Van Morrison

Van Morrison

George Ivan Morrison OBE (generally known as Van Morrison) (born 31 August 1945) is a Grammy Award-winning Northern Irish singer, songwriter, author, poet and multi-instrumentalist, who has been a professional musician since the late 1950s. He plays a variety of instruments, including the guitar, harmonica, keyboards, drums, and saxophone. Featuring his characteristic growl — a unique mix of folk, blues, soul, jazz, gospel, and Ulster Scots Celtic influences — Morrison is widely considered one of the most unusual and influential vocalists in the history of rock and roll. Critic Greil Marcus has gone so far as to say that "no white man sings like Van Morrison."

Known as "Van the Man" by his fans, Morrison first rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Northern Irish band Them, writing their 1964 garage rock classic hit, "Gloria". A few years later, Morrison left the band and embarked on a successful solo career.

Morrison has pursued an idiosyncratic musical path. Much of his music is tightly structured around the conventions of American soul and R&B, such as the popular singles, "Brown Eyed Girl", "Moondance", "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 his classic album Astral Weeks and lesser known works such as Veedon Fleece and Common One. The two strains together are sometimes referred to as "Celtic Soul".

Morrison's career, spanning some five decades, has influenced many popular musical artists. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993 and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2003. In 2000, Morrison ranked #25 on American cable music channel VH1's list of its 100 greatest artists of rock and roll, and in 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked Van Morrison 42nd on their list of The Immortals: 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. Paste Magazine ranked him 20th in their list of 100 Greatest Living Songwriters in 2006 and Q Magazine ranked him 22nd on their list of 100 Greatest Singers in April 2007.

Biography

Early life and musical roots

George Ivan (Van) Morrison was born on 31 August, 1945, in Bloomfield, Belfast, Northern Ireland as the only child of George Morrison, a shipyard worker and Violet Stitt Morrison, a singer and tap dancer in her youth. Van Morrison's family roots descend from the Ulster Scots population that settled in Belfast. The young Morrison was exposed to music from an early age, as his father had acquired one of the largest record collections in Ulster when staying in Detroit, Michigan during the early 1950s. From 1950 - 1956, Morrison, becoming known as Van during this time, attended Elm Grove Primary School. Morrison's father passed his own taste in music on to his son, and he grew up listening to artists such as Jelly Roll Morton, Muddy Waters, Hank Williams, Ray Charles, Lead Belly, and Solomon Burke. In a 2005 Rolling Stone article, Morrison 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."

In a taped 1969 interview, his mother said that he listened to recordings from the age of two, when he would tug at her apron strings urging her to play more records. His grandmother, Alice Stitt, "used to come up and take turns, because he'd have you play them morning, noon and night." There were sing-songs in the house on Saturday nights with family and friends, and the young Morrison (although shy) would always sing upon request. He gave his first performance as a child with a rendition of Lead Belly's "Goodnight Irene". Over forty years later, he would perform this same song with another of his boyhood idols, Lonnie Donegan, on his album, The Skiffle Sessions - Live in Belfast 1998.

Noting his genuine interest, Morrison's father bought him his first guitar at age twelve. Morrison learned to play rudimentary chords, while studying the song book The Carter Family Style. He soon formed a skiffle band named the Sputniks with school friends. They played at some of the local cinemas, and even at this young age, Morrison took the lead, doing most of the singing and arranging. At fourteen, he formed Midnight Special, another modified skiffle band and played at a school concert. When this group disbanded, he wanted to join the Thunderbolts, but they turned him down because they already had a guitar player. After talking his father into buying him a saxophone, Morrison took lessons in tenor sax and music reading from George Cassidy, a local teacher, and practiced playing unremittingly for a month. He then joined the Thunderbolts, playing in church dance halls and hospitals around town. The young Morrison had already been noted for his uncommunicative nature and his inadequate social skills by his fellow band members, who remarked that his parents were patient with their only child. His mother disclosed that she took him aside one day to tell him he needed to learn to talk to people. According to his mother, "Van said to me that it wasn't that he didn't want to talk but tunes were running through his head all the time. He said he didn't know whether he'd been blessed or cursed because the words and music wouldn't leave him."

When Morrison finished school at fourteen, coming from a hard-working family he was expected to get a regular, full-time job. After several short apprenticeship positions, he settled into a job as a window cleaner, referenced in the autobiographical songs, "Cleaning Windows" and "Saint Dominic's Preview". Young Morrison also played with the Harry Mack Showband, the Great Eight, with his older workplace friend, Geordie Sproule. He later named Sproule as one of his biggest influences. Already drinking wine regularly by the age of fifteen, Morrison learned to perform an outlandish and attention-getting stage act by watching Sproule.

Over the Christmas holidays in 1961, Morrison's favourite cousin, Gloria Gordon, died from cancer, and a week later their maternal grandmother, Alice Stitt, died suddenly from a brain hemorrhage. Other than his mother, these two women had been his closest female relatives since birth.

Many of the places of Morrison's childhood, such as "Cyprus Avenue", Fitzroy, Hyndford Street, Sandy Row, and "Orangefield" (the boys' school he attended), would find their way into the lyrics of some of his most famous songs. His contented and self-absorbed childhood would be an important factor in the nostalgic and searching tone of much of his music throughout his long career.

After the death of his father in April 1988, Morrison honoured his father's memory with the song "Choppin' Wood", which he often performs in concert.

1960s – Establishing a musical career

At the age of seventeen, Morrison left home to tour Europe with the group the Monarchs alongside his boyhood friend, George Jones, who later founded the showband Clubsound. Upon returning to East Belfast, the Monarchs disbanded. 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 both were hired. As the band was not in need of a saxophonist, Morrison landed his first position as a blues singer, but he soon left to form an R&B club at the Maritime Hotel. Needing a group to perform there, he joined with the members of The Gamblers. Before the first opening night at the Maritime in April 1964, the group changed their name to Them, their name taken from a Fifties horror movie. Morrison soon came to prominence fronting the band, as he was the group's only song-writer. They had a number of chart hits, most notably the rock standard "Gloria", subsequently covered by many artists, including Patti Smith, The Doors, Shadows of Knight, and Jimi Hendrix. In June 1966, while Them headlined during a three-week residency at the famed Whisky-a-Go-Go in Los Angeles, Jim Morrison and The Doors were the opening act on the last week. Van's influence on Jim's developing stage performance was noted by John Densmore in his book Riders On The Storm, "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." On the final night, the two Morrisons and the two bands jammed together on "Gloria".

Morrison and the other Them band members became involved in a dispute with their manager, Decca Records' Phil Solomon, over the revenues paid to the band on their two-month tour of the west coast. Morrison returned to Belfast, intending to quit the music business. Bert Berns, Them’s producer and the writer of their first hit, "Here Comes the Night," persuaded Morrison to return to New York and record solo for his new label, Bang Records. From these early sessions, emerged one of his best-known songs, "Brown Eyed Girl", which reached No.10 in the US charts in 1967. The album that resulted from those sessions was Blowin' Your Mind!. Morrison said he had not been consulted about the album's release and only became aware of it 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." Recordings from these sessions have been occasionally re-released by Bang in various formats, including the 1973 LP T.B. Sheets. Most of these recordings were remixed and repackaged in 1991 as the Bang Masters. The compilation included an alternate take of "Brown Eyed Girl", as well as early versions of "Beside You" and "Madame George", songs that would appear with slightly different chord changes, instrumentation and lyrics on his second solo album.

Following Berns’ death 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. The song, "Big Time Operators", released in 1991, chronicled his dealings with the New York music business during this time period. 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 gigs. However, through the few gigs he could find, he regained his professional footing and started recording with the Warner Bros. Records label. The record company managed to buy out his contract with Bang Records, and Morrison fulfilled a highly unusual clause that bound him to submit thirty-six original songs within a year by recording thirty-one nonsense songs in one session.

His first album for Warner Bros. Records was Astral Weeks (which he had already performed in several clubs around Boston), a mystical song cycle, considered by many to be his best work. Morrison has said, "When Astral Weeks came out, I was starving, literally." Released in 1968, the album 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. It has been compared to French Impressionism and mystical Celtic poetry. 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." In 1979, Lester Bangs, one of the most prominently influential music journalists, wrote perhaps the best known review in rock history describing the effect that Astral Weeks had on his life. It has often been placed on the most authoritative lists of best albums of all time. In the 1995 MOJO list of 100 Best Albums, it was listed as #2 and was #19 on the Rolling Stone Magazine's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003.

1970s – The American Dream

Soon after moving from Boston to an Oyaho mountain home in New York, Morrison released his next album, Moondance in 1970. Moondance reached #29 on the Billboard charts. The style of this album stood in great contrast to that of Astral Weeks. Whereas Astral Weeks had a sorrowful and vulnerable tone, Moondance constituted a much more optimistic and cheerful affair. The title track, although not released in the US as a single until 1977, received heavy play in many radio formats. The evocative song "Into the Mystic" has also gained a wide following over the years. The single released was "Come Running", which reached the US Top 40. Moondance was both well received and favourably reviewed. Lester Bangs and Greil Marcus had a combined full page review in Rolling Stone Magazine, stating that Morrison now had "the striking imagination of a consciousness that is visionary in the strongest sense of the word." "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.Moondance was listed at #65 on the Rolling Stone Magazine's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In March 2007, Moondance was listed as #72 on the NARM Rock and Roll Hall of Fame list of the "Definitive 200".

Over the next few years, he released several acclaimed 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 critic Jon Landau's opinion and contained the hit single "Domino". The last song "Street Choir" manifested a more serious tone.

He moved with his family to a hilltop home in Fairfax, California in 1971 and released another popular album, Tupelo Honey. This album produced the hit single "Wild Night", and the catchy title song that has a notably country and western feel about it. It ended with another country tune, "Moonshine Whiskey". Morrison said he originally intended to make an all country album. His co-producer, Ted Templeman, although impressed with Morrison's ability as a musician, arranger and producer, described the recording process with Morrison 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." He later said, "I'd never work with Van Morrison again as long as I live, even if he offered me two million dollars in cash. I aged ten years producing three of his albums."

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 an elaborate versatility not previously found in his earlier albums. Two songs ("Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When You Smile)"and "Redwood Tree") reached the Hot 100. Two other songs ("Listen to the Lion" and "Almost Independence Day") were ten and eleven minutes long and employed the same poetic imagery not heard since Astral Weeks. It was his highest charting album in the U.S. until his Top Ten debut on Billboard 200 in 2008.

By 1972, despite being a performer for nearly ten years, he 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. He then formed the backing group The Caledonia Soul Orchestra and ventured on a three month US tour with them. The live double album, It's Too Late to Stop Now, captured the tour for posterity and has been regarded as one of the great live albums in rock history. Soon after recording the album, Morrison restructured the Caledonia Soul Orchestra into a smaller unit, the Caledonia Soul Express. (For many years, his parents owned a record store in Fairfax, California named Caledonia Records.)

In 1973, Morrison divorced his wife of five years, actress and model, Janet (Planet) Rigsbee. His daughter from the marriage, singer-songwriter Shana Morrison, has appeared on stage at his concerts on several occasions and has performed duets with Morrison on 1994's A Night in San Francisco and 1995's Days Like This. Upon releasing his next album Hard Nose the Highway in 1973, Morrison had mixed but mostly negative reviews. It contained the popular song "Warm Love" but otherwise has been largely dismissed. However, the Rolling Stone Magazine reviewer concluded: "Hard Nose the Highway is psychologically complex, musically somewhat uneven and lyrically excellent."

1974 saw the release of his introspectively poignant album, Veedon Fleece. Though it attracted scant initial attention, its critical stature grew markedly over the years -- with Veedon Fleece now considered to be one of Morrison's best works. "You Don't Pull No Punches, But You Don't Push the River", one of the album's side closers, exemplifies the long, hypnotic, cryptic Morrison with its references to visionary poet William Blake and to the seemingly Grail-like Veedon Fleece object.

Morrison would not release a follow-up album for another three years. After ten years without taking time off, he said in an interview, he just needed to get away from music completely and even ceased listening to it for several months. Also suffering from writer's block, he later said that he seriously considered leaving the music business for good. During this time, he lived in isolation "far from the beaten track." Greil Marcus stated that he drove past Morrison's home once, seeing a big sign on the road that said, Van Morrison's Self-Improvement Camp. "I have no idea if someone put it up there as a prank or if he'd put it up; (nor whether) you went there to improve yourself or whether you went there to improve him, but it somehow struck me as very appropriate". A new album was often rumoured to be ready for release under such titles as Mechanical Bliss, Naked in the Jungle and Stiff Upper Lip. Morrison later said that the project was nothing more than an extended jamming session.

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." 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, Van performed two songs, including "Caravan", from his 1970 album Moondance, described by All Movie Guide as "a rousing performance." Greil Marcus went further by observing that "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." The filmed concert served as the basis for Martin Scorsese's 1978 film, The Last Waltz, which is widely considered a landmark in concert film history.

During his association with The Band, Morrison acquired the nicknames that fans would ultimately bestow on him: "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, Robbie calls out "Van the Man!"

Morrison finally released A Period of Transition in 1977, a collaboration with Dr. John, who also appeared at The Last Waltz. It received a mild critical reception and marked the beginning a very prolific period of song making. The following year, Morrison released Wavelength; it became at that time the fastest selling album of his career and soon went gold. The engaging title track became a modest hit, peaking at #42. The opening track, "Kingdom Hall" (delving into Morrison's own childhood experience around Jehovah's Witnesses), stood as a precursor to the religious turn in Morrison's next album, 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

Hailed as a masterpiece, Into the Music, was released in 1979: "An erotic/religious cycle of songs that culminates in the greatest side of music Morrison has created since Astral Weeks". For the first time in the body of Morrison's work, this album alluded to the healing power of music, which had become an abiding interest of Morrison's, dominating his music from this point forward. "Bright Side of the Road" was a joyful, uplifting song that would appear on the soundtrack of the popular movie, Michael.

1980s – Back to Europe and the spiritual

With his next album, the new decade found Morrison following his own muse into uncharted territory and marked his first significant exposure to merciless reviews. In 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) the most esoteric and controversial album in his discography. The album, Common One, consisted of only 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." 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." Morrison insisted that the album was never "meant to be a commercial album." Biographer Clinton Heylin concludes: "He would not attempt anything so ambitious again. Henceforth every radical idea would be tempered by some notion of commerciality." Subsequently, the critics would reassess the album more favourably with the success of "Summertime in England" and other tracks that seemed to reveal new meaning in live performance. 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."

The next release, Van Morrison in Ireland in 1981 was a video of a concert Morrison recorded while in Ireland two years earlier. This concert featured the band with which he had recorded the 1978 album Wavelength, but it also included a horn section and Toni Marcus (the violinist who had been featured on his 1979 album, Into the Music). The concert had two songs from Wavelength and the title track and a version of "Checking It Out". The rest of the songs had originally been recorded at least seven years earlier: "Saint Dominic's Preview" and two songs Morrison had performed and recorded when fronting the band Them —"Don't Look Back" and "Gloria".

Morrison's next album, Beautiful Vision, released in 1982, had him returning once again to his Belfast roots. Well received by the critics and public, it produced a popular single, "Cleaning Windows", that documented one of Morrison's first jobs after leaving school. Several other songs on the album, "Vanlose Stairway", "She Gives Me Religion", and the instrumental, "Scandinavia" (on which Morrison plays piano), 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. Morrison had quit drinking alcohol, sometime during 1973 or 1974, and now drank "gallons" of coffee a day, according to friends. However, he again encountered problems with alcohol, beginning later in the decade, following the sudden death of his father.

In the early 1980s, Morrison moved back to Europe and at first settled in London's Notting Hill Gate area. Later, he moved to Bath, where he bought Wool Hall Studios. Increasingly, he exerted even more control over the music he produced.

Much of the music Morrison released throughout the 1980s continued to focus on the themes of spirituality and faith as Morrison's compositions wended their way towards New Age territory. His 1983 album, Inarticulate Speech of the Heart offered a special thanks to L. Ron Hubbard; however, after taking courses in Scientology for 18 months, Morrison became disillusioned with it.

In 1985, he released a new album, A Sense Of Wonder, that contained the opening track "Tore Down a la Rimbaud". Morrison said he had been reading about Rimbaud in 1974, at the same time he again suffered through a period of writer's block. He then carried this song around with him for eight years, before he could complete it. In 1985, Morrison also wrote the musical score for the movie, Lamb starring Liam Neeson.

Morrison's 1986 release, No Guru, No Method, No Teacher, served as new evidence of his interest in using music as part of his individual quest to heal the divide between mind and body. During the recording, the artist's characteristic deep growl manifested itself in grand form, and the album featured some of the grittiest acoustic arrangements since the days of Astral Weeks. Most critics received this album well. It contained a popularly performed concert 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". He entitled the album as a rebuttal to media attempts to place him in various creeds such as Scientology. 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.

In Dublin in May 1986, Van Morrison performed at Self Aid, a benefit concert focused on the problem of chronic unemployment at that point widespread in Ireland. The benefit constituted Ireland's largest ever television audience for a national event up to that time. It included performances by over thirty acts, including Elvis Costello, Christy Moore and U2.

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. The romantic ballad from this album, "Someone Like You", has been featured subsequently in the soundtracks of several popular movies, including 1995's French Kiss, in 2001, both Someone Like You and Bridget Jones's Diary.

In 1988, he released Irish Heartbeat, with the Irish group, The Chieftains. A popularly-selling album, it demonstrated the full range of Morrison's unique vocal power on a collection of traditional Irish folk songs. Originally recorded on his 1983 album Inarticulate Speech of the Heart, the song "Irish Heartbeat" with the Irish Chieftains as back-up was reinvigorated. Morrison also played drums on this album.

In 1989, Morrison released an even more popular seller, Avalon Sunset, which featured the hit duet with Cliff Richard "Whenever God Shines His Light" and the ballad "Have I Told You Lately" on which "earthly love transmutes into that for God."(Hinton) Although often considered to be his most spiritual album, it also contained the sensual song, "Daring Night": "It deals with full, blazing sex, whatever it's churchy organ and gentle lilt suggest."(Hinton) Morrison's preoccupation with the erotic/religious theme again evidenced itself. Indicative of his belief that his recordings should be spontaneous, he can be heard calling out the change of tempo in the ending of this song. He often completed albums in two day's time, with first takes frequently being the norm.

1990s – Recognition and collaboration

Morrison capitalised on the success of Avalon Sunset with the release of The Best of Van Morrison, in 1990. Not to be mistaken with a similarly-titled compilation, released in 1967 and long out of print, this album constituted the first survey of his entire career. Compiled by Morrison himself and focused on his hit singles, it became a multi-platinum success spanning a year and a half on the UK charts, and Allmusic determined it to be "far and away the best selling album of his career." He released another album, Enlightenment which included the hit single, "Real Real Gone", first recorded ten years earlier.

Also in 1990, Morrison released his second video -- entitled, Van Morrison The Concert. Recorded in New York the previous year, the concert featured two special guests and long-time friends Mose Allison and John Lee Hooker, each of whom performed some of their own songs. This video mainly consisted of Morrison's work from his last two albums; including four songs from both Avalon Sunset and Irish Heartbeat.

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 300,000 to half a million people and broadcast live on television. He sang "Comfortably Numb" with Roger Waters, and his friends from the Band, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson, and Rick Danko. At concert's end, he and the other performers sang "The Tide Is Turning".

BBC2 filmed a career overview entitled One Irish Rover for its Arena series broadcast in March, 1991. The film opened with Van Morrison and Bob Dylan singing a duet on the Hill of the Muses above Athens, Greece. Dylan and Morrison performed duets on "Crazy Love", "Foreign Window", and "One Irish Rover". The Independent described "the Irish singer flanked by Bob Dylan and the Acropolis: all three of them legendary, all looking their age, and all a waste of time talking to with a microphone in your hand."

Another television documentary shown just a few days later comprised part of a series on Channel 4, called Without Walls. Named "Coney Island of the Mind", the documentary involved Morrison in discussions with the Irish poets, Michael Longley, Seamus Deane, and John Montague. The poets and Morrison discussed the relationship among poetry, music, and mysticism. Also in 1991, he wrote and produced four songs for a Tom Jones album including the title song, "Carrying a Torch". Tom Jones said that Morrison told him that when he had recorded the song and played it back he thought, "Tom Jones". Morrison also included the song on his successful 1991 double album, Hymns to the Silence.

In January 1993, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted Van Morrison; he became the first inductee ever who did not attend his own induction ceremony. Robbie Robertson from The Band accepted the award on his behalf. The Counting Crows performed Morrison's song, "Caravan" – providing them with nationally prominent exposure by this appearance.

The early- to mid- 1990s marked a thirty-year high in Morrison's career with three Top Five UK albums, sold out concerts, and a highly visible-public profile, but this period also demarcated a decline in the critical reception to his work. He found time to release another compilation album, The Best of Van Morrison Volume Two in January 1993 followed by Too Long in Exile another Top Five album in June.

In contrast to these commercially-successful but not always critically-acclaimed albums, the 1994 live double album, A Night in San Francisco was a "tour-de-force", clearly demonstrating Morrison's talents and his influences in equal measure and reached #8 on the UK charts. The Rolling Stone magazine review states the album stands 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." 1995's Days Like This had large sales even though the critical reviews were not always favourable.

On 14 February, 1994, Van Morrison received the BRIT Award for his Outstanding Contribution to British Music. 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 that he wrote more than twenty years ago, which was very important to us." Sting, Bob Geldof, Elvis Costello, Bono, and Peter Gabriel provided televised accolades. Bob Dylan's televised comment was:

Congratulations on this prestigious award. No one's more deserving of it than you for writing all those fine songs and giving us all that inspiration over the years. Thanks a lot. God bless you, Van. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Morrison performed before an estimated audience of 60-80,000 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.

On 14 June 1996, Morrison was awarded an OBE by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace for his service to music.

This period also saw a number of side projects, including the live jazz performances of 1996's How Long Has This Been Going On, 1997's Tell Me Something: The Songs of Mose Allison, and 2000's The Skiffle Sessions - Live In Belfast 1998, all of which found Morrison paying tribute to his long-time favourites.

In 1997, Morrison released The Healing Game. The following year, Morrison finally released some of his previously unissued studio recordings in a warmly-received 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.

In September 1999, Morrison became the first musician inducted into the newly opened Irish Music Hall of Fame. Bob Geldof presented Morrison with the award remarking, "I believe there is only one genius in Irish music, and that's Van Morrison." Niall Stokes was quoted on this occassion:

Van Morrison has been justifiably acknowledged as Ireland's greatest living legend, a multi-talented creative force who has created an astonishing body of work, of great depth and beauty.

During this decade, Morrison developed a close association with two vocal talents at opposite ends of their careers: Georgie Fame, with whom Morrison had already worked occasionally, lent his voice and Hammond organ skills; and Brian Kennedy's vocals complemented the grizzled voice of Morrison, both in studio and live performances.

Taking this concept of association further, the 1990s 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. 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 highly acclaimed 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. Morrison additionally collaborated with Tom Jones on his 1999 album Reload, performing a duet on "Sometimes We Cry", and also sang vocals on a track on Mark Knopfler's 2000 album, Sailing to Philadelphia.

2000s – Moving towards keeping it simple

Van Morrison continued to record and tour in the 2000s, often performing two or three times a week. Playing fewer of his well-known songs in concert than almost any other artist from his era, Morrison has firmly resisted relegation to a nostalgia act. 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.

Contrary to the days when he felt at the mercy of the music industry, he formed his own independent label, Exile Productions Ltd. He maintains 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.

In July 2001, Morrison received an honorary doctorate in music from Queen's University in his hometown of Belfast. Nine years earlier, in 1992, he had received an honorary doctorate in literature from the University of Ulster–at the time being the only other university in his native Northern Ireland.

Morrison released a new album, Down the Road in May 2002, which was critically well received and was his highest charting album in the US since 1972's Saint Dominic's Preview. It had a nostalgic tone and was comprised of 15 tracks that represented the different musical genres that Morrison had covered throughout the years such as R&B, blues, country and folk; one of the tracks was an autobiographical song written as a tribute to his late father George, who had played such a pivotal role in nurturing his early musical tastes.

"In recognition of his unique position as one of the most important songwriters of the past century," Van Morrison was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, at their awards ceremony in New York City in June 2003. Ray Charles presented the award, following a performance during which the pair performed Morrison's "Crazy Love", from the album, Moondance. Morrison's admiration for Charles was evident in the award ceremony and he later wrote an article published in Rolling Stone in 2004, describing Ray Charles' influence on music and on him personally. In the same year, Morrison released What's Wrong with This Picture? on the legendary jazz record label, Blue Note Records. The album would later receive a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Blues Album.

In 2004, his song, "Bright Side of the Road", from his 1979 album Into the Music was featured in the UNESCO advertisements for World Press Freedom Day. In October 2004 Van Morrison was honored as a BMI ICON at the annual London Awards for his "enduring influence on generations of music makers."

Morrison remains popular with the public: his album, Magic Time, debuted at #25 on the US Billboard 200 charts upon its May 2005 release, some forty years after Morrison first entered the public's eye as the frontman of Them. Rolling Stone listed it as #17 on their list of The Top 50 Records of 2005. 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. Morrison composed the song, "Blue & Green", featuring the late 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 U.K.. Van Morrison appeared in The Hebridean Celtic Festival in Stornoway Outer Hebrides in the summer of 2005, where he was a headline act at the growing international Celtic music festival.

He released an album with a country music theme, entitled Pay the Devil, on 07 March 2006, which the mayor of Nashville declared as "Van Morrison Day". Morrison appeared for the very first time at the historic Ryman Auditorium that evening to a sold-out crowd. (In fact, the entire Ryman sold out twelve minutes after the tickets went on sale.) Pay the Devil debuted at #26 on The Billboard 200 and peaked at #7 on Top Country Albums. Amazon Best of 2006 Editor's Picks in Country listed the country album at #10 in December 2006. Still promoting the country album, Morrison was the headline act on the first night of the Austin City Limits Music Festival on 15 September 2006. Rolling Stone reviewed this performance as one of the top ten shows of the 2006 festival. In November 2006, a limited edition album, Live at Austin City Limits Festival was issued which is sold only at Van Morrison concerts and at the Van Morrison Official website.

Live At Montreux 1980/1974, released in October 2006, was the first ever commercial DVD released by Morrison, though the Pay The Devil CD was re-released in the summer of 2006 with a DVD containing tracks from the Ryman. This two DVD set illustrates how his songwriting evolved over this period, and includes some of his best known tracks: "Moondance", " Street Choir", "Tupelo Honey", and "Ballerina". Pee Wee Ellis, Mark Isham and David Hayes are among some of the well-known musicians featured in the 1980 show; the 1974 show has a line-up that features Pete Wingfield, Dallas Taylor and Jerome Rimson.

In November 2006, CNN published their list of The All-TIME 100 Greatest Albums. Two of Van Morrison's albums, 1968's Astral Weeks and 1970's Moondance, were on the list. His continuing popularity with music fans was evident when he was voted as #13 on the list of WXPNs 885 All Time Greatest Artists in 2006.

Van Morrison was honoured at the Second Annual Oscar Wilde: Honouring Irish Writing in Film Pre-Academy Awards Party, in Los Angeles, California, on 22 February 2007 for his contribution to over fifty films. Al Pacino presented him with the award, comparing Morrison to Oscar Wilde as they were both "visionaries who push boundaries". Van Morrison at the Movies - Soundtrack Hits, a new nineteen song album, was released by Morrison's record label, Exile Productions Ltd. under license to Manhattan EMI, on 12 February 2007, to coincide with this event.

Morrison appeared at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on the first evening on 27 April 2007 as the headline act where his longtime collaborator and friend, Dr. John joined him for one set on stage. Morrison also drew the largest crowd ever (35,000) on July 4 2007 at the Ottawa Bluesfest.

On 8 May 2007, Van Morrison was named Best International Male Singer of 2007 by the first ever International Awards at the renown Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London England.

A new 2CD compilation album The Best of Van Morrison Volume 3 was released in June 2007 containing 31 tracks, some of which were previously unreleased. Morrison personally selected the tracks to represent the best of his work from 1993s album Too Long in Exile to the song "Stranded" from the 2005 album Magic Time. On September 3 2007, Morrison's complete catalogue of albums from 1971 through 2002 were made available exclusively at the ITunes Store in Europe and Australia appearing at the rate of four albums per week and during the first week of October 2007, the albums became available at the U.S. ITunes Store.

Still on Top - The Greatest Hits, a 37 track 2CD compilation album was released on 22 October 2007 in the U.K. on the Polydor label with a limited edition 3CD digipack box set available on initial release. On 29 October, 2007 the album charted at #2 on the Official UK Top 75 Albums — his highest UK charting ever. The 06 November 2007 release in the U.S. is on the Hip-O label and in Canada on Universal Music Group and contains 21 of his best-known tracks. Still on Top - The Greatest Hits also became available in MP3 download format as of the US and Canada release dates. The hits that were released on albums with the copyrights owned by Morrison as Exile Productions Ltd. — 1971 and later — have been re-mastered in 2007.

Morrison signed a new contract with Polydor Records that was announced in October 2007 and has been characterized as one of the "music industries most important deals of the year". This contract gives Polydor licensing rights to his back catalogue to be re-released with added audio content in batches of six or seven albums at a time over a two-year period. The first batch of seven albums was issued on 28 January, 2008 and featured Tupelo Honey, It's Too Late to Stop Now, Wavelength, Into the Music, A Sense of Wonder, Avalon Sunset and Back on Top . Each newly reissued album contains previously unreleased tracks of alternative takes and reworkings.

Keep It Simple, Morrison's thirty-third 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 U.S. on 01 April, 2008 . The new album comprises eleven self-penned tracks demonstrating the many genres of music that have influenced him over his almost fifty years as a professional musician. One minute and thirty second audio clips of four of the songs on the new album appeared on Template:MySpace on 27 February. Morrison promoted the album with a short U.S. tour commencing in Austin, Texas on 11 March with an appearance the next evening at the SXSW music conference. In the U.K., the Music Club program at BBC Radio 2 on 15 March had an exclusive concert featuring Morrison performing the new songs. In the first week of release Keep It Simple debuted on the Billboard 200 chart at #10, Morrison's first Top Ten charting ever in the U.S..

Morrison recorded a concert at LSO St. Lukes broadcast on BBC Four sessions on 25 April 2008. The set list included songs Morrison first performed in the 70s and 80s: "Help Me", "Vanlose Stairway" -- as well as several from his latest album including "That's Entrainment" and "Behind the Ritual". Georgie Fame and Mick Green appeared with Morrison as special guests. Songs from the show can be viewed at the official Van Morrison website: Link. Several videos of songs performed but not shown on the TV concert are available for viewing at BBC 4: Link

Morrison was one of the headliners announced for the Stockholm Jazz Festival, celebrating their 25 year anniversity in July 2008, along with Patti Smith who recorded a unique punk rock version of Morrison's "Gloria" song in the 1970s.

The Van Morrison 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". 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"); John Mellencamp ("Wild Night"); Jim Morrison; Joan Armatrading (the only musical influence she will acknowledge); Rickie Lee Jones; Rod Stewart; Tom Petty; Elton John; Patti Smith (her poetic-proto-punk "Gloria" most explicitly); Graham Parker; Sinéad O'Connor; Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy; Bob Seger; ("I know Springsteen was very much affected by Van Morrison, and so was I" - interview in Creem); Dexys Midnight Runners; Jimi Hendrix ("Gloria"); Jeff Buckley ("The Way Young Lovers Do", "Sweet Thing"); -- and numerous others, including the Counting Crows (their "sha-la-la" sequence in Mr Jones, is a tribute to Morrison) Morrison's influence reaches even into the country genre, with Hal Ketchum acknowledging, "He (Van Morrison) was a major influence in my life".

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". Ray Lamontagne, James Morrison, Paolo Nutini Eric Lindell and David Gray 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. The Wallflowers have covered "Into The Mystic" and Canadian blues-rock singer Colin James also covers "Into The Mystic" frequently at his concerts.

In the 1980s, Morrison expressed some grudges regarding his obvious influence on some of the more popular artists of his generation, admitting that although "flattered by the compliment", he "felt ripped off, in an academic context, because there are just people who 'don't know'". On his 1986 album, No Guru, No Method, No Teacher, he included the song, "A Town Called Paradise", which begins with the words: "Copycats ripped off my words/ Copycats ripped off my songs/ Copycats ripped off my melody", but then goes on to say: "It doesn't matter what they say/ It doesn't matter what they do".

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. 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 Brian Kennedy and James Hunter.

In the end, however, one critic 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".

Band members

• Van Morrison - lead vocals, alto saxophone, harmonica, ukelele
• John Platania - guitar
• Sarah Jory - acoustic guitar, slide guitar, pedal steel guitar, banjo, dobro
• Paul Moore - bass guitar, double bass
• Paul Moran - keyboards, trumpet
• Bobby Ruggiero - percussion
• Tony Fitzgibbon - violin, mandolin
• Neal Wilkinson - drums
• Katie Kissoon - background vocals
• Vanessa Haynes - background vocals

(Note:This list is accurate as of August 2008)

Van Morrison discography

Main article: Van Morrison discography

Awards and Recognition

Grammy Awards:

• 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"

Other recognition:

• Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1993
• BRIT Award - Outstanding contribution to Music, 1994
• OBE award, by Queen Elizabeth II for his service to music, June 1996
• First Musician inducted into the Irish Music Hall of Fame, 1999
• Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, 2003
• Honoured as a BMI ICON, October 2004
• Ronnie Scotts Club "Best International Male Singer of 2007" First Inaugural Awards
• Oscar Wilde Award - Irish Contribution to Film, February 2007

See also

• List of people on stamps of Ireland

References

• Collis, John (1996). Inarticulate Speech of the Heart, Little Brown and Company, ISBN 0-306-80811-0
• 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 1-86074169X
• 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
• Rogan, Johnny (2006). Van Morrison:No Surrender, London:Vintage Books ISBN 9780099431831
• Rosenthal, Elizabeth. (2001) His Song: The Musical Journey of Elton John, Billboard Books, ISBN:0823088936
• Turner, Steve (1993). Too Late to Stop Now, Viking Penguin, ISBN 0-670-85147-7
• "Van Morrison". Peter Wolfe. Rolling Stone Issue 946. Rolling Stone.
• "The Immortals: The First Fifty". Rolling Stone Issue 946. Rolling Stone.

Further reading

• 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)
• Yorke, Ritchie (1975). Into The Music, London:Charisma Books , ISBN 0-85947-013-X

External links

• Official Van Morrison website
• Template:MySpace
• Van Morrison at allmusic
• Van Morrison at RollingStone.com/artists
• Van Morrison at Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
• Van Morrison at Songwriters Hall of Fame
• Van Morrison at IMDb
• Van Morrison News and Complete Discography
• Van Morrison Official Releases and all concert setlists
• Photos Session, Van Morrision, 1972 by Michael Maggid
• Van Morrison News, Concert Reviews and Concert Dates