos: Van Morrison: A Life in Music Time
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