Equal parts blue-eyed soul shouter and wild-eyed poet-sorcerer, Van
Morrison is among popular music's true innovators, a restless seeker
whose incantatory vocals and alchemical fusion of R&B, jazz, blues,
and Celtic folk produced perhaps the most spiritually transcendent
body of work in the rock & roll canon. Subject only to the whims of
his own muse, his recordings cover extraordinary stylistic ground
yet retain a consistency and purity virtually unmatched among his
contemporaries, connected by the mythic power of his singular
musical vision and his incendiary vocal delivery: spiraling
repetitions of wails and whispers that bypass the confines of
language to articulate emotional truths far beyond the scope of
literal meaning.
George Ivan Morrison was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on
August 31, 1945; his mother was a singer, while his father ardently
collected classic American jazz and blues recordings. At 15, he quit
school to join the local R&B band the Monarchs, touring military
bases throughout Europe before returning home to form his own group,
Them. Boasting a fiery, gritty sound heavily influenced by Morrison
heroes like Howlin' Wolf, Brownie McGhee, Sonny Boy Williamson, and
Little Walter, Them quickly earned a devout local following and in
late 1964 recorded their debut single, "Don't Start Crying Now." The
follow-up, an electrifying reading of Big Joe Williams' "Baby Please
Don't Go," cracked the U.K. Top Ten in early 1965. Though not a
major hit upon its original release, Them's Morrison-penned "Gloria"
endures among the true classics of the rock pantheon, covered by
everyone from the Doors to Patti Smith. Lineup changes plagued the
band throughout its lifespan, however, and at the insistence of
producer Bert Berns, over time session musicians increasingly
assumed the lion's share of recording duties. A frustrated Morrison
finally left Them following a 1966 tour of the U.S., quitting the
music business and returning to Belfast.
After Berns relocated to New York City to form Bang Records, he
convinced Morrison to travel stateside and record as a solo artist;
the sessions produced arguably his most familiar hit, the jubilant
"Brown-Eyed Girl" (originally titled "Brown-Skinned Girl"), a Top
Ten smash in the summer of 1967. By contrast, however, the resulting
album, Blowin' Your Mind, was a bleak, bluesy effort highlighted by
the harrowing "T.B. Sheets"; when Berns released the LP against
Morrison's wishes, he again retreated home to Ireland. After Berns
suffered a fatal heart attack in late 1967, the singer was freed of
his contractual obligations and began working on new material. His
first album for new label Warner Bros., 1968's Astral Weeks, remains
not only Morrison's masterpiece, but one of the greatest records
ever made. A haunting, deeply personal collection of impressionistic
folk-styled epics recorded by an all-star jazz backing unit
including bassist Richard Davis and drummer Connie Kay, its poetic
complexity earned critical raves but made only a minimal commercial
impact. The follow-up, 1970's Moondance, was every bit as brilliant;
buoyant and optimistic where Astral Weeks had been dark and
anguished, it cracked the Top 40, generating the perennials
"Caravan" and "Into the Mystic."
The first half of the 1970s was the most fertile creative period of
Morrison's career. From Moondance onward, his records reflected an
increasingly celebratory and profoundly mystical outlook spurred on
in large part by his marriage to wife Janet Planet and the couple's
relocation to California. After His Band and the Street Choir
yielded his biggest chart hit, "Domino," Morrison released 1971's
Tupelo Honey, a lovely, pastoral meditation on wedded bliss
highlighted by the single "Wild Night." In the wake of the following
year's stirring Saint Dominic's Preview, he formed the Caledonia
Soul Orchestra, featured both on the studio effort Hard Nose the
Highway and on the excellent live set It's Too Late to Stop Now.
However, in 1973 he not only dissolved the group but also divorced
Planet and moved back to Belfast. The stunning 1974 LP Veedon Fleece
chronicled Morrison's emotional turmoil; he then remained silent for
three years, reportedly working on a number of aborted projects but
releasing nothing until 1977's aptly titled A Period of Transition.
Plagued for some time by chronic stage fright, Morrison mounted his
first tour in close to five years in support of 1978's Wavelength;
his performances became more and more erratic, however, and during a
1979 date at New York's Palladium, he even stalked off-stage in
mid-set and did not return. Into the Music, released later that
year, evoked a more conventionally spiritual perspective than
before, a pattern continued on successive outings for years to come.
Albums like 1983's Inarticulate Speech of the Heart, 1985's A Sense
of Wonder, and 1986's No Guru, No Method, No Teacher are all largely
cut from the same cloth, employing serenely beautiful musical
backdrops to explore themes of faith and healing. For 1988's Irish
Heartbeat, however, Morrison teamed with another of his homeland's
musical institutions, the famed Chieftains, for a collection of
traditional folk songs.
Meanwhile, Avalon Sunset heralded a commercial rebirth of sorts in
1989. While "Whenever God Shines His Light," a duet with Cliff
Richard, became Morrison's first U.K. Top 20 hit in over two
decades, the gorgeous "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You"
emerged as something of a contemporary standard, with a Rod Stewart
cover cracking the U.S. Top Five in 1993. Further proof of
Morrison's renewed popularity arrived with the 1990 release of
Mercury's best-of package; far and away the best-selling album of
his career, it introduced the singer to a new generation of fans. A
new studio record, Enlightenment, appeared that same year, followed
in 1991 by the ambitious double set Hymns to the Silence, widely
hailed as his most impressive outing in years.
Following the uniformity of his 1980s work, the remainder of the
decade proved impressively eclectic: 1993's Too Long in Exile
returned Morrison to his musical roots with covers of blues and R&B
classics, while on 1995's Days Like This he teamed with daughter
Shana for a duet on "You Don't Know Me." For the Verve label, he cut
1996's How Long Has This Been Going On, a traditional jazz record
co-credited to longtime pianist Georgie Fame, while for the
follow-up Tell Me Something: The Songs of Mose Allison, he worked
with guest of honor Allison himself. Morrison continued balancing
the past and the future in the years to follow, alternating between
new studio albums (1997's The Healing Game, 1999's Back on Top) and
collections of rare and live material (1998's The Philosopher's
Stone and 2000's The Skiffle Sessions and You Win Again). It wasn't
until 2002 that an album of new material surfaced, but in May his
long-anticipated Down the Road was released. Three years later,
Morrison issued Magic Time. Pay the Devil, a country-tinged set,
appeared in 2006 on Lost Highway Records. In 2008, Morrison released
Keep It Simple, his first album of all-original material since
1999's Back on Top.
