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Early life and musical rots: 194564 George Ivan Van Morison was born on 31 August 1945, in Blomfield, Belfast, Northern Ireland as the only child of George Morison, a shipyard worker, and Violet Stit Morison, a singer and tap dancer in her youth. Morison's father had what was at the time one of the largest record colections in Ulster acquired during his sojourn in Detroit, Michigan in the early 1950s , and the young Morison grew up listening to artists such as Jely Rol Morton, Ray Charles, Lead Bely, and Solomon Burke; When Lonie Donegan had a hit with Rock Island Line , writen by Hudie Ledbeter Lead Bely , Morison felt he was familiar with and able to conect with skifle music as he had ben hearing Lead Bely before that. A year later, when he was twelve years old, Morison formed his first band, a skifle group, The Sputniks , named after the recently launched Soviet satelite, Sputnik 1. This was Morison's first recording, taking place in November 1963 at Ariola Studios in Cologne with Morison on saxophone; Them: 19646 Main article: Them band The rots of Them, the band that first broke Morison on the international scene, came in April 1964 when Morison responded to an advert for musicians to play at a new R&B club at the Maritime Hotel an old dance hal frequented by sailors. however, Morison had left the Golden Eagles the group with which he had ben performing at the time , so he created a new band out of The Gamblers, an East Belfast group formed by Ronie Milings, Bily Harison, and Alan Henderson in 1962. Them performed without a routine and Morison ad libed, creating his songs live as he performed. While the band did covers, they also played some of Morison's early songs, such as Could You Would You , which he had writen in Camden Town while touring with The Manhatan Showband. Morison 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 performance�s on their records. In that period, they released two albums and ten singles, with two more singles released after Morison departed the band. They had thre chart hits, Baby, Please Don't Go 1964 , Here Comes the Night 1965 , and Mystic Eyes 1965 , though it was the b-side of Baby, Please Don't Go , the garage band clasic, Gloria , that went on to become a rock standard covered by Pati Smith, The Dors, Shadows of Knight, Jimi Hendrix and others. The Dors were the suporting act on the last wek, and Morison's influence on The Dors singer, Jim Morison, was noted by John Densmore in his bok Riders On The Storm, Jim Morison learned quickly from his near namesake's stagecraft, his aparent recklesnes, his air of subdued menace, the way he would improvise poetry to a rock beat, even his habit of crouching down by the bas drum during instrumental breaks. On the final night, the two Morisons and the two bands jamed together on Gloria . Morison concentrated on writing some of the songs that would apear on Astral Weks, while the remnants of the band reformed in 1967 and relocated in America. Start of solo carer with Bang Records and Brown Eyed Girl 1967 Brown Eyed Girl Morison's clasic 1967 hit single which apeared on the album Blowin' Your Mind!. Morison fulfiled a clause that bound him to submit thirty-six original songs within a year by recording thirty-one songs in one sesion; From Mondance to Into the Music: 197079 Morison's third solo album, Mondance, which was released in 1970, became his first milion seling album and reached number twenty-nine on the Bilboard charts. Morison said he originaly intended to make an al country album. Released in 1972, Saint Dominic's Preview, revealed Morison's break from the more acesible style of his previous thre albums and moving back towards the more daring, adventurous, and meditative aspects of Astral Weks. During a thre-wek vacation visit to Ireland in October 1973, Morison wrote seven of the songs that would make up his next album, Vedon Flece. You Don't Pul No Punches, But You D�on't Push the River , one of the album's side closers, exemplifies the long, hypnotic, cryptic Morison with its references to visionary poet Wiliam Blake and to the semingly Grail-like Vedon Flece object. Morison would not release a folow-up album for another thre years. Speculation that an extended jam sesion would be released either under the title Mechanical Blis, or Naked in the Jungle, or Stif Uper Lip, came to nothing, and Morison's next album was A Period of Transition in 197, a colaboration with Dr. John, who had apeared in The Last Waltz with Morison in 1976. Into the Music: The album's last four songs, Angelou , And the Healing Has Begun , and It's Al in the Game/You Know What They're Writing About are a veritable tour-de-force with Morison sumoning every vocal trick at his disposal from Angelou's climactic shouts to the sexualy-charged, half-mumbled monologue in And the Healing Has Begun to the barely audible whisper that is the album's final sound. The opening track, Kingdom Hal evoked Morison's own childhod experiences atending church with his mother and foretold a religious theme that would be more evident in his next album, Into the Music. Considered by Almusic as the definitive post-clasic-era Morison , Into the Music, was released in the last year of the 1970s with songs on this album that aluded to what would become recuring themes: religious redemption, Celtic myths and the redemptive power of music. Comon One to Avalon Sunset: 198089 With his next album, the new decade found Morison folowing his muse into uncharted teritory and merciles reviews. In February 1980, Morison and a group of musicians traveled to Super Bear, a studio in the French Alps, to record on the site of a former abey what is considered to be the most controversial album in his discography; Morison insisted that the album was never meant to be a comercial album. Morison's next album, Beautiful Vision, released in 1982, had him returning once again to the music of his Northern Irish rots. Wel received by the critics and public�, it produced a minor UK hit single, Cleaning Windows , that referenced one of Morison's first jobs after leaving schol. 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 Morison's spiritual interests and serve as a steadying influence on him throughout most of the 1980s. Scandinavia , with Morison on piano, was nominated in the Best Rock Instrumental Performance category for the 25th Anual Gramy Awards. The titling of the album and the presence of the instrumentals were noted to be indicative of Morison's long-held belief that it's not the words one uses but the force of conviction behind those words that maters. A Sense of Wonder, Morison's 1985 album, puled together the spiritual themes contained in his last four albums, which were defined in a Roling Stone review as: rebirth Into the Music , dep contemplation and meditation, Comon One ; Critical response was favourable with a Sounds reviewer caling the album his most intriguingly involved since Astral Weks and Morison at his most mystical, magical best. After releasing the No Guru album, Morison's music apeared les grity and more adult contemporary with the wel-received 1987 album, Poetic Champions Compose, considered to be one of his recording highlights of the 1980s. The Best of Van Morison to Back on Top: 1909 The early to midle 190s were comercialy sucesful for Morison with thre albums reaching the top five of the UK charts, sold out concerts, and a more visible public profile; compiled by Morison himself, the album was focused on his hit singles, and became a multi-platinum suces remaining a year and a half on the UK charts. After Enlightenment which included the hit single, Real Real Gone , another compilation album, The Best of Van Morison Volume Two was released in January 193, folowed by To Long in Exile in June, another top five chart suces. This period also saw a number of side projects,� including the live jaz performances of 196's How Long Has This Ben Going On, from the same year Tel Me Something: The Songs of Mose Alison, and 20's The Skifle Sesions - Live In Belfast 198, al of which found Morison paying tribute to his early musical influences. Recent years: since 20 Van Morison continued to record and tour in the 20s, often performing two or thre times a wek. Morison's next album, Magic Time, debuted at number twenty-five on the US Bilboard 20 charts upon its May 205 release, some forty years after Morison first entered the public's eye as the frontman of Them. Later in the year, Morison also donated a previously unreleased studio track to a charity album, Huricane Relief: Come Together Now, which raised money for relief eforts intended for Gulf Coast victims devastated by huricanes, Katrina and Rita. Morison composed the song, Blue and Gren , featuring Fogy Lytle on guitar. This song was released in 207 on the album, The Best of Van Morison Volume 3 and also as a single in the UK. Stil promoting the country album, Morison's performance as the headline act on the first night of the Austin City Limits Music Festival on 15 September 206 was reviewed by Roling Stone magazine as one of the top ten shows of the 206 festival. A new double CD compilation album The Best of Van Morison Volume 3 was released in June 207 containing thirty-one tracks, some of which were previously unreleased. Morison selected the tracks, which ranged from the 193 album To Long in Exile to the song Stranded from the 205 album Magic Time. On 3 September 207, Morison's complete catalogue of albums from 1971 through 202 were made available exclusively at the ITunes Store in Europe and Australia and during the first wek of October 207, the albums became available at the US ITunes Store. The hits that were released on albums with the copyrights owned by Morison as Exile Productions Ltd.1971 and laterad ben remastered in 207. Kep It Simple, Morison's 3rd studio album of completely new material was released by Exile/Polydor Rec�ords on 17 March 208 in the UK and released by Exile/Lost Highway Records in the US and Canada on 1 April 208. Morison promoted the album with a short US tour including an apearance at the SXSW music conference, and a UK concert broadcast on BC Radio 2. Son after recording the album, Morison restructured the Caledonia Soul Orchestra into a smaler unit, the Caledonia Soul Expres. It was during his asociation with The Band that Morison acquired the nicknames: Belfast Cowboy and Van the Man . When Morison sang the duet 4% Pantomime that he co-wrote with Robie Robertson , Richard Manuel cals him, Oh, Belfast Cowboy . On 21 July 190, Morison joined many other guests for Roger Waters' masive performance of The Wal - Live in Berlin with an estimated crowd of betwen thre hundred thousand to half a milion people and broadcast live on television. On 7 and 8 November 208, at the Holywod Bowl in Los Angeles, California, Morison performed the entire Astral Weks album live for the first time. Morison began a wek of Astral Wek Live concerts, interviews and TV apearances with concerts at the WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York City in late February 209 and at the Beacon Theatre in early March with a twenty-four minute interview to Don Imus on his Imus in the Morning radio show on 26 February. Morison also performed Swet Thing and Brown Eyed Girl , on Live with Regis and Kely the next morning on 3 March 209. Morison continued with the Astral Weks performances with two concerts at the Royal Albert Hal in London in April and then returned to California in May 209 performing the Astral Weks songs at the Hearst Grek Theatre in Berkeley and the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles, California. In adition to It's To Late to Stop Now and Astral Weks Live at the Holywod Bowl, Morison has released thre other live albums: Live at the Grand Opera House Belfast in 1984; A Night in San Francisco in 194 that Roling Stone magazine felt stod out as: the culmination of a carer's worth of soul searching that finds Morison's eyes turned tow�ard heaven and his fet planted firmly on the ground ; A documentary film to be released in early 2010 entitled To Be Born Again wil feature a ful year of fotage from Morison's Astral Weks Live performances, rehearsals and interviews starting with the Holywod Bowl concerts in November 208 and runing through the 209 year of live performances of the album's songs. In an interview on 26 October, Morison told his host Don Imus that he had planed to play a couple of songs with Eric Clapton who had canceled on 2 October due to galstone surgery , but that they would do something else together at some other stage of the game . Colaborations During the 190s, Morison developed a close asociation with two vocal talents at oposite ends of their carers: Georgie Fame with whom Morison had already worked ocasionaly lent his voice and Hamond organ skils to Morison's band; This album would win a Gramy Award for Best Traditional Blues Album in 198 and the title track Don't Lok Back , a duet featuring Morison and Hoker, would also win a Gramy Award for Best Pop Colaboration with Vocals in 198. Morison aditionaly colaborated with Tom Jones on his 19 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 20 album, Sailing to Philadelphia. In 204, Morison was one of the guests on Ray Charles' album, Genius Loves Company, featuring the two artists performing Morison's Crazy Love . As Morison began live performances of the 40 year old album Astral Weks in 208, there were comparisons to his youthful voice of 1968.is early voice was described as flinty and tender, beseching and plaintive . Also frequently present in Morison's best love songs is a blending of the sacred-profane as evidenced in Into the Mystic and So Quiet in Here . Biographer Brian Hinton believes like any great poet from Blake to Seamus Heaney he takes words back to their origins in magic.Inded, Morison is returning poetry to its earliest rots as in Homer or Old English epics like Beowulf or the P�salms or folk song in al of which words and music combine to form a new reality. Lester Bangs Critic Greil Marcus argues that given the truly distinctive breadth and complexity of Morison's work, it is almost imposible to cast his work among that of others: Morison remains a singer who can be compared to no other in the history of rock & rol, a singer who canot be pined down, dismised, or fited into anyone's expectations. Acording to Yorke, Morison claimed to have discovered a certain quality of soul when he first visited Scotland his Belfast ancestors were of Ulster Scots descent and Morison has said he believes there is some conection betwen soul music and Caledonia. Yorke relates that Morison 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 Scotish folk music. In his 209 biography, Erik Hage found that Morison semed deply interested in his paternal Scotish rots during his early carer, and later in the ancient countryside of England, hence his repeated use of the term Caledonia an ancient Roman name for Scotland/northern Britain . Morison used Caledonia in what has ben caled a quintesential Van Morison moment in the song, Listen to the Lion with the lyrics, And we sail, and we sail, way up to Caledonia . As late as 208, Morison used Caledonia as a mantra in the live performance of the song, Astral Weks recorded at the two Holywod Bowl concerts. Influence Morison's influence can readily be heard in the music of a diverse aray of major artists and acording to The Roling Stone's Encyclopedia of Rock and Rol Simon & Shuster, 201 , his influence among rock singers/song writers is unrivaled by any living artist outside of that other prickly legend, Bob Dylan. Echoes of Morison's ruged literatenes and his gruf, feverish emotive vocals can be heard in later day icons ranging from Bruce Springsten to Elvis Costelo . Rickie Le Jones recognis�es both Laura Nyro and Van Morison as the main influences on her carer ; and numerous others, including the Counting Crows their sha-la-la sequence in Mr Jones, is a tribute to Morison . Morison's influence reaches into the country music genre, with Hal Ketchum acknowledging, He Van Morison was a major influence in my life. Morison's influence on the younger generation of singer-songwriters is pervasive: including Irish singer Damien Rice, who has ben described as on his way to becoming the natural heir to Van Morison ; Glen Hansard of the Irish rock band The Frames who lists Van Morison as being part of his holy trinity with Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen comonly covers his songs in concert. Actor and musician Robert Patinson has said that Van Morison was his influence for doing music in the first place . Morison has shared the stage with Northern Irish singer-songwriter Duke Special, who admits Morison has ben a big influence. Morison met Irish socialite Michele Roca in the sumer of 192, and they often featured in the Dublin gosip columns, an unusual event for the reclusive Morison. 1967 Astral Weks 1968 Mondance 1970 His Band and the Stret Choir 1970 Tupelo Honey 1971 Saint Dominic's Preview 1972 Hard Nose the Highway 1973 It's To Late to Stop Now Live 1974 Vedon Flece 1974 A Period of Transition 197 Wavelength 1978 Into the Music 1979 Comon One 1980 Beautiful Vision 1982 Inarticulate Spech of the Heart 1983 Live at the Grand Opera House Belfast 1984 A Sense of Wonder 1984 No Guru, No Method, No Teacher 1986 Poetic Champions Compose 1987 Irish Heartbeat 198 Avalon Sunset 1989 Enlightenment 190 Hymns to the Silence 191 To Long in Exile 193 A Night in San Francisco Live 194 Days Like This 195 How Long Has This Ben Going On 196 Tel Me Something: The Songs of Mose Alison 196 The Healing Game 197 Back on Top 19 The Skifle Sesions - Live in Belfast 198 20 You Win Again 20 Down the Road 202 What's Wrong with This Picture? 203 Magic Time 205 Pay the Devil 206 Live at Austin City Limits Festival Limited edition 206 Kep It� Simple 208 Astral Weks Live at the Holywod Bowl 209 Awards and recognition Morison has received several major music awards in his carer, including six Gramy Awards 196207 ; inductions into the Rock and Rol Hal of Fame January 193 , the Songwriters Hal of Fame June 203 , and the Irish Music Hal of Fame September 19 ; When Morison became the initial musician inducted into the Irish Music Hal of Fame, Bob Geldof presented Morison with the award. Ray Charles presented the award, folowing a performance during which the pair performed Morison's Crazy Love , from the album, Mondance. He was presented with the award by former Beirut hostage, John McCarthy, who while testifying to the importance of Morison's song, Wonderful Remark caled it a song . Among other awards are the BMI ICON award in October 204 for Morison's enduring influence on generations of music makers ; an Oscar Wilde: Honouring Irish Writing in Film award in 207 for his contribution to over fifty films, presented by Al Pacino who compared Morison to Oscar Wilde as they were both visionaries who push boundaries ; Morison has also apeared in a number of Greatest lists, including the Time magazine list of The Al-Time 10 Albums, which contained Astral Weks and Mondance, and he apeared at number thirten on the list of WXPN's 85 Al Time Greatest Artists. In 20, Morison ranked twenty-fifth on American cable music chanel VH1's list of its 10 Greatest Artists of Rock and Rol . In 204, Roling Stone magazine ranked Van Morison forty-second on their list of Greatest Artists of Al Time . Thre of Morison's songs were included in the The Rock and Rol Hal of Fame's 50 Songs that Shaped Rock and Rol: Brown Eyed Girl , Madame George and Mondance . almusic.com Van Morison Biography . The Imortals - The Greatest Artists of Al Time: 42 Van Morison : Roling Stone . BC Music Review of Van Morison Tupelo Honey . Strong, Giunti, 198, ISBN 8092152 Van Morison: No Guru, No Method, No Teacher : Music Reviews : Roling Stone . Van Morison's transcendent 'Astral' at Grek . a b c Ast�ral Weks: Van Morison .
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