You don’t get the mix, he’s turned seventy-six…
Get this. U2 aside, Van Morrison is currently the only Irish solo artist to be inducted into the admittedly worthless Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and, brilliantly stubborn to the last, became the first living inductee not to attend his own back-slapping ceremony.
It heartedly detracts from the fact that ‘Van the Man’ is up there with Bob Dylan, Marvin Gaye, and Stevie Wonder as one of pop’s all-time great chameleons and innovators.
George Ivan Morrison on 31 August 1945, the Belfast Cowboy’s been a garage rocker, a folkie, and something of a soul man. But in the swinging Sixties he made his name as the frontman of Ulster’s rhythm and blues rockers Them — known for rousing rock staples like Gloria and Here Comes The Night, both later covered by David Bowie.
Though as the contrary one himself grumpily insisted in his song Goldfish Bowl (2003), “Jazz, blues and funk / That’s not rock and roll / Folk with a beat / And a little bit of soul.” Mind you, Van says all sorts of things, and they’re not always true. For a start, there’s that first royally big hit, Gloria, which certainly is rock and roll.
Anyway, talking of honours and the Thin White Dame…
Embarking on a solo career in 1966, the self-styled Celtic Soul brother was awarded with a pair of top ten hits in the US with Brown Eyed Girl and Domino. After Them disbanded, Morrison’s nascent footings stalled with a stint on Bang records, where artistic frustration caused him to produce his infamous contractual obligation sessions, featuring tawdry tossed off songs like The Big Royalty Check and Ring Worm.
Van Morrison’s solo career really took off with 1968’s singular Astral Weeks, a unique statement that combined stream-of-consciousness lyrics with a fluid and spontaneous musical framework provided by a sterling set of accompanying jazz musicians. (And bonjour to the almost ten-minute epic Madame George, the title of which was purloined by a dry cleaners on what was my local high street for a couple of decades — West End Lane in London’s West Hampstead.)
Eager to shift some shapes, Van streamlined his sound for the 1970 classic Moondance, combining his backgrounds in folk and R&B into an accessible package that included the evergreen ballad Crazy Love, later recorded by Bryan Ferry. After 1971’s Tupelo Honey (its blissfully romantic title track memorably covered by Dusty Springfield), he stretched out artistically with 1972’s excellent St Dominic’s Preview and 1974’s atmospheric Veedon Fleece.
While his subsequent work is arguably less consistent than those albums, Morrison’s later career still has plenty of highlights and is certainly worth exploring. You can neatly divide Morrison’s output into songs of innocence and experience, the distinction apt enough for one who has sung William Blake’s words and also sung about Blake. Well, give me the songs of innocence, any day.
From Madame George to Summertime In England, and Listen To The Lion to A Sense Of Wonder, Morrison’s best work is his most wide-eyed. In it he unleashes his most spontaneous singing, and also that tendency to leave the words behind altogether, heading off into the music, into the mystic.
While he generally moved towards a slicker and less organic sound, Van remained an interesting if curmudgeonly figure, veering from commercially oriented efforts like 1979’s excellent Into The Music to more esoteric efforts like 1980’s Common One. His continued creativity is arguably linked to continued wrestling with his faith throughout the eighties, with solid sets such as Poetic Champions Compose.
Since the early 1990s, his career has arguably been only for die-hards, even though he enjoyed a sustained fertile period of recognition – particularly with Days Like This (1995), and, most notably, when Rod Stewart turned 1989’s pretty love song to him upstairs, Have I Told You Lately, into something of a mainstream modern standard.
In Britain, where he’s primarily known as a critically acclaimed albums artist, the only Van Morrison single to make the top twenty was an iffy duet with that roller skating closet Cliff Richard on Whenever God Shines His Light. Nevertheless, in 1994 he was surprised to receive a Brit Award for his Outstanding Contribution To Music, which was followed in 2016 with a knighthood conferred by the sausage fingered Prince of Wales for services to the entertainment industry and tourism in Northern Ireland
Van Morrison’s most distinct feature is his voice – an expressive, evocative instrument that synthesises his Irish roots with the R&B and jazz that he grew up hearing in Belfast. Even though his vocal prowess diminished after the seventies, his voice remains uniquely distinctive, and his exploration of Celtic Soul has effectively fuelled his entire career, as he veered a perpetual path between commercial pop and more uncompromising efforts.
Having become a grizzled old septuagenarian, Van Morrison is well past retirement age. He could easily hang up his microphone and spend his days shaking his fist at various grievances. Instead, as 2019’s Three Chords And The Truth proved, this charmless man remains a force to be reckoned with and just as crabbily pertinent as his old mucker, Dylan.
These days his records are dominated by the songs of experience, where he gripes about the music industry, his record label, fellow musicians, journalists, critics and even his fans with a self-destructive tendency that wouldn’t matter in the least if it didn’t result in such unhinged angry old man rants. Van’s 42nd (count ‘em!) studio set Latest Record Project: Volume 1 was unleashed in May 2021 and includes Why Are You On Facebook?, an anti social media diatribe that continues where he left off with his rambling protest songs against COVID-related lockdowns.
It’s idiosyncratic subject matter like those that have helped to establish Van Morrison as one of the most expressive musicians in modern music, inspiring several almost as legendary artists such as Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Costello.
Even if his solo career can sometimes feel as obstinate and inconsistent as the man himself, Van Morrison‘s body of work is uniquely his own, and he should be remembered as a giant of his era; Love ‘em or hate e’m, the queasy quartet of U2 are his only competition as Ireland’s most successful music export.
Long may he be a pain.
Steve Pafford
