Belfast, UK · rock · soul · folk

Van Morrison

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Sixty years of Celtic soul from 'Gloria' to 'Astral Weeks' — the growl, the horns and the mystic streak, all still intact.

Van Morrison was born George Ivan Morrison in Belfast in 1945, the son of a shipyard electrician whose large record collection, gathered during years in Detroit, gave the young Morrison an early diet of Jelly Roll Morton, Ray Charles, Lead Belly and Solomon Burke. As a teenager he worked the Irish showband circuit, playing guitar, harmonica, keyboards and saxophone.

He rose to notice in the mid-1960s as singer of the Belfast R&B band Them, co-writing "Gloria" and cutting "Here Comes the Night." His solo career opened under producer Bert Berns with the 1967 hit "Brown Eyed Girl." After Berns died, Warner Bros. bought out Morrison's contract and gave him three sessions to record Astral Weeks, an album that sold poorly at first but is now regarded as a classic.

Moondance, in 1970, established him as a major artist, its tighter horn-driven soul sound following the looser, string-and-acoustic-bass arrangements of Astral Weeks. Through the 1970s he built on that reputation with a run of acclaimed albums and live shows, and later records drew on jazz standards, blues, skiffle and Irish traditional song.

His catalogue has brought two Grammy Awards, the 1994 Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music, the 2017 Americana Music Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting, and inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He was knighted in 2016 for services to the music industry and to tourism in Northern Ireland.

Onstage he leads a full band, often with horns and organ, and plays saxophone and harmonica himself. He reworks his own songs rather than reproducing the recordings, stretching syllables and cutting verses short, and says little between numbers. Since turning 70 in 2015 he has released, on average, more than an album a year.

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