1907 Dan Pickett*
1937 Bobby Parker*
1938 „Spider“ John Koerner*
1945 Bob Welch*
1945 Van Morrison*
1947 Son Bonds+
1955 Kay Kay Greenwade*
1960 Chris Whitley*
1962 Joanna Connor*
1978 Guido Vom Flockenberg*
1991 Ben Heuer*
2000 Saunders King+
2009 Jesse Fortune+
Steve Edmonson*
Michael Juan Nunez*
Alan Munson*
1938 „Spider“ John Koerner*
1945 Bob Welch*
1945 Van Morrison*
1947 Son Bonds+
1955 Kay Kay Greenwade*
1960 Chris Whitley*
1962 Joanna Connor*
1978 Guido Vom Flockenberg*
1991 Ben Heuer*
2000 Saunders King+
2009 Jesse Fortune+
Steve Edmonson*
Michael Juan Nunez*
Alan Munson*
Happy Birthday
Bob Welch *31.08.1945
 | |
| Bob Welch (links) mit Jimmy Robinson (1973) |
Bob Welch (* 31. August 1945 in Los Angeles, Kalifornien; † 7. Juni 2012 in Nashville, Tennessee) war ein US-amerikanischer Musiker.
Welch war von 1971 bis 1974 Gitarrist der Formation Fleetwood Mac und gründete anschließend die Band Paris. Später trat er als Solist auf und hatte mit Titeln wie Sentimental Lady (1977) und Ebony Eyes (1978) Erfolg. Im Juni 2012 schied Bob Welch im Alter von 66 Jahren freiwillig aus dem Leben.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Welch
Robert Lawrence "Bob" Welch (August 31, 1945 – June 7, 2012) was an American musician. A former member of Fleetwood Mac, Welch had a successful solo career in the late 1970s. His singles included "Hot Love, Cold World," "Ebony Eyes," "Precious Love," and his signature song, "Sentimental Lady."
Early life
Welch was born in Los Angeles, California, into a show business family. Raised in Beverly Hills, his father was movie producer and screenwriter Robert L. Welch, who worked at Paramount Pictures in the 1940s and 1950s, producing films starring Paramount's top box office stars, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby (solo, not as a duo). He also worked as a TV producer, responsible for the 25th Annual Academy Awards TV special in 1953 and The Thin Man TV series in 1958–59. Bob's mother, Templeton Fox, had been a singer and actress who worked with Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre in Chicago, Illinois and appeared on TV and in movies from 1962 to 1979.
As a youngster, Welch learned clarinet, switching to guitar in his early teens. He had received his first guitar at the age of eight. The young Welch developed an interest in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock music. After graduating from high school, Welch eschewed attending Georgetown University, where he had been accepted, to move to Paris, professedly to attend the Sorbonne. Welch told People Magazine in a 1979 interview that, in Paris, "I mostly smoked hash with bearded guys five years older." He spent time "sitting in the Deux Magots café" rather than attending to his studies, and eventually returned to Southern California, where he studied French at UCLA.[1]
Dropping out of UCLA before graduation, Welch joined the Los Angeles-based interracial vocal group, The Seven Souls, as a guitarist in 1964,[2] replacing band member Ray Tusken, a guitarist who went on to become vice-president in charge of A&R for Capitol Records.[3] The Seven Souls lost a battle of the bands competition whose prize was a recording contract with Epic Records, to Sly and the Family Stone. The original line-up included lead singer Ivory Hudson, saxophonist and singer Henry Moore, drummer Ron Edge and bassist Bill Deiz, who later became a television news anchorman and reporter in Los Angeles. (Later band members Bobby Watson and Tony Maiden subsequently formed the funk group Rufus with Chaka Khan.)[4]
The Seven Souls' 1967 release "I'm No Stranger / I Still Love You" (OKeh 7289) made no impact at the time of its release, despite subsequent issue in France and Italy. However, the B-side "I Still Love You" has become a Northern Soul anthem over the past 30 years with original copies on OKeh (or French CBS / Italian Epic) changing hands for anything up to £400. "I Still Love You" was co-written by Henry Moore and Bill Deiz. The Seven Souls broke up in 1969.
Welch moved back to Paris and started a trio, Head West, which was not a success. Welch told People Magazine, in his 1979 interview, that the two years in Paris between 1969 and 1971 were spent "living on rice and beans and sleeping on the floor." During his time in Paris, Bob became friends with future CBS correspondent Ed Bradley, years later Ed came to Sunset Sound to hang out during the making of French Kiss.
Fleetwood Mac
Bob Welch struggled with a variety of marginal bands until 1971, when he was invited to join Fleetwood Mac, then an erstwhile English blues band that had lost two of its three front-line members, Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer, within a few months. Along with fellow newcomer Christine McVie, a keyboardist/singer-songwriter (formerly of the British blues band Chicken Shack, and newly married to Fleetwood Mac founding bassist John McVie), Welch helped to steer the band in a more melodic direction, particularly after lead guitarist/singer-songwriter Danny Kirwan left the band in 1972.
In the summer of 1971, the remaining members of Fleetwood Mac held auditions at their retreat in England, Kiln House, while seeking a guitarist to replace Spencer. Judy Wong, a friend of the band who served at times as their secretary (the Kirwan-written song "Jewel-Eyed Judy" was dedicated to her), recommended her high school friend Welch to the band. Welch (who has been described as Wong's high school boyfriend) was living in Paris at the time.
The band had a few meetings with Welch and decided to hire him without actually playing with him or listening to any of his recordings. Welch was given the role of rhythm guitar, backing up lead guitarist Danny Kirwan. It was felt that having an American in the band might extend Fleetwood Mac's appeal in the States. Welch eventually went to live in the band's communal home, a mansion called Benifold, which was located in Hampshire. (Using mobile equipment borrowed from The Rolling Stones, the band recorded three albums at Benifold: Bare Trees, Penguin and Mystery to Me.)[5] The band's first album to feature Welch and McVie, Future Games, was recorded, however, at Advision Studios in London (as is cited on the back of the album jacket) and Bare Trees was recorded at De Lane Lea Studios in Wembley.
In September 1971, the band released Future Games, with the title song written by Welch. This album was different from anything the band had done up to that point. In 1972, six months after the release of Future Games, the band released Bare Trees, which featured Welch's song "Sentimental Lady". The song went on to become a much bigger hit for him five years later when he re-recorded it for his solo album French Kiss.
Friction
The band did well in the studio, but their tours were more problematic. Kirwan developed an alcohol dependency and became alienated from Welch and the McVies. Welch held contradictory attitudes towards Kirwan in the 18 months they were band mates in Fleetwood Mac: On the one hand, their personal relationship was difficult as Welch felt that Kirwan was playing mind games with the band; and on the other hand, Welch had enormous respect for Kirwan's musicianship. In 1999, Welch stated: "He was a talented, gifted musician, almost equal to Pete Green in his beautiful guitar playing and faultless string bends."[6] In a later interview, Welch said: "Danny wasn't a very lighthearted person, to say the least. He probably shouldn't have been drinking as much as he did, even at his young age. He was always very intense about his work, as I was, but he didn't seem to ever be able to distance himself from it... and laugh about it. Danny was the definition of 'deadly serious'."[7]
The end for Kirwan came in August 1972, during an American tour, when he stormed off stage in a violent rage after arguing with Welch.[8] Before a concert on that year's US tour, Kirwan and Welch fought over tuning and Kirwan flew into a rage, smashing his guitar and refusing to go onstage.[9] He reportedly smashed his head bloody on a wall in back of the stage, then moved into the sound booth to watch the show, where the band struggled without him as Welch tried to cover his guitar parts. After the fiasco of a show, he criticized the band.
Fleetwood subsequently fired Kirwan, partly on the recommendation of Welch. The artistic direction of Fleetwood Mac essentially was left in the hands of Welch and Christine McVie.[10]
Challenges
Over the next three albums Fleetwood Mac released, they constantly changed line-ups around the core of Fleetwood, the McVies and Welch. Kirwan was replaced by Savoy Brown lead singer Dave Walker and Bob Weston on lead guitar. Both Walker and Weston appeared on Penguin, released in January 1973, cracking the Top 50 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart in the U.S., reaching #49. Walker's style did not mesh with Fleetwood Mac and he was dismissed and did not appear on Mac's second album of 1973, Mystery to Me, which was released six months after Penguin.
Mystery to Me contained the Welch song "Hypnotized", which got a lot of airplay on the radio in the United States. However, due to an aborted tour, Mystery to Me only reached #67 in the States, as that market was becoming increasingly important to the band, which was shipping albums in the respectable range of 250,000 units at the time.[11]
Fake Mac and the move to Los Angeles
Internal stresses caused by line-up changes, touring and the failing marriage of Christine and John McVie (exacerbated by John's alcoholism), and an affair between Weston and Fleetwood's wife, Jenny Boyd, proved debilitating to the band. Fleetwood was devastated by his wife's revelation of the affair, and Weston was sacked from the band. Fleetwood's personal problems led to the cancellation of a planned tour in the United States.
The band's manager, Clifford Davis, decided not to cancel the tour and claimed that he owned the name Fleetwood Mac. According to Welch, Davis sent letters to all the remaining Fleetwood Mac band members saying he was putting a new "star-quality, headlining act" together and offering them jobs in this new band. Welch said that he believed that Davis' gambit was ignored by them all. Without telling any of the band members, Davis then set up a tour with a new group of musicians, booking them into venues in the United States under the name "Fleetwood Mac" even though none of the new musicians had ever played with any previous incarnation of the band.[12]
Davis announced that Welch and John McVie had quit Fleetwood Mac, and put the "fake Mac" band out on to tour the United States. None of the "fake Mac" members was ever officially in the real band, but it was announced that Fleetwood and Christine McVie would be joining the band at a later date. The members of Fleetwood Mac obtained an injunction preventing the "fake Mac" from touring under their name, while Davis obtained an injunction preventing the "real Mac" from touring. The lawsuits resulting from the tour, which was aborted, put the real Fleetwood Mac out of commission for almost a year.
During this period, Welch stayed in Los Angeles and connected with entertainment attorneys. Welch believed the band was being neglected by Warner Bros., the parent of their label, Reprise Records and decided that if the band wanted to get better treatment from Warner Bros., they would have to change their base of operation to Los Angeles. The rest of the band agreed. Rock promoter Bill Graham wrote a letter to Warner Bros. to convince them that the "real" Fleetwood Mac were in fact Fleetwood, Welch and the McVies. While this did not end the legal battle, the band was able to record as Fleetwood Mac again.
Instead of getting another manager, Fleetwood Mac decided to manage themselves. After the courts ruled that the "Fleetwood Mac" name belonged to Fleetwood and John McVie, the two band members set up their own band management company, Seedy Management.[13]
Heroes Are Hard to Find
In 1974, for the first time, Fleetwood Mac had only one guitarist, Welch, who took over lead guitarist duties. The quartet of Welch, Fleetwood, and the McVies represented the ninth line-up in the band's seven-year history. Warner Bros. made a new record deal with the band, which recorded and released the album Heroes Are Hard to Find on Reprise in September 1974. The album became the band's first to crack the US Top 40 in the United States, reaching #34 on the USA Billboard 200 chart.
The Heroes Are Hard to Find tour proved to be the last for Welch. The constant touring had taken its toll on him. His marriage was failing and he felt that he had hit the end of his creative road with the band. In a 1999 online question and answer session on the Fleetwood Mac fan site The Penguin, Welch also said he felt estranged from John and Christine McVie while he felt close to Fleetwood, with whom he asserted he was running the band in 1974.[14]
Welch resigned from Fleetwood Mac in December 1974 and was replaced by Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.
Of the Fleetwood Mac albums on which Welch appeared, American album sales totaled 500,000 units shipped between 1971 and 2000 for Future Games; 1 million units of Bare Trees between 1972 and 1988; and 500,000 units of Mystery to Me between 1973 and 1976, when it was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America.
Legacy and lawsuit
The Buckingham–Nicks version of Fleetwood Mac achieved superstar status with the albums Fleetwood Mac (1975) and Rumours (1977), which shipped 5 million and 19 million units in the US alone, both reaching #1 in the US. (Rumours, which has shipped 40 million units worldwide, is one of the most successful sound recordings ever released.) Welch's French Kiss, released in 1977, was his sole platinum album, and after his gold-certified album Three Hearts (1979), his career faded.
Mick Fleetwood continued to manage Bob Welch's career into the 1980s. In 1994, Welch sued Fleetwood, John and Christine McVie, band attorney and attorney Michael Shapiro and Warner Bros. Records for breach of contract related to underpayment of royalties. In 1978, Welch and the three band members signed a contract with Warner Bros. agreeing to an equal share of all royalties from their Fleetwood Mac albums. Welch alleged that the three subsequently had struck various deals with Warner Bros. that gave them higher royalty rates. Welch alleged that Fleetwood and the McVies had failed to inform him of the new, higher royalty rate, thus depriving him of his fair share of royalties.[15] The breach of contract lawsuit was settled in 1996.[16]
Hall of Fame controversy
When Fleetwood Mac was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, original band members Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer, Danny Kirwan, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie were named to the Hall, as were Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. Welch, who anchored the band for several years and five albums, was not. "My era was the bridge era," Welch told the Cleveland newspaper the Plain Dealer in 1998, after he was snubbed by the Hall of Fame. "It was a transition. But it was an important period in the history of the band. Mick Fleetwood dedicated a whole chapter of his biography to my era of the band and credited me with 'saving Fleetwood Mac.' Now they want to write me out of the history of the group. It hurts."
Welch went on to tell the Plain Dealer, "Mick and I co-managed the group for years. I'm the one who brought the band to Los Angeles from England, which put them in the position of hooking up with Lindsey and Stevie. I saw the band through a whole period where they barely survived, literally." At the time, Welch believed that he had been blackballed by the Hall because of the breach of contract lawsuit against Fleetwood and John and Christine McVie. At the time of his snubbing by the Hall, he believed that the falling out with three band members led them to pressuring the selection committee into excluding him from the Hall.[17]
In a 2003 online question and answer session on the Fleetwood Mac fan site The Penguin, Welch revised his opinion of why he was snubbed by the Hall. He had recently attended a Fleetwood Mac show and visited the band members back stage after the show. The visit reconnected him with Mick Fleetwood, his ex-band mate and ex-manager, after being estranged for many years. (He had never been estranged from Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, who were not parties to the lawsuit.) By 2003, Welch believed that he had been snubbed by the Hall as the directors in New York, music industry insiders, did not like his style of music. However, he did believe that the lawsuit was a factor in his being blackballed, as it prevented him from getting in touch with Mick Fleetwood, whom he was not talking to at the time of the induction, who may have otherwise have used his influence to get Welch included with other members of the band. (Jerry Garcia had used his influence to get 12 members of the Grateful Dead inducted into the Hall, including some band mates whose contributions were considered marginal.) [18] As the Plain Dealer article noted, 16 members of the Parliament-Funkadelic collective were inducted into the Rock Hall—an oddly large number in the author's view, considering Welch's pivotal role in Fleetwood Mac and a board member's contention that only band members who made important creative contributions to a group's sound and impact are nominated for inclusion.[17]
Paris
In 1975, Welch and Jimmy Robinson (recording engineer) formed the short-lived hard rock power trio Paris with ex Jethro Tull bassist Glenn Cornick and ex NAZZ drummer Thom Mooney. Paris released two albums; Paris (produced by Robinson), and after Hunt Sales replaced Mooney, Big Towne 2061, produced by Bob Hughes. Sales' brother Tony subsequently replaced Cornick before the group split. The first album to this day is still selling, as it has been released 4 times; the second album not so well.
In a 1979 interview with People Magazine, Welch said that the two Paris albums were "ill-conceived." Because of the misfire of Paris, his finances had deteriorated until he had only $8,000 left.[1] Mick Fleetwood and members of Fleetwood Mac would soon help him reinvigorate his career as a solo act.
Solo
In September 1977, Welch released his first solo album, French Kiss (originally to have been called Paris 3), a mainstream pop collection featuring contributions from former band mates Mick Fleetwood and Christine McVie. This release brought Welch his greatest success, selling one million copies being certified by the RIAA on 5/1/78. It yielded three hit singles: a revamped version of "Sentimental Lady", which hit Billboard's Top 10, the rocker "Ebony Eyes" (featuring Juice Newton on backing vocals) and "Hot Love, Cold World".
Welch followed up French Kiss with 1979's Three Hearts, an album that replicated the rock/disco fusion of French Kiss. It was certified Gold by the RIAA on 2/23/1979, and spawned the top 20 hit "Precious Love", while the follow-up single "Church" also charted. He also hosted a music video program, Hollywood Heartbeat.[19]
Welch released solo albums into the early 1980s (The Other One, Man Overboard, Bob Welch, and Eye Contact) with decreasing success, during which time he also developed a short lived cocaine and heroin addiction for less than a year and a hospitalization scared him into stopping in the Spring of 1985. The day he got out of detox he met his wife to be Wendy Armistead at the Central (now the Viper Room) where they were introduced by Taryn Power (Tyrone Power's daughter) and Tony Sales (Soupy Sales' son). Wendy had been employed for 7 years by Michael Viner a producer/manager and his wife, actress Deborah Raffin, out of their home office. Welch and Armistead were married in December 1985, and remained together as husband and wife and business partners until his death. Wendy moved Bob to Phoenix Arizona to keep him away from all the drug dealers in LA in 1986 and he never did drugs again, not even marijuana.[20] After cleaning himself up in 1986, Welch turned away from performing and recording and focused his attention on songwriting for others. In Phoenix, Bob and Wendy put together a short-lived group called Avenue M, who went on tour and recorded one song for a greatest hits compilation. He later moved to Nashville, Tennessee.
In 1999, Welch released an experimental jazz/loop based album, Bob Welch Looks at Bop. He followed this up in 2003, with His Fleetwood Mac Years and Beyond, which contained new recordings of songs he originally recorded with Fleetwood Mac, as well as some solo hits. In 2006, he released His Fleetwood Mac Years and Beyond 2, which mixed a half-dozen new compositions, along with a similar number of his Mac/solo remakes. He released more CDs with Fuel Records in 2008, 2010, and 2011.
Welch appeared as an avatar named BobWelch Magic in 2008 performing solo acoustic favorites and hits live for 30 minutes, in a show with Von Johin (musician/publisher Mike Lawson) and Cypress Rosewood (musician Tony Gerber) in the virtual world of Second Life streaming live over the internet into the Gibson Island virtual stage from Lawson's studio.[21]
He had been married since 1985 to Wendy Armistead Welch[22] of Memphis, Tennessee. The couple resided in Nashville.
Death
On June 7, 2012, at the age of 66, Welch ended his own life in his Nashville home at around 12:15 p.m. He was found by his wife, Wendy, with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest; a nine-page suicide note and love letter had been written to his wife. According to her, Welch had had spinal surgery three months earlier, but doctors told him he would not get better. He was in serious pain and he did not want his wife to have to care for an invalid. Also, she believes that the pain medication pregabalin (Lyrica), which he had been on for six weeks, may have contributed to his death.
Early life
Welch was born in Los Angeles, California, into a show business family. Raised in Beverly Hills, his father was movie producer and screenwriter Robert L. Welch, who worked at Paramount Pictures in the 1940s and 1950s, producing films starring Paramount's top box office stars, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby (solo, not as a duo). He also worked as a TV producer, responsible for the 25th Annual Academy Awards TV special in 1953 and The Thin Man TV series in 1958–59. Bob's mother, Templeton Fox, had been a singer and actress who worked with Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre in Chicago, Illinois and appeared on TV and in movies from 1962 to 1979.
As a youngster, Welch learned clarinet, switching to guitar in his early teens. He had received his first guitar at the age of eight. The young Welch developed an interest in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock music. After graduating from high school, Welch eschewed attending Georgetown University, where he had been accepted, to move to Paris, professedly to attend the Sorbonne. Welch told People Magazine in a 1979 interview that, in Paris, "I mostly smoked hash with bearded guys five years older." He spent time "sitting in the Deux Magots café" rather than attending to his studies, and eventually returned to Southern California, where he studied French at UCLA.[1]
Dropping out of UCLA before graduation, Welch joined the Los Angeles-based interracial vocal group, The Seven Souls, as a guitarist in 1964,[2] replacing band member Ray Tusken, a guitarist who went on to become vice-president in charge of A&R for Capitol Records.[3] The Seven Souls lost a battle of the bands competition whose prize was a recording contract with Epic Records, to Sly and the Family Stone. The original line-up included lead singer Ivory Hudson, saxophonist and singer Henry Moore, drummer Ron Edge and bassist Bill Deiz, who later became a television news anchorman and reporter in Los Angeles. (Later band members Bobby Watson and Tony Maiden subsequently formed the funk group Rufus with Chaka Khan.)[4]
The Seven Souls' 1967 release "I'm No Stranger / I Still Love You" (OKeh 7289) made no impact at the time of its release, despite subsequent issue in France and Italy. However, the B-side "I Still Love You" has become a Northern Soul anthem over the past 30 years with original copies on OKeh (or French CBS / Italian Epic) changing hands for anything up to £400. "I Still Love You" was co-written by Henry Moore and Bill Deiz. The Seven Souls broke up in 1969.
Welch moved back to Paris and started a trio, Head West, which was not a success. Welch told People Magazine, in his 1979 interview, that the two years in Paris between 1969 and 1971 were spent "living on rice and beans and sleeping on the floor." During his time in Paris, Bob became friends with future CBS correspondent Ed Bradley, years later Ed came to Sunset Sound to hang out during the making of French Kiss.
Fleetwood Mac
Bob Welch struggled with a variety of marginal bands until 1971, when he was invited to join Fleetwood Mac, then an erstwhile English blues band that had lost two of its three front-line members, Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer, within a few months. Along with fellow newcomer Christine McVie, a keyboardist/singer-songwriter (formerly of the British blues band Chicken Shack, and newly married to Fleetwood Mac founding bassist John McVie), Welch helped to steer the band in a more melodic direction, particularly after lead guitarist/singer-songwriter Danny Kirwan left the band in 1972.
In the summer of 1971, the remaining members of Fleetwood Mac held auditions at their retreat in England, Kiln House, while seeking a guitarist to replace Spencer. Judy Wong, a friend of the band who served at times as their secretary (the Kirwan-written song "Jewel-Eyed Judy" was dedicated to her), recommended her high school friend Welch to the band. Welch (who has been described as Wong's high school boyfriend) was living in Paris at the time.
The band had a few meetings with Welch and decided to hire him without actually playing with him or listening to any of his recordings. Welch was given the role of rhythm guitar, backing up lead guitarist Danny Kirwan. It was felt that having an American in the band might extend Fleetwood Mac's appeal in the States. Welch eventually went to live in the band's communal home, a mansion called Benifold, which was located in Hampshire. (Using mobile equipment borrowed from The Rolling Stones, the band recorded three albums at Benifold: Bare Trees, Penguin and Mystery to Me.)[5] The band's first album to feature Welch and McVie, Future Games, was recorded, however, at Advision Studios in London (as is cited on the back of the album jacket) and Bare Trees was recorded at De Lane Lea Studios in Wembley.
In September 1971, the band released Future Games, with the title song written by Welch. This album was different from anything the band had done up to that point. In 1972, six months after the release of Future Games, the band released Bare Trees, which featured Welch's song "Sentimental Lady". The song went on to become a much bigger hit for him five years later when he re-recorded it for his solo album French Kiss.
Friction
The band did well in the studio, but their tours were more problematic. Kirwan developed an alcohol dependency and became alienated from Welch and the McVies. Welch held contradictory attitudes towards Kirwan in the 18 months they were band mates in Fleetwood Mac: On the one hand, their personal relationship was difficult as Welch felt that Kirwan was playing mind games with the band; and on the other hand, Welch had enormous respect for Kirwan's musicianship. In 1999, Welch stated: "He was a talented, gifted musician, almost equal to Pete Green in his beautiful guitar playing and faultless string bends."[6] In a later interview, Welch said: "Danny wasn't a very lighthearted person, to say the least. He probably shouldn't have been drinking as much as he did, even at his young age. He was always very intense about his work, as I was, but he didn't seem to ever be able to distance himself from it... and laugh about it. Danny was the definition of 'deadly serious'."[7]
The end for Kirwan came in August 1972, during an American tour, when he stormed off stage in a violent rage after arguing with Welch.[8] Before a concert on that year's US tour, Kirwan and Welch fought over tuning and Kirwan flew into a rage, smashing his guitar and refusing to go onstage.[9] He reportedly smashed his head bloody on a wall in back of the stage, then moved into the sound booth to watch the show, where the band struggled without him as Welch tried to cover his guitar parts. After the fiasco of a show, he criticized the band.
Fleetwood subsequently fired Kirwan, partly on the recommendation of Welch. The artistic direction of Fleetwood Mac essentially was left in the hands of Welch and Christine McVie.[10]
Challenges
Over the next three albums Fleetwood Mac released, they constantly changed line-ups around the core of Fleetwood, the McVies and Welch. Kirwan was replaced by Savoy Brown lead singer Dave Walker and Bob Weston on lead guitar. Both Walker and Weston appeared on Penguin, released in January 1973, cracking the Top 50 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart in the U.S., reaching #49. Walker's style did not mesh with Fleetwood Mac and he was dismissed and did not appear on Mac's second album of 1973, Mystery to Me, which was released six months after Penguin.
Mystery to Me contained the Welch song "Hypnotized", which got a lot of airplay on the radio in the United States. However, due to an aborted tour, Mystery to Me only reached #67 in the States, as that market was becoming increasingly important to the band, which was shipping albums in the respectable range of 250,000 units at the time.[11]
Fake Mac and the move to Los Angeles
Internal stresses caused by line-up changes, touring and the failing marriage of Christine and John McVie (exacerbated by John's alcoholism), and an affair between Weston and Fleetwood's wife, Jenny Boyd, proved debilitating to the band. Fleetwood was devastated by his wife's revelation of the affair, and Weston was sacked from the band. Fleetwood's personal problems led to the cancellation of a planned tour in the United States.
The band's manager, Clifford Davis, decided not to cancel the tour and claimed that he owned the name Fleetwood Mac. According to Welch, Davis sent letters to all the remaining Fleetwood Mac band members saying he was putting a new "star-quality, headlining act" together and offering them jobs in this new band. Welch said that he believed that Davis' gambit was ignored by them all. Without telling any of the band members, Davis then set up a tour with a new group of musicians, booking them into venues in the United States under the name "Fleetwood Mac" even though none of the new musicians had ever played with any previous incarnation of the band.[12]
Davis announced that Welch and John McVie had quit Fleetwood Mac, and put the "fake Mac" band out on to tour the United States. None of the "fake Mac" members was ever officially in the real band, but it was announced that Fleetwood and Christine McVie would be joining the band at a later date. The members of Fleetwood Mac obtained an injunction preventing the "fake Mac" from touring under their name, while Davis obtained an injunction preventing the "real Mac" from touring. The lawsuits resulting from the tour, which was aborted, put the real Fleetwood Mac out of commission for almost a year.
During this period, Welch stayed in Los Angeles and connected with entertainment attorneys. Welch believed the band was being neglected by Warner Bros., the parent of their label, Reprise Records and decided that if the band wanted to get better treatment from Warner Bros., they would have to change their base of operation to Los Angeles. The rest of the band agreed. Rock promoter Bill Graham wrote a letter to Warner Bros. to convince them that the "real" Fleetwood Mac were in fact Fleetwood, Welch and the McVies. While this did not end the legal battle, the band was able to record as Fleetwood Mac again.
Instead of getting another manager, Fleetwood Mac decided to manage themselves. After the courts ruled that the "Fleetwood Mac" name belonged to Fleetwood and John McVie, the two band members set up their own band management company, Seedy Management.[13]
Heroes Are Hard to Find
In 1974, for the first time, Fleetwood Mac had only one guitarist, Welch, who took over lead guitarist duties. The quartet of Welch, Fleetwood, and the McVies represented the ninth line-up in the band's seven-year history. Warner Bros. made a new record deal with the band, which recorded and released the album Heroes Are Hard to Find on Reprise in September 1974. The album became the band's first to crack the US Top 40 in the United States, reaching #34 on the USA Billboard 200 chart.
The Heroes Are Hard to Find tour proved to be the last for Welch. The constant touring had taken its toll on him. His marriage was failing and he felt that he had hit the end of his creative road with the band. In a 1999 online question and answer session on the Fleetwood Mac fan site The Penguin, Welch also said he felt estranged from John and Christine McVie while he felt close to Fleetwood, with whom he asserted he was running the band in 1974.[14]
Welch resigned from Fleetwood Mac in December 1974 and was replaced by Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.
Of the Fleetwood Mac albums on which Welch appeared, American album sales totaled 500,000 units shipped between 1971 and 2000 for Future Games; 1 million units of Bare Trees between 1972 and 1988; and 500,000 units of Mystery to Me between 1973 and 1976, when it was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America.
Legacy and lawsuit
The Buckingham–Nicks version of Fleetwood Mac achieved superstar status with the albums Fleetwood Mac (1975) and Rumours (1977), which shipped 5 million and 19 million units in the US alone, both reaching #1 in the US. (Rumours, which has shipped 40 million units worldwide, is one of the most successful sound recordings ever released.) Welch's French Kiss, released in 1977, was his sole platinum album, and after his gold-certified album Three Hearts (1979), his career faded.
Mick Fleetwood continued to manage Bob Welch's career into the 1980s. In 1994, Welch sued Fleetwood, John and Christine McVie, band attorney and attorney Michael Shapiro and Warner Bros. Records for breach of contract related to underpayment of royalties. In 1978, Welch and the three band members signed a contract with Warner Bros. agreeing to an equal share of all royalties from their Fleetwood Mac albums. Welch alleged that the three subsequently had struck various deals with Warner Bros. that gave them higher royalty rates. Welch alleged that Fleetwood and the McVies had failed to inform him of the new, higher royalty rate, thus depriving him of his fair share of royalties.[15] The breach of contract lawsuit was settled in 1996.[16]
Hall of Fame controversy
When Fleetwood Mac was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, original band members Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer, Danny Kirwan, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie were named to the Hall, as were Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. Welch, who anchored the band for several years and five albums, was not. "My era was the bridge era," Welch told the Cleveland newspaper the Plain Dealer in 1998, after he was snubbed by the Hall of Fame. "It was a transition. But it was an important period in the history of the band. Mick Fleetwood dedicated a whole chapter of his biography to my era of the band and credited me with 'saving Fleetwood Mac.' Now they want to write me out of the history of the group. It hurts."
Welch went on to tell the Plain Dealer, "Mick and I co-managed the group for years. I'm the one who brought the band to Los Angeles from England, which put them in the position of hooking up with Lindsey and Stevie. I saw the band through a whole period where they barely survived, literally." At the time, Welch believed that he had been blackballed by the Hall because of the breach of contract lawsuit against Fleetwood and John and Christine McVie. At the time of his snubbing by the Hall, he believed that the falling out with three band members led them to pressuring the selection committee into excluding him from the Hall.[17]
In a 2003 online question and answer session on the Fleetwood Mac fan site The Penguin, Welch revised his opinion of why he was snubbed by the Hall. He had recently attended a Fleetwood Mac show and visited the band members back stage after the show. The visit reconnected him with Mick Fleetwood, his ex-band mate and ex-manager, after being estranged for many years. (He had never been estranged from Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, who were not parties to the lawsuit.) By 2003, Welch believed that he had been snubbed by the Hall as the directors in New York, music industry insiders, did not like his style of music. However, he did believe that the lawsuit was a factor in his being blackballed, as it prevented him from getting in touch with Mick Fleetwood, whom he was not talking to at the time of the induction, who may have otherwise have used his influence to get Welch included with other members of the band. (Jerry Garcia had used his influence to get 12 members of the Grateful Dead inducted into the Hall, including some band mates whose contributions were considered marginal.) [18] As the Plain Dealer article noted, 16 members of the Parliament-Funkadelic collective were inducted into the Rock Hall—an oddly large number in the author's view, considering Welch's pivotal role in Fleetwood Mac and a board member's contention that only band members who made important creative contributions to a group's sound and impact are nominated for inclusion.[17]
Paris
In 1975, Welch and Jimmy Robinson (recording engineer) formed the short-lived hard rock power trio Paris with ex Jethro Tull bassist Glenn Cornick and ex NAZZ drummer Thom Mooney. Paris released two albums; Paris (produced by Robinson), and after Hunt Sales replaced Mooney, Big Towne 2061, produced by Bob Hughes. Sales' brother Tony subsequently replaced Cornick before the group split. The first album to this day is still selling, as it has been released 4 times; the second album not so well.
In a 1979 interview with People Magazine, Welch said that the two Paris albums were "ill-conceived." Because of the misfire of Paris, his finances had deteriorated until he had only $8,000 left.[1] Mick Fleetwood and members of Fleetwood Mac would soon help him reinvigorate his career as a solo act.
Solo
In September 1977, Welch released his first solo album, French Kiss (originally to have been called Paris 3), a mainstream pop collection featuring contributions from former band mates Mick Fleetwood and Christine McVie. This release brought Welch his greatest success, selling one million copies being certified by the RIAA on 5/1/78. It yielded three hit singles: a revamped version of "Sentimental Lady", which hit Billboard's Top 10, the rocker "Ebony Eyes" (featuring Juice Newton on backing vocals) and "Hot Love, Cold World".
Welch followed up French Kiss with 1979's Three Hearts, an album that replicated the rock/disco fusion of French Kiss. It was certified Gold by the RIAA on 2/23/1979, and spawned the top 20 hit "Precious Love", while the follow-up single "Church" also charted. He also hosted a music video program, Hollywood Heartbeat.[19]
Welch released solo albums into the early 1980s (The Other One, Man Overboard, Bob Welch, and Eye Contact) with decreasing success, during which time he also developed a short lived cocaine and heroin addiction for less than a year and a hospitalization scared him into stopping in the Spring of 1985. The day he got out of detox he met his wife to be Wendy Armistead at the Central (now the Viper Room) where they were introduced by Taryn Power (Tyrone Power's daughter) and Tony Sales (Soupy Sales' son). Wendy had been employed for 7 years by Michael Viner a producer/manager and his wife, actress Deborah Raffin, out of their home office. Welch and Armistead were married in December 1985, and remained together as husband and wife and business partners until his death. Wendy moved Bob to Phoenix Arizona to keep him away from all the drug dealers in LA in 1986 and he never did drugs again, not even marijuana.[20] After cleaning himself up in 1986, Welch turned away from performing and recording and focused his attention on songwriting for others. In Phoenix, Bob and Wendy put together a short-lived group called Avenue M, who went on tour and recorded one song for a greatest hits compilation. He later moved to Nashville, Tennessee.
In 1999, Welch released an experimental jazz/loop based album, Bob Welch Looks at Bop. He followed this up in 2003, with His Fleetwood Mac Years and Beyond, which contained new recordings of songs he originally recorded with Fleetwood Mac, as well as some solo hits. In 2006, he released His Fleetwood Mac Years and Beyond 2, which mixed a half-dozen new compositions, along with a similar number of his Mac/solo remakes. He released more CDs with Fuel Records in 2008, 2010, and 2011.
Welch appeared as an avatar named BobWelch Magic in 2008 performing solo acoustic favorites and hits live for 30 minutes, in a show with Von Johin (musician/publisher Mike Lawson) and Cypress Rosewood (musician Tony Gerber) in the virtual world of Second Life streaming live over the internet into the Gibson Island virtual stage from Lawson's studio.[21]
He had been married since 1985 to Wendy Armistead Welch[22] of Memphis, Tennessee. The couple resided in Nashville.
Death
On June 7, 2012, at the age of 66, Welch ended his own life in his Nashville home at around 12:15 p.m. He was found by his wife, Wendy, with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest; a nine-page suicide note and love letter had been written to his wife. According to her, Welch had had spinal surgery three months earlier, but doctors told him he would not get better. He was in serious pain and he did not want his wife to have to care for an invalid. Also, she believes that the pain medication pregabalin (Lyrica), which he had been on for six weeks, may have contributed to his death.
Dan Pickett *31.08.1907
Only
known photo of Dan Pickett
from left: Alex Griffen, Mary Griffen, Betty Jean Griffen, Dan Pickett, and Nancy Griffen
(ca. 1950), Albertville, Alabama. Collection of Axel Küstner, courtesy of Betty Jean Griffen
source: Oxford American Music Issue 71 (12th Annual Southern Music Issue: Music of Alabama) (2011), p. 67
from left: Alex Griffen, Mary Griffen, Betty Jean Griffen, Dan Pickett, and Nancy Griffen
(ca. 1950), Albertville, Alabama. Collection of Axel Küstner, courtesy of Betty Jean Griffen
source: Oxford American Music Issue 71 (12th Annual Southern Music Issue: Music of Alabama) (2011), p. 67
Er nahm im Jahre 1949 insgesamt 20 Songs für das Plattenlabel Gotham in Philadelphia auf, von denen zehn im gleichen Jahr auf insgesamt fünf 78 rpm Schellackplatten von diesem Label herausgebracht wurden. Während des Blues-Revival der 1960er Jahre wurden zunächst einzelne seiner Songs auf Langspielplatten-Samplern wiederveröffentlicht, im Jahr 1987 erschien dann die erste LP nur mit Dan Pickett Titeln (Krazy Kat KK 811), die 1990 auch als CD herausgegeben wurde (Collectables VCL 5311). 2006 sind die 18 bislang aufgefundenen seiner Aufnahmen (2 sind bis heute nicht gefunden worden) vollständig auf einer CD Box des Labels JSP (7753) wiederveröffentlicht worden.
Über sein Leben ist wenig mehr als seine Geburts- und Sterbedaten bekannt, sein musikalis der Ostküste der USA ("Piedmont Blues"), wie folgt beschrieben worden:ches Vermächtnis jedoch ist von Bruce Bastin, dem Experten für die Bluesstile und -interpreten
"... Dan Pickett, a superlative performer in the style of the Southeast and high on my list of most exciting bluesmen ever."
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Pickett
Reissuers have unearthed little information about Dan Pickett: He may have come from Alabama, he played a nice slide guitar in a Southeastern blues style, and he did one recording session for the Philadelphia-based Gotham label in 1949. That session produced five singles, all of which have now been compiled along with four previously unreleased sides on a reissue album that purports to contain Pickett's entire recorded output -- unless, of course, as some reviewers have speculated, Dan Pickett happens also to be Charlie Pickett, the Tennessee guitarist who recorded for Decca in 1937. As Tony Russell observed in Juke Blues, both Picketts recorded blues about lemon-squeezing, and Dan uses the name Charlie twice in the lyrics to "Decoration Day." 'Tis from such mystery and speculation that the minds of blues collectors do dissolve.
Joanna Connor *31.08.1962
Joanna Connor (* 31. August 1962 in Brooklyn, New York) ist eine US-amerikanische Bluesmusikerin (Gesang, Gitarre).
Connor ist seit den frühen 80er Jahren eine Vertreterin des Chicago Blues. Sie spielte mit vielen bekannten Bluesmusikern zusammen, u. a. mit James Cotton, Junior Wells oder Luther Allison. 1987 gründete sie ihre eigene Band, mit der sie 1989 ihre erste eigene Schallplatte aufnahm.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joanna_Connor
Joanna Connor - Walkin' (Blues)_@VJValmir.mp4
Joanna Connor (born August 31, 1962)[1] is an American Chicago-based blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist.
Connor was born in Brooklyn, New York, United States, and raised in Worcester, Massachusetts.[1] After moving to Chicago, Illinois in 1984, she was drawn to the Chicago blues scene, eventually sharing the stage with James Cotton, Junior Wells, Buddy Guy, and A.C. Reed. By 1987, she had started her own band, and recorded her first album for Blind Pig Records in 1989.[1]
In 2002, Connor left Blind Pig and signed a recording contract with the small independent record label, M.C. Records.
Connor was born in Brooklyn, New York, United States, and raised in Worcester, Massachusetts.[1] After moving to Chicago, Illinois in 1984, she was drawn to the Chicago blues scene, eventually sharing the stage with James Cotton, Junior Wells, Buddy Guy, and A.C. Reed. By 1987, she had started her own band, and recorded her first album for Blind Pig Records in 1989.[1]
In 2002, Connor left Blind Pig and signed a recording contract with the small independent record label, M.C. Records.
Steve Edmonson *31.08.
Steve Edmonson is a dynamite guitarist with great tone and emotion, in the vein of Jimmie Vaughan, Duke Robillard, or Ronnie Earl. The son of folk musician Travis Edmonson (of Bud and Travis fame), Steve rode alongside his father as he toured and performed with folk and blues music legends like Josh White, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, and Lightnin' Hopkins. The younger Edmonson has earned his stellar reputation as a musician, performing behind folks like James Cotton, Maria Muldaur, Buddy Miles, and Van Morrison.
Van Morrison *31.08.1945
Van Morrison (* 31. August 1945 in Belfast; eigentlich George Ivan Morrison) ist ein nordirischer Musiker, Sänger und Komponist.
Van wollte schon als Kind Musiker werden. Sein Vater sammelte alte Jazz- und Bluesplatten, die ihn offenbar früh beeinflussten. Im Alter von sechs Jahren ging er mit seinem Vater in Plattenläden und hörte die Musik von Mahalia Jackson, Fats Domino, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Ray Charles und vielen anderen. Außerdem besuchte er mit seiner Mutter häufig Gottesdienste, in denen Gospelmusik gespielt wurde. Mit zwölf Jahren gehörte er bereits der Band Deannie Sands And The Javelins an. Zu Beginn der 1960er Jahre spielte er in der Band The Monarchs Saxophon und Mundharmonika und absolvierte bereits als Teenager Tourneen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und Schottland.
Die 1960er-Jahre
1964 wurde Van Morrison Frontmann der Rockband Them, die eine Reihe von Hits hatte, unter anderem Gloria, Here Comes the Night und It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue, die Coverversion einer Bob-Dylan-Komposition. Nachdem er bei Them ausgeschieden war, bot ihm der Musikproduzent Bert Berns aus New York einen Vertrag für eine Solokarriere an. Mit Studiomusikern nahm Morrison 1967 ein Album auf, das mit Brown Eyed Girl einen Hit enthielt. Als Berns plötzlich an einem Herzinfarkt starb, sah sich Morrison gezwungen, die Plattenfirma zu wechseln. Später erhob er schwere Vorwürfe gegen Berns und klagte noch 25 Jahre später über die „Haie“ im Musikgeschäft. Bis zu dem 2005 erschienenen Album Magic Time kochte dieses Thema in vielen seiner Songs immer wieder hoch. Innerhalb von nur drei Tagen nahm Morrison 1968 mit Jazzmusikern das stilistisch ungewöhnliche Album Astral Weeks auf. Es entstand eine bis dahin kaum gehörte Fusion von Folk, Blues und Jazz. Das Album verkaufte sich eher mäßig, gilt aber noch heute als eines seiner wichtigsten. Das darauf folgende Album Moondance enthält mit dem Titelsong einen von Van Morrisons Klassikern. Über drei Jahrzehnte hinweg hat er diesen Song in zahlreichen Konzerten gespielt und immer wieder neu arrangiert.
1967 heiratete er die Schauspielerin und Ex-Model Janet Planet (bekannt als Janet Rigsbee, heute Janet Morrison Minto), mit der zusammen er die 1970 geborene Tochter Shana hat, die später ebenfalls Sängerin/Songwriterin wurde. 1973 wurde die Ehe geschieden.
Die 1970er-Jahre
Van Morrison konnte mit Domino vom Album His Band and the Street Choir mittlere Hitparadenplätze verbuchen. Inzwischen hatte er sich mit seiner Familie in Woodstock, New York, angesiedelt, angeblich um Bob Dylan nahe zu sein, der jedoch Distanz hielt zu Morrison. Die ländliche Atmosphäre schlug sich im Country-orientierten Album Tupelo Honey nieder. Auf Hard Nose the Highway setzte Morrison erstmals eine Rockgruppe mit Streicherbegleitung ein, das Caledonia Soul Orchestra, das 1973 eine erfolgreiche Tournee durch die USA und Europa absolvierte. Ein Konzert aus dem Londoner Rainbow Theatre wurde zum ersten Mal in der Rockgeschichte simultan in Fernsehen und Radio übertragen; Teile davon finden sich auf dem Konzertalbum It's Too Late to Stop Now. Dabei wurden nur minimale Eingriffe vorgenommen - und nicht im Studio nachgebessert oder verändert, wie es bei vielen anderen Künstlern üblich ist. Nach längerem Aufenthalt in den USA kehrte Van Morrison nach Irland zurück, was sich auf der Platte Veedon Fleece bemerkbar machte. Auf ihr dominiert eine keltisch-irische Stimmung.
Van Morrison fühlte sich ausgebrannt und machte drei Jahre lang Pause, unterbrochen nur von wenigen Auftritten. So beteiligte er sich 1976 am Abschiedskonzert von The Band im Winterland Ballroom San Francisco mit einem Auftritt, der im Konzertfilm The Last Waltz festgehalten wurde. Dort kam er in Kontakt mit Dr. John alias Mac Rebennack und nahm mit ihm die Platte A Period of Transition auf, die jedoch auf wenig Resonanz stieß. Auch das nächste Werk, Wavelength, wurde von der Kritik sehr ambivalent beurteilt. Der Titel Kingdom Hall auf diesem Album verweist auf die Zugehörigkeit seiner Mutter zu den Zeugen Jehovas, deren Versammlungssäle „Königreichssaal“ genannt werden. Zum Ende des Jahrzehnts erschien Into the Music, wieder geprägt von einer irischen Grundstimmung. Die beiden Songs Bright Side of the Road und Full Force Gale eröffneten mit ihren religiösen Texten die Phase des christlichen Spiritualismus, der Morrison über ein Jahrzehnt lang beschäftigen sollte.
Die 1980er-Jahre
Den großen Erfolg von Into the Music konnte Morrison mit dem experimentelleren Album Common One nicht wiederholen. Ursprünglich waren die beiden Alben als Doppelalbum geplant gewesen.
Mit Beautiful Vision knüpfte Morrison wieder eher an seine frühen Werke an und wurde von der Kritik allgemein gelobt. Die Songs Vanlose Stairway, Northern Muse (Solid Ground) und Cleaning Windows daraus gehörten in den folgenden Jahrzehnten zu den meistgespielten Stücken in seinen Konzerten. Ein Auftritt in der Grugahalle in Essen am 4. April 1982 – Rockpalast Nacht, von der ARD europaweit im Fernsehen übertragen – steigerte Van Morrisons Bekanntheitsgrad in Europa.
Die Stimmung von Beautiful Vision nahm Morrison auf der Platte Inarticulate Speech of the Heart wieder auf. Sie war dem Begründer der Scientology-Sekte, L. Ron Hubbard, gewidmet. Verhaltener präsentierte sich A Sense of Wonder. Dieses Album war wieder mehr irisch-keltisch orientiert. So enthält es zwei Stücke, die von der Folkrockband Moving Hearts gespielt werden. Daneben enthält die Platte mit Let the Slave einen Song, in dem Van Morrison das Gedicht The Price of Experience von William Blake rezitierte. Darauf folgte das Album No Guru, No Method, No Teacher. Nach dessen Erscheinen trat Morrison mit Big Bands auf, so mit der Denmark Radio Big Band, der BBC Big Band und schließlich auf dem Montreux Jazz Festival 1989 mit dem Dallas Jazz Orchestra. Einige dieser Konzerte fanden ein sehr positives Echo, während bei anderen die eher statischen Arrangements bemängelt wurden.
Nach der Platte Poetic Champions Compose folgte 1988 eine erfolgreiche Kooperation mit der irischen Folkband The Chieftains, mit denen Van Morrison eine Fernsehshow aufgezeichnet hatte. Zusammen beschlossen sie, ein Album mit irischen Traditionals aufzunehmen (Irish Heartbeat, auf der zwei Morrison-Kompositionen in einem traditionellen Arrangement zu hören sind) und auf Tournee zu gehen. Gegen Ende einer Konzertreise durch Europa kam es jedoch zu derart starken Spannungen zwischen den Musikern, dass das Projekt aufgegeben wurde. Sie blieben jedoch in Kontakt, wie weitere vereinzelte Aufnahmen mit den Chieftains belegen.
1989 legte Van Morrison mit Avalon Sunset ein Album vor, auf dem christlich inspirierte Songs in meditativ-ruhiger Stimmung, teilweise mit Orchesterarrangements von Fiachra Trench, enthalten sind. Das Duett Whenever God Shines His Light On Me mit Cliff Richard konnte sich in Großbritannien in den Charts platzieren.
Die 1990er-Jahre
Einer seiner Auftritte wurde im Juli 1990 beim Montreux Jazz Festival vom Schweizer Radio DRS ausgestrahlt. Morrison bot einen Querschnitt seiner künstlerischen Entwicklung seit den 1960er Jahren und arrangierte seine Songs neu. Zur gleichen Zeit nahm er zusammen mit vielen Musikerkollegen an einem musikalischen Großereignis teil, das Roger Waters, der ehemalige musikalische Kopf von Pink Floyd, auf dem Potsdamer Platz in Berlin organisierte: eine Aufführung von The Wall in Anspielung auf den Fall der Berliner Mauer.
Es folgten von der Kritik unterschiedlich bewertete Arbeiten. Auf dem Album Too Long in Exile (1993) wandte er sich dem Blues zu und spielte eine seiner bekanntesten Kompositionen, Gloria aus den 1960er-Jahren, zusammen mit seinem Idol John Lee Hooker neu ein.
Van Morrison engagierte den jungen Sänger Brian Kennedy für Plattenaufnahmen und Tourneen und ließ ihn seine Songs auf der Bühne singen - angeblich weil sich Morrison zu der Zeit ausgelaugt fühlte. Das in Großbritannien erfolgreiche Album Days Like This, dessen Titelsong zur Hymne der irischen Friedensbewegung erklärt wurde, war von einer überaus düsteren Stimmung getragen, die ganz im Gegensatz zu der viel beachteten Liaison mit dem Model Michelle Rocca stand. Seine Konzerte verstand Morrison in dieser Zeit als „Jazz and Soul Revue“; er führte mit großer Besetzung teils sehr lange Songs und Medleys auf. Die Konzerte konnten bis zu zweieinhalb Stunden dauern.
Van Morrison besann sich stärker auf seine Wurzeln. How Long Has This Been Going On enthielt Jazz-Standards, Tell Me Something war den Werken des Jazzkomponisten Mose Allison gewidmet, auf der Liveplatte The Skiffle Sessions musizierte Van Morrison mit Lonnie Donegan und bot mit Skiffle die Musik dar, die viele britische Musiker der 1960er-Jahre beeinflusst hatte. Schließlich nahm Morrison eine Duett-Platte mit der Countrysängerin Linda Gail Lewis, der Schwester von Jerry Lee Lewis, auf: You Win Again mit Standards der Country-Musik. Im Zuge der gemeinsamen Arbeit und Auftritte behauptete die Sängerin, dass Van Morrison sie gedrängt habe, sich von ihrem (achten) Ehemann scheiden zu lassen. Außerdem habe er sie sexuell bedrängt. Fünf der dreizehn Anklagepunkte wurden schließlich vor Gericht untersucht und Morrison nach zwei Jahren freigesprochen. Für ihn galt die Angelegenheit nach einer umfassenden Entschuldigung Linda Gails als erledigt.
In den 1990er-Jahren erhielt Van Morrison viele Ehrungen. Unter anderem wurde er 1993 in die Rock and Roll Hall of Fame aufgenommen – zu dem Anlass erschien er nicht.[1]
Die Jahre seit 2000
Nicht nur die von der Country-Musik beeinflusste Platte You Win Again löste bei Fans und Kritikern Kontroversen aus, sondern auch die beiden folgenden Alben Down The Road und What's Wrong With This Picture. Bei der veröffentlichten Version von Down the Road handelte es sich um ein Kompromissalbum – die stärksten der für diese Produktion von Morrison aufgenommenen Nummern kamen nach Streitereien innerhalb der Band nicht zum Zuge. Gerüchteweise hält Morrison mehrere hervorragende Stücke aus jener Aufnahmesession bis heute zurück. Live spielt er inzwischen meist ein auf rund 90 Minuten begrenztes Set, in dem die Stückauswahl sehr variiert. Zwischen seinen Konzerten legt er größere Pausen ein. Letzteres kommt seinem Wunsch entgegen, nur an Wochenenden aufzutreten. Zusammenhängende Touren finden lediglich in Nordamerika statt.
Das eher ruhige Album Magic Time konnte sich 2005 sofort in den Charts platzieren. 2006 wandte sich Van Morrison auf seinem Album Pay the Devil erneut der Country-Musik zu und trat zum ersten Mal im Ryman Auditorium in Nashville auf. Im März 2008 erschien das Album Keep it Simple. Am 7./8. November 2008 erfolgte eine Live-Einspielung des 1968er-Albums Astral Weeks in der Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. Ende 2012 erschien mit Born to Sing: No Plan B das bisher letzte Album.
Auszeichnungen
Grammy
Grammy Award
1996 Grammy Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals für Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?
mit The Chieftains
1998 Grammy Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals für Don’t Look Back mit John Lee Hooker
Grammynominierungen
1983 Nominierung Grammy Best Rock Instrumental Performance für Scandinavia
1989 Nominierung Grammy Best Traditional Folk Recording für Irish Heartbeat mit The Chieftains
1995 Nominierung Grammy Best Rock Vocal Performance - Male für In the Garden/You Send Me/Allegheny
1999 Nominierung Grammy Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals für Shenandoah mit The Chieftains
2005 Nominierung Grammy Best Contemporary Blues Album for What’s Wrong with This Picture?
Sonstige
1993 Aufnahme in die Rock´n´Roll-Hall of Fame
1994 Brit Awards Outstanding Contribution
1999 Astral Weeks, Moondance, Gloria Grammy Hall of Fame
2003 Aufnahme in die Songwriters Hall of Fame
2007 Brown Eyed Girl Grammy Hall of Fame
2008 In der Liste der Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Singers of All Time platzierte sich Van Morrison auf Platz 24.[2]
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Sir George Ivan "Van" Morrison, OBE[1] (born 31 August 1945) is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician, with many acclaimed recordings over his long career, including the albums Astral Weeks, Moondance, and Veedon Fleece, as well as his early singles, Gloria and Brown Eyed Girl. He has received six Grammy Awards, the 1994 Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music, and has been inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2015 he was knighted for his services to popular music.
Known as "Van the Man" to his fans, Morrison started his professional career when, as a teenager in the late 1950s, he played a variety of instruments including guitar, harmonica, keyboards and saxophone for various Irish showbands covering the popular hits of the day. He rose to prominence in the mid-1960s as the lead singer of the Northern Irish R&B band Them, with whom he recorded the garage band classic "Gloria". His solo career began under the pop-hit oriented guidance of Bert Berns with the release of the hit single "Brown Eyed Girl" in 1967. After Berns' death, Warner Bros. Records bought out his contract and allowed him three sessions to record Astral Weeks in 1968.[2] Even though this album would gradually garner high praise, it was initially a poor seller; however, the next one, Moondance, established Morrison as a major artist,[3] and throughout the 1970s he built on his reputation with a series of critically acclaimed albums and live performances. Morrison continues to record and tour, producing albums and live performances that sell well and are generally warmly received, sometimes collaborating with other artists, such as Georgie Fame and the Chieftains. In 2008 he performed Astral Weeks live for the first time since 1968.
Much of Morrison's music is structured around the conventions of soul music and R&B, such as the popular singles "Brown Eyed Girl", "Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When You Smile)", "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 Astral Weeks and lesser-known works such as Veedon Fleece and Common One.[4][5] The two strains together are sometimes referred to as "Celtic Soul".[6]
Life and career
Early life and musical roots: 1945–64
George Ivan (Van) Morrison was born on 31 August 1945, at 125 Hyndford Street, Bloomfield, Belfast, Northern Ireland, as the only child of George Morrison, a shipyard electrician, and Violet Stitt Morrison, a singer and tap dancer in her youth.[7] Van Morrison's family roots descend from the Ulster Scots population that settled in Belfast.[8][9][10] From 1950 to 1956, Morrison, who began to be known as "Van" during this time, attended Elmgrove Primary School.[11] Morrison's father had what was at the time one of the largest record collections in Ulster (acquired during his sojourn in Detroit, Michigan, in the early 1950s)[12] and the young Morrison grew up listening to artists such as Jelly Roll Morton, Ray Charles, Lead Belly, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, and Solomon Burke;[11][13] of whom he later 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."[14] His father's record collection exposed him to various musical genres, such as the blues of Muddy Waters; the gospel of Mahalia Jackson; the jazz of Charlie Parker; the folk music of Woody Guthrie; and country music from Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers,[11] while the first record he ever bought was by blues musician Sonny Terry.[15] When Lonnie Donegan had a hit with "Rock Island Line", written by Huddie Ledbetter (Lead Belly), Morrison felt he was familiar with and able to connect with skiffle music as he had been hearing Lead Belly before that.[16][17]
Morrison's father bought him his first acoustic guitar when he was eleven, and he learned to play rudimentary chords from the song book The Carter Family Style, edited by Alan Lomax.[18] A year later, when he was twelve years old, Morrison formed his first band,[19] a skiffle group, "The Sputniks", named after the recently launched Soviet satellite, Sputnik 1.[20] In 1958, the band played at some of the local cinemas, and Morrison took the lead, contributing most of the singing and arranging. Other short-lived groups followed – at fourteen, he formed Midnight Special, another modified skiffle band and played at a school concert.[18] Then, when he heard Jimmy Giuffre playing saxophone on "The Train and The River", he talked his father into buying him a saxophone,[21] and took lessons in tenor sax and music reading.[22] Now playing the saxophone, Morrison joined with various local bands, including one called Deanie Sands and the Javelins, with whom he played guitar and shared singing. The line-up of the band was lead vocalist Deanie Sands, guitarist George Jones and drummer, vocalist Roy Kane.[23] Later the four main musicians of the Javelins, with the addition of Wesley Black as pianist, became known as the Monarchs.[24]
Morrison attended Orangefield Boys Secondary School, leaving in July 1960 with no qualifications.[25] As a member of a working-class community, it was expected that he would get a regular full-time job,[24] so after several short apprenticeship positions, he settled into a job as a window cleaner—later alluded to in his songs "Cleaning Windows" and "Saint Dominic's Preview".[26] However, he had been developing his musical interests from an early age and continued playing with the Monarchs part-time. Young Morrison also played with the Harry Mack Showband, the Great Eight, with his older workplace friend, Geordie (G. D.) Sproule, whom he later named as one of his biggest influences.[27]
At age 17, he toured Europe for the first time with the Monarchs, now calling themselves the International Monarchs. This Irish showband,[28] with Morrison playing saxophone, guitar and harp, in addition to back-up duty on bass and drums, toured steamy clubs and US Army bases in Scotland, England, and Germany, often playing five sets a night.[23] While in Germany, the band recorded a single, "Boozoo Hully Gully"/"Twingy Baby", under the name Georgie and the Monarchs. This was Morrison's first recording, taking place in November 1963 at Ariola Studios in Cologne with Morrison on saxophone; it made the lower reaches of the German charts.[29][30]
Upon returning to Belfast in November 1963, the group disbanded,[31] so 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, later known as the Wheels, Morrison went along and was hired as a blues singer.[32][33]
Them: 1964–66
The roots of Them, the band that first broke Morrison on the international scene, came in April 1964 when he responded to an advert for musicians to play at a new R&B club at the Maritime Hotel – an old dance hall frequented by sailors.[34] The new R&B club needed a band for its opening night; however, Morrison had left the Golden Eagles (the group with which he had been performing at the time), so he created a new band out of the Gamblers, an East Belfast group formed by Ronnie Millings, Billy Harrison, and Alan Henderson in 1962.[35][36] Eric Wrixon, still a schoolboy, was the piano player and keyboardist.[37] Morrison played saxophone and harmonica and shared vocals with Billy Harrison. They followed Eric Wrixon's suggestion for a new name, and the Gamblers morphed into Them, their name taken from the Fifties horror movie Them![38]
The band's strong R&B performances at the Maritime attracted attention. Them performed without a routine and Morrison ad libbed, creating his songs live as he performed.[39] While the band did covers, they also played some of Morrison's early songs, such as "Could You Would You", which he had written in Camden Town while touring with the Manhattan Showband.[40] The debut of Morrison's "Gloria" took place on stage here. Sometimes, depending on his mood, the song could last up to twenty minutes. Morrison 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 performances on their records.[41] The statement also reflected the instability of the Them line-up, with numerous members passing through the ranks after the definitive Maritime period. Morrison and Henderson would remain the only constants, and a less successful version of Them even soldiered on after Morrison's departure.[42]
Dick Rowe of Decca Records became aware of the band's performances, and signed Them to a standard two-year contract. In that period, they released two albums and ten singles, with two more singles released after Morrison departed the band. They had three chart hits, "Baby, Please Don't Go" (1964), "Here Comes the Night" (1965), and "Mystic Eyes" (1965),[43] but it was the B-side of "Baby, Please Don't Go", the garage band classic "Gloria",[44] that went on to become a rock standard covered by Patti Smith, the Doors, Shadows of Knight, Jimi Hendrix and many others.[45]
Building on the success of their singles in the United States, and riding on the back of the British Invasion, Them undertook a two-month tour of America in May and June 1966 that included a residency from 30 May to 18 June at the Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles.[47] The Doors were the supporting act on the last week,[48] and Morrison's influence on the Doors singer, Jim Morrison, was noted by John Densmore in his book Riders On The Storm. Brian Hinton relates how "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."[49] On the final night, the two Morrisons and the two bands jammed together on "Gloria".[50][51][52]
Toward the end of the tour the band members became involved in a dispute with their manager, Decca Records' Phil Solomon, over the revenues paid to them; that, coupled with the expiry of their work visas, meant the band returned from America dejected. After two more concerts in Ireland, Them split up. Morrison concentrated on writing some of the songs that would appear on Astral Weeks, while the remnants of the band reformed in 1967 and relocated in America.[53]
Start of solo career with Bang Records and "Brown Eyed Girl": 1967
Bert Berns, Them’s producer and composer of their 1965 hit, "Here Comes the Night", persuaded Morrison to return to New York to record solo for his new label, Bang Records.[55] Morrison flew over and signed a contract he had not fully studied.[56] Then, during a two-day recording session at A & R Studios starting 28 March 1967, eight songs were recorded, originally intended to be used as four singles.[57] Instead, these songs were released as the album Blowin' Your Mind! without Morrison being consulted. He said he only became aware of the album's release 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."[58]
However, from these early sessions emerged "Brown Eyed Girl". Captured on the 22nd take on the first day,[59] this song was released as a single in mid-June 1967,[60] reaching number ten in the US charts in 1967. "Brown Eyed Girl" became Morrison's most played song and over the years it has remained a classic; forty years later in 2007, it was the fourth most requested song of DJs in the US.[61]
Following the death of Berns in 1967, Morrison became involved in a contract dispute with Berns' widow, Ilene Berns, that prevented him from performing on stage or recording in the New York area.[62] The song "Big Time Operators", released in 1993, is thought to allude to his dealings with the New York music business during this time period.[63] 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 concert bookings.[64] However, through the few gigs he could find, he regained his professional footing and started recording with the Warner Bros. Records label.[65][66] The record company managed to buy out his contract with Bang Records. Morrison fulfilled a clause that bound him to submit thirty-six original songs within a year to Web IV Music, Berns' music publishing company, by recording thirty-one songs in one session; however, Ilene Berns thought the songs "nonsense music ... about ringworms" and did not use them.[67][68] The throwaway compositions would come to be known as the "revenge" songs.[69]
Astral Weeks: 1968
"Astral Weeks is about the power of the human voice – ecstatic agony, agonising ecstacy. Here is an Irish tenor reborn as a White Negro – a Caucasian Soul Man – pleading and beseeching over a bed of dreamy folk-jazz instrumentation: acoustic bass, brushed drums, vibes and acoustic guitar, the odd string quartet – and of course flute."
–Barney Hoskyns – Mojo[70]
His first album for Warner Bros. Records was Astral Weeks (which he had already performed in several clubs around Boston), a mystical song cycle, often considered to be his best work and one of the best albums of all time.[72] [73][74] Morrison has said, "When Astral Weeks came out, I was starving, literally."[75] Released in 1968, the album eventually 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.[73] It has been compared to French Impressionism and mystical Celtic poetry.[76][77][78] 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."[79] Alan Light would later describe Astral Weeks as "like nothing he had done previously—and really, nothing anyone had done previously. Morrison sings of lost love, death, and nostalgia for childhood in the Celtic soul that would become his signature."[6] It has been placed on many lists of best albums of all time. In the 1995 Mojo list of 100 Best Albums, it was listed as number two and was number nineteen on the Rolling Stone magazine's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003.[80][81] In December 2009, it was voted the top Irish album of all time by a poll of leading Irish musicians conducted by Hot Press magazine.[82][83]
From Moondance to Into the Music: 1970–79
Morrison's third solo album, Moondance, which was released in 1970, became his first million selling album and reached number twenty-nine on the Billboard charts.[84][85][86] The style of Moondance stood in contrast to that of Astral Weeks. Whereas Astral Weeks had a sorrowful and vulnerable tone, Moondance restored a more optimistic and cheerful message to his music,[87] which abandoned the previous record's abstract folk compositions in favor of more formally composed songs and a lively rhythm and blues music he would expand on throughout his career.[88] The title track, although not released in the US as a single until 1977, received heavy play in FM radio formats.[89] "Into the Mystic" has also gained a wide following over the years.[90][91] "Come Running", which reached the American Top 40, rescued Morrison from what seemed then as Hot 100 obscurity.[92] Moondance was both well received and favourably reviewed. Lester Bangs and Greil Marcus had a combined full page review in Rolling Stone, stating that Morrison now had "the striking imagination of a consciousness that is visionary in the strongest sense of the word."[93] "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.[94] Moondance was listed at number sixty-five on the Rolling Stone magazine's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[81] In March 2007, Moondance was listed as number seventy-two on the NARM Rock and Roll Hall of Fame list of the "Definitive 200".[95]
Over the next few years, he released a succession of albums, starting with a second one in 1970. His Band and the Street Choir had a freer, more relaxed sound than Moondance, but not the perfection, in the opinion of critic Jon Landau, who felt like "a few more numbers with a gravity of 'Street Choir' would have made this album as perfect as anyone could have stood."[96] It contained the hit single "Domino", which charted at number nine in the Billboard Hot 100.[97]
In 1971, he released another well-received album, Tupelo Honey.[98] This album produced the hit single "Wild Night" that was later covered by John Mellencamp. The title song has a notably country-soul feel about it[99] and the album ended with another country tune, "Moonshine Whiskey". Morrison said he originally intended to make an all country album.[100] The recordings were as live as possible – after rehearsing the songs the musicians would go into the studio and play a whole set in one take.[101] His co-producer, Ted Templeman, described this recording process 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."[102]
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 a versatility not previously found in his earlier albums.[103] Two songs, "Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When You Smile)" and "Redwood Tree", reached the Hot 100 singles chart.[92] The songs "Listen to the Lion" and "Almost Independence Day" are each over ten minutes long and employ the type of poetic imagery not heard since Astral Weeks.[103][104] It was his highest charting album in the US until his Top Ten debut on Billboard 200 in 2008.[105]
He released his next album Hard Nose the Highway in 1973 receiving mixed, but mostly negative, reviews. The album contained the popular song "Warm Love" but otherwise has been largely dismissed critically.[106] In a 1973 Rolling Stone review, it was described as: "psychologically complex, musically somewhat uneven and lyrically excellent."[107]
During a three-week vacation visit to Ireland in October 1973, Morrison wrote seven of the songs that would make up his next album, Veedon Fleece.[108] Though it attracted scant initial attention, its critical stature grew markedly over the years—with Veedon Fleece now often considered to be one of Morrison's most impressive and poetic works.[109][110] In a 2008 Rolling Stone review, Andy Greene writes that when released in late 1974: "it was greeted by a collective shrug by the rock critical establishment" and concludes: "He's released many wonderful albums since, but he's never again hit the majestic heights of this one."[111] "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.[112]
Morrison would not release a follow-up album for another three years. After a decade without taking time off, he said in an interview, he needed to get away from music completely and ceased listening to it for several months.[113] Also suffering from writer's block, he seriously considered leaving the music business for good.[114] Speculation that an extended jam session would be released either under the title Mechanical Bliss, or Naked in the Jungle, or Stiff Upper Lip, came to nothing,[115] and Morrison's next album was A Period of Transition in 1977, a collaboration with Dr. John, who had appeared at The Last Waltz concert with Morrison in 1976. The album received a mild critical reception and marked the beginning of a very prolific period of song making.
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')
The following year, Morrison released Wavelength; it became at that time the fastest-selling album of his career and soon went gold.[116] The title track became a modest hit, peaking at number forty-two. Making use of 1970s synthesisers, it mimics the sounds of the shortwave radio stations that he listened to in his youth.[117] The opening track, "Kingdom Hall" evoked Morrison's own childhood experiences attending church with his mother[116] and foretold a religious theme that would be more evident in his next album, Into the Music.[118]
Considered by AllMusic as "the definitive post-classic-era Morrison",[119] Into the Music, was released in the last year of the 1970s. Songs on this album for the first time alluded to the healing power of music, which would become an abiding interest of Morrison's.[120] "Bright Side of the Road" was a joyful, uplifting song that would appear on the soundtrack of the movie, Michael.[121]
Common One to Avalon Sunset: 1980–89
With his next album, the new decade found Morrison following his muse into uncharted territory and merciless reviews.[122][123] In February 1980, Morrison and a group of musicians travelled to Super Bear, a studio in the French Alps, to record (on the site of a former abbey) what is considered to be the most controversial album in his discography; later "Morrison admitted that his original concept was even more esoteric than the final product."[124][125] The album, Common One, consisted of 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."[124] 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."[122] Morrison insisted that the album was never "meant to be a commercial album."[122] Biographer Clinton Heylin concludes: "He would not attempt anything so ambitious again. Henceforth every radical idea would be tempered by some notion of commerciality."[125] Later the critics would reassess the album more favourably with the success of "Summertime in England".[125] Lester Bangs wrote in 1982, "Van was making holy music even though he thought he was, and us rock critics had made our usual mistake of paying too much attention to the lyrics."[122]
Morrison's next album, Beautiful Vision, released in 1982, had him returning once again to the music of his Northern Irish roots.[126] Well received by the critics and public, it produced a minor UK hit single, "Cleaning Windows", that referenced one of Morrison's first jobs after leaving school.[127] 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 Morrison's spiritual interests and serve as a steadying influence on him throughout most of the 1980s.[128] "Scandinavia", with Morrison on piano,[129] was nominated in the Best Rock Instrumental Performance category for the 25th Annual Grammy Awards.[130]
Much of the music Morrison released throughout the 1980s continued to focus on the themes of spirituality and faith. His 1983 album, Inarticulate Speech of the Heart was "a move towards creating music for meditation" with synthesisers, uilleann pipes and flute sounds and four of the tracks were instrumentals.[131] The titling of the album and the presence of the instrumentals were noted to be indicative of Morrison's long-held belief that "it's not the words one uses but the force of conviction behind those words that matters."[129] During this period of time, Morrison had studied Scientology and gave "Special Thanks" to L. Ron Hubbard on the album's credits.[132]
A Sense of Wonder, Morrison's 1985 album, pulled together the spiritual themes contained in his last four albums, which were defined in a Rolling Stone review as: "rebirth (Into the Music), deep contemplation and meditation, (Common One); ecstasy and humility (Beautiful Vision); and blissful, mantra like languor (Inarticulate Speech of the Heart)."[133] The single, "Tore Down a la Rimbaud" was a reference to Rimbaud and an earlier bout of writer's block that Morrison had encountered in 1974.[134] In 1985, Morrison also wrote the musical score for the movie, Lamb starring Liam Neeson.[135]
Morrison's 1986 release, No Guru, No Method, No Teacher, was said to contain a "genuine holiness...and musical freshness that needs to be set in context to understand."[136] Critical response was favourable with a Sounds reviewer calling the album "his most intriguingly involved since Astral Weeks" and "Morrison at his most mystical, magical best."[137][138] It contains the 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".[136] He entitled the album as a rebuttal to media attempts to place him in various creeds.[139] 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.[140]
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.[141] The romantic ballad from this album, "Someone Like You", has been featured subsequently in the soundtracks of several movies, including 1995's French Kiss, and in 2001, both Someone Like You and Bridget Jones's Diary.[121][142]
In 1988, he released Irish Heartbeat, a collection of traditional Irish folk songs recorded with the Irish group the Chieftains, which reached number 18 in the UK album charts. The title song, "Irish Heartbeat", was originally recorded on his 1983 album Inarticulate Speech of the Heart.[143]
The 1989 album, 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)),[144] reached 13 on the UK album chart. Although considered to be a deeply spiritual album,[145] it also contained "Daring Night", which "deals with full, blazing sex, whatever its churchy organ and gentle lilt suggest"(Hinton).[146] Morrison's familiar themes of "God, woman, his childhood in Belfast and those enchanted moments when time stands still" were prominent in the songs.[147] He can be heard calling out the change of tempo at the end of this song, repeating the numbers "1 – 4" to cue the chord changes (the first and fourth chord in the key of the music). He often completed albums in two days, frequently releasing first takes.[148][149]
The Best of Van Morrison to Back on Top: 1990–99
The early to middle 1990s were commercially successful for Morrison with three albums reaching the top five of the UK charts, sold-out concerts, and a more visible public profile; but this period also marked a decline in the critical reception to his work.[150] The decade began with the release of The Best of Van Morrison; compiled by Morrison himself, the album was focused on his hit singles, and became a multi-platinum success remaining a year and a half on the UK charts. AllMusic determined it to be "far and away the best selling album of his career."[90][151] After Enlightenment which included the hit singles "Real Real Gone" and the title cut in 1990, an ambitious double album "Hymns to the Silence" was released the following year, his only double studio album. Another compilation album, The Best of Van Morrison Volume Two was released in January 1993, followed by Too Long in Exile in June, another top five chart success.[152] The 1994 live double album A Night in San Francisco received favourable reviews as well as commercial success by reaching number eight on the UK charts.[153][154][155][156] 1995's Days Like This also had large sales – though the critical reviews were not always favourable.[157] This period also saw a number of side projects, including the live jazz performances of 1996's How Long Has This Been Going On, from the same year 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 early musical influences.
In 1997, Morrison released The Healing Game. The album received mixed reviews, with the lyrics being described as "tired" and "dull",[158] though critic Greil Marcus praised the musical complexity of the album by saying: "It carries the listener into a musical home so perfect and complete he or she might have forgotten that music could call up such a place, and then populate it with people, acts, wishes, fears."[159] The following year, Morrison finally released some of his previously unissued studio recordings in a 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.[160]
Recent years: 2000–present
Van Morrison continued to record and tour in the 2000s, often performing two or three times a week.[161] He formed his own independent label, Exile Productions Ltd, which enables him to maintain 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.[162]
The album, Down the Road released in May 2002, received a good critical reception and proved to be his highest charting album in the US since 1972's Saint Dominic's Preview.[105] It had a nostalgic tone, with its fifteen tracks representing the various musical genres that Morrison had previously covered—including R&B, blues, country and folk;[163] one of the tracks was written as a tribute to his late father George, who had played a pivotal role in nurturing his early musical tastes.[11]
Morrison's 2005 album, Magic Time, debuted at number twenty-five on the US Billboard 200 charts upon its May release, some forty years after Morrison first entered the public's eye as the frontman of Them. Rolling Stone listed it as number seventeen on The Top 50 Records of 2005.[164] Also in July 2005, Morrison was named by Amazon as one of their top twenty-five all-time best-selling artists and inducted into the Amazon.com Hall of Fame.[165] 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.[166] Morrison composed the song, "Blue and Green", featuring 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 UK. Van Morrison was a headline act at the international Celtic music festival, The Hebridean Celtic Festival in Stornoway Outer Hebrides in the summer of 2005.[167]
He released an album with a country music theme, entitled Pay the Devil, on 7 March 2006 and appeared at the Ryman Auditorium where the tickets sold out immediately after they went on sale.[168] Pay the Devil debuted at number twenty-six on the Billboard 200 and peaked at number seven on Top Country Albums.[169][170] Amazon Best of 2006 Editor's Picks in Country listed the country album at number ten in December 2006. Still promoting the country album, Morrison's performance as the headline act on the first night of the Austin City Limits Music Festival on 15 September 2006 was reviewed by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the top ten shows of the 2006 festival.[171] In November 2006, a limited edition album, Live at Austin City Limits Festival was issued by Exile Productions, Ltd. A later deluxe CD/DVD release of Pay the Devil, in the summer of 2006 contained tracks from the Ryman performance.[172] In October 2006, Morrison had released his first commercial DVD, Live at Montreux 1980/1974 with concerts taken from two separate appearances at the Montreux Jazz Festival.
A new double CD compilation album The Best of Van Morrison Volume 3 was released in June 2007 containing thirty-one tracks, some of which were previously unreleased. Morrison selected the tracks, which ranged from the 1993 album Too Long in Exile to the song "Stranded" from the 2005 album Magic Time.[173] On 3 September 2007, Morrison's complete catalogue of albums from 1971 through 2002 were made available exclusively at the iTunes Store in Europe and Australia and during the first week of October 2007, the albums became available at the US iTunes Store.[174]
Still on Top – The Greatest Hits, a thirty-seven track double CD compilation album was released on 22 October 2007 in the UK on the Polydor label. On 29 October 2007, the album charted at number two on the Official UK Top 75 Albums—his highest UK charting.[175] The November release in the US and Canada contains twenty-one selected tracks.[176] The hits that were released on albums with the copyrights owned by Morrison as Exile Productions Ltd.—1971 and later—had been remastered in 2007.
Keep It Simple, Morrison's 33rd 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 US and Canada on 1 April 2008.[177] It comprised eleven self-penned tracks. Morrison promoted the album with a short US tour including an appearance at the SXSW music conference,[178][179] and a UK concert broadcast on BBC Radio 2. In the first week of release Keep It Simple debuted on the Billboard 200 chart at number ten, Morrison's first Top Ten charting in the US.[180]
Morrison released his 34th studio album, Born to Sing: No Plan B on 2 October 2012 on Blue Note Records. The album was recorded in Belfast, Morrison's birthplace and hometown.[181] The first single from this album, "Open the Door (To Your Heart)", was released on 24 August 2012.[182]
A selection of Morrison's lyrics, Lit Up Inside, was published by City Lights Books in the US and Faber & Faber in the UK [183] the book was released on 2 October 2014 and an evening of words and music commenced at the Lyric Theatre, London on 17 November 2014 to mark its launch. Morrison himself selected his best and most iconic lyrics from a catalog of 50 years of writing [184]
Morrison's 35th studio album, Duets: Re-working the Catalogue was released on 24 March 2015 on the RCA record label.[185]
In 2015 he was knighted for his services to popular music.[186]
Live performances
By 1972, after being a performer for nearly ten years, Morrison 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 agonising 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.[23]
The 1974 live double album, It's Too Late to Stop Now has been noted to be one of the greatest recordings of a live concert[187] [188][189] and has appeared on lists of greatest live albums of all time.[190][191][192][193] Biographer Johnny Rogan states that "Morrison was in the midst of what was arguably his greatest phase as a performer."[194] Performances on the album were from tapes made during a three-month tour of the US and Europe in 1973 with the backing group the Caledonia Soul Orchestra. Soon after recording the album, Morrison restructured the Caledonia Soul Orchestra into a smaller unit, the Caledonia Soul Express.[195]
Morrison performs in 1976 at The Band's final concert filmed for The Last Waltz.
On Thanksgiving Day 1976, Morrison performed at the farewell concert for the Band. It was his first live performance in several years, and 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."[196][197] Morrison was on good terms with the members of the Band as near-neighbours in Woodstock, and they had the shared experience of stage fright. At the concert, he performed two songs. His first was a rendition of the classic Irish song "Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ral".[198] His second song was "Caravan", from his 1970 album Moondance. Greil Marcus, in attendance at the concert, wrote: "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."[199] The filmed concert served as the basis for Martin Scorsese's 1978 film, The Last Waltz.[200]
During his association with the Band, Morrison acquired the nicknames "Belfast Cowboy" and "Van the Man".[201] On the Band's album Cahoots, as part of the duet "4% Pantomime" that Morrison sings with Richard Manuel (and that he co-wrote with Robbie Robertson), Manuel addresses him, "Oh, Belfast Cowboy". When he leaves the stage after performing "Caravan" on The Last Waltz, Robertson calls out "Van the Man!"[118]
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 three hundred thousand and half a million people and broadcast live on television.[202] He sang "Comfortably Numb" with Roger Waters, and several members from The Band: Levon Helm, Garth Hudson and Rick Danko. At concert's end, he and the other performers sang "The Tide Is Turning".
Morrison performed before an estimated audience of sixty to eighty thousand 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.[203]
Van Morrison continued performing concerts in the 2000s throughout the year rather than touring.[161] Playing few of his best-known songs in concert, he has firmly resisted relegation to a nostalgia act.[204][205] 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.[206]
On 7 and 8 November 2008, at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California, Morrison performed the entire Astral Weeks album live for the first time. The Astral Weeks band featured guitarist Jay Berliner, who had played on the album that was released forty years previously in November 1968. Also featured on piano was Roger Kellaway. A live album entitled Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl resulted from these two performances.[208] The new live album on CD was released on 24 February 2009,[209] followed by a DVD from the performances.[210] The DVD, Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl: The Concert Film was released via Amazon Exclusive on 19 May 2009. In February and March 2009, Morrison returned to the US for Astral Weeks Live concerts, interviews and TV appearances with concerts at Madison Square Garden and at the Beacon Theatre in New York City.[211][212] He was interviewed by Don Imus on his Imus in the Morning radio show and put in guest appearances on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and Live with Regis and Kelly.[213][214][215] Morrison continued with the Astral Weeks performances with two concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in London in April[216][217] and then returned to California in May 2009 performing the Astral Weeks songs at the Hearst Greek Theatre in Berkeley, the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles, California and appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.[218] Morrison filmed the concerts at the Orpheum Theatre so that they could be viewed by Farrah Fawcett, confined to bed with cancer and thus unable to attend the concerts.[219][220]
In addition to It's Too Late to Stop Now and Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl, Morrison has released three other live albums: Live at the Grand Opera House Belfast in 1984; A Night in San Francisco in 1994 that Rolling Stone magazine felt stood out 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";[153] and The Skiffle Sessions – Live in Belfast 1998 recorded with Lonnie Donegan and Chris Barber and released in 2000.
Morrison performs at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival in 2010.
Morrison was scheduled to perform at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 25th anniversary concert on 30 October 2009, but cancelled.[221] In an interview on 26 October, Morrison told his host Don Imus that he had planned to play "a couple of songs" with Eric Clapton (who had cancelled on 22 October due to gallstone surgery),[222] but that they would do something else together at "some other stage of the game".[223]
Morrison performed for the Edmonton Folk Music Festival in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada on 4 August 2010 as the headline act for the fundraiser and scheduled as second day headliner at the Feis 2011 Festival in London's Finsbury Park on 19 June 2011.[224][225][226]
Morrison appeared in concert at Odyssey Arena in Belfast on 3 February and at the O2 in Dublin on 4 February 2012. He appeared at the 46th Montreux Jazz Festival as a headliner on 7 July 2012.[227]
In 2014 Morrison's former high school Orangefield High School, formerly known as Orangefield Boys' Secondary School closed its doors permanently. To mark the school's closure Morrison performed in the school assembly hall for three nights of concerts from 22–24 August. The performance on the 22 August was exclusively for former teachers and pupils and the two remaining concerts were for members of the public [228]
The first night of the Nocturne Live [229] concerts at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, UK on 25 June 2015, featured Morrison and Grammy Award-winning American Jazz vocalist and songwriter Gregory Porter.
Collaborations
During the 1990s, 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 to Morrison's band; and Brian Kennedy's vocals complemented the grizzled voice of Morrison, both in studio and live performances.
The 1990s also 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.[230]
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 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.[231] The project capped a series of Morrison and Hooker collaborations that began in 1971 when they performed a duet on the title track of Hooker's 1972 album Never Get Out of These Blues Alive. On this album, Hooker also recorded a cover of Morrison's "T.B. Sheets".[232]
Morrison additionally collaborated with Tom Jones on his 1999 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 2000 album, Sailing to Philadelphia.[233] In 2004, Morrison was one of the guests on Ray Charles' album, Genius Loves Company, featuring the two artists performing Morrison's "Crazy Love".
In 2000, Morrison recorded a classic country music duet album You Win Again with Linda Gail Lewis. The album received a three star review from AllMusic who called it "a roots effort that never sounds studied".[234]
Music
Vocals
It is at the heart of Morrison’s presence as a singer that when he lights on certain sounds, certain small moments inside a song—hesitations, silences, shifts in pressure, sudden entrances, slamming doors—can then suggest whole territories, completed stories, indistinct ceremonies, far outside anything that can be literally traced in the compositions that carry them.
–Greil Marcus[235]
Featuring his characteristic growl—a mix of folk, blues, soul, jazz, gospel, and Ulster Scots Celtic influences—Morrison is widely considered by many rock historians to be one of the most unusual and influential vocalists in the history of rock and roll.[236][237][238] Critic Greil Marcus has gone so far as to say that "no white man sings like Van Morrison."[239] In his 2010 book, Marcus wrote, "As a physical fact, Morrison may have the richest and most expressive voice pop music has produced since Elvis Presley, and with a sense of himself as an artist that Elvis was always denied."[240]
As Morrison began live performances of the 40-year-old album Astral Weeks in 2008, there were comparisons to his youthful voice of 1968. His early voice was described as "flinty and tender, beseeching and plaintive".[71] Forty years later, the difference in his vocal range and power were noticeable but reviewers and critic's comments were favourable: "Morrison's voice has expanded to fill his frame; a deeper, louder roar than the blue-eyed soul voice of his youth – softer on the diction – but none the less impressively powerful."[207] Morrison also commented on the changes in his approach to singing: "The approach now is to sing from lower down [the diaphragm] so I do not ruin my voice. Before, I sang in the upper area of my throat, which tends to wreck the vocal cords over time. Singing from lower in the belly allows my resonance to carry far. I can stand four feet from a mic and be heard quite resonantly."[241]
Songwriting and lyrics
Morrison has written hundreds of songs[242][243] during his career with a recurring theme reflecting a nostalgic yearning for the carefree days of his childhood in Belfast.[244] Some of his song titles derive from familiar locations in his childhood, such as "Cyprus Avenue" (a nearby street), "Orangefield" (the boys school he attended), and "On Hyndford Street" (where he was born). Also frequently present in Morrison's best love songs is a blending of the sacred-profane as evidenced in "Into the Mystic" and "So Quiet in Here".[245][246]
Beginning with his 1979 album, Into the Music and the song "And the Healing Has Begun", a frequent theme of his music and lyrics has been based on his belief in the healing power of music combined with a form of mystic Christianity. This theme has become one of the predominant qualities of his work.[247]
His lyrics show an influence of the visionary poets William Blake and W. B. Yeats[248] and others such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth.[249] Biographer Brian Hinton believes "like any great poet from Blake to Seamus Heaney he takes words back to their origins in magic...Indeed, Morrison is returning poetry to its earliest roots – as in Homer or Old English epics like Beowulf or the Psalms or folk song – in all of which words and music combine to form a new reality."[245] Another biographer John Collis believes that Morrison's style of jazz singing and repeating phrases preclude his lyrics from being regarded as poetry or as Collis asserts: "he is more likely to repeat a phrase like a mantra, or burst into scat singing. The words may often be prosaic, and so can hardly be poetry."[250]
Morrison has described his songwriting method by remarking that: "I write from a different place. I do not even know what it is called or if it has a name. It just comes and I sculpt it, but it is also a lot of hard work doing the sculpting."[241]
Performance style
"Van Morrison is interested, obsessed with how much musical or verbal information he can compress into a small space, and, almost, conversely, how far he can spread one note, word, sound, or picture. To capture one moment, be it a caress or a twitch. He repeats certain phrases to extremes that from anybody else would seem ridiculous, because he's waiting for a vision to unfold, trying as unobtrusively as possible to nudge it along...It's the great search, fuelled by the belief that through these musical and mental processes illumination is attainable. Or may at least be glimpsed."
–Lester Bangs[251]
Critic Greil Marcus 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."[252] Or in the words of Jay Cocks: "He extends himself only to express himself. Alone among rock's great figures—and even in that company he is one of the greatest—Morrison is adamantly inward. And unique. Although he freely crosses musical boundaries— R&B, Celtic melodies, jazz, rave-up rock, hymns, down-and-dirty blues—he can unfailingly be found in the same strange place: on his own wavelength."[253]
His transcendental signature style first came into full expression with his 1968 classic, Astral Weeks and he was noted to have remained a "master of his transcendental craft" in 2009 while performing the Astral Weeks songs live.[254][255][256][257] This musical art form was based on stream of consciousness songwriting and emotional vocalising of lyrics that have no basis in normal structure or symmetry. His live performances are dependent on building dynamics with spontaneity between himself and his band, whom he controls with hand gestures throughout, sometimes signalling impromptu solos from a selected band member. The music and vocals build towards a hypnotic and trance-like state that depends on in-the-moment creativity. Scott Foundas with LA Weekly wrote "he seeks to transcend the apparent boundaries of any given song; to achieve a total freedom of form; to take himself, his band and the audience on a journey whose destination is anything but known."[244][258] Greil Marcus wrote an entire book devoted to examining the moments in Morrison's music where he reaches this state of transcendence and explains: "But in his music the same sense of escape from ordinary limits – a reach for, or the achievement of, a kind of violent transcendence – can come from hesitations, repetitions of words or phrases, pauses, the way a musical change by another musician is turned by Morrison as a bandleader or seized on by him as a singer and changed into a sound that becomes an event in and of itself. In these moments, the self is left behind, and the sound, that "yarragh," becomes the active agent: a musical person, with its own mind, its own body."[259] A book reviewer further described it as "This transcendent moment of music when the song and the singer are one thing not two, neither dependent on the other or separate from the other but melded to the other like one, like breath and life..."[260]
Morrison has said he believes in the jazz improvisational technique of never performing a song the same way twice and except for the unique rendition of the Astral Weeks songs live, doesn't perform a concert from a preconceived set list.[204] Morrison has said he prefers to perform at smaller venues or symphony halls noted for their good acoustics.[261] His ban against alcoholic beverages, which made entertainment news during 2008, was an attempt to prevent the disruptive and distracting movement of audience members leaving their seats during the performances.[262] In a 2009 interview, Morrison stated: "I do not consciously aim to take the listener anywhere. If anything, I aim to take myself there in my music. If the listener catches the wavelength of what I am saying or singing, or gets whatever point whatever line means to them, then I guess as a writer I may have done a day's work."[263]
Genre
The music of Van Morrison has encompassed many genres since his early days as a blues and R&B singer in Belfast. Over the years he has recorded songs from a varying list of genres drawn from many influences and interests. As well as blues and R&B, his compositions and covers have moved between pop music, jazz, rock, folk, country, gospel, Irish folk and traditional, big band, skiffle, rock and roll, new age, classical and sometimes spoken word ("Coney Island") and instrumentals.[264] Morrison defines himself as a soul singer.[265]
Some of Morrison's music has been classified in a genre of its own and referred to as "Celtic soul"[6] or what biographer Brian Hinton referred to as a new alchemy called "Caledonian soul."[245] Another biographer, Ritchie Yorke quoted Morrison as believing that he has "the spirit of Caledonia in his soul and his music reflects it."[266] According to Yorke, Morrison claimed to have discovered "a certain quality of soul" when he first visited Scotland (his Belfast ancestors were of Ulster Scots descent) and Morrison has said he believes there is some connection between soul music and Caledonia. Yorke relates that Morrison "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 Scottish folk music."[266]
Caledonia
The name "Caledonia" has played a prominent role in Morrison's life and career. Biographer Ritchie Yorke had pointed out already by 1975 that Morrison has referred to Caledonia so many times in his career that he "seems to be obsessed with the word".[266] In his 2009 biography, Erik Hage found that "Morrison seemed deeply interested in his paternal Scottish roots during his early career, and later in the ancient countryside of England, hence his repeated use of the term Caledonia (an ancient Roman name for Scotland/northern Britain)".[267] As well as being his daughter Shana's middle name, it is the name of his first production company, his studio, his publishing company, two of his backing groups, his parents' record store in Fairfax, California in the 1970s, and he also recorded a cover of the song "Caldonia" (with the name spelled "Caledonia") in 1974.[266][268] Morrison used "Caledonia" in what has been called a quintessential Van Morrison moment in the song, "Listen to the Lion" with the lyrics, "And we sail, and we sail, way up to Caledonia".[269] As late as 2008, Morrison used "Caledonia" as a mantra in the live performance of the song, "Astral Weeks" recorded at the two Hollywood Bowl concerts.[263]
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 & Schuster, 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".[236] His influence includes U2 (Bono was quoted saying "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.");[270] John Mellencamp ("Wild Night");[271] Jim Morrison;[49] Joan Armatrading (the only musical influence she will acknowledge);[272] Nick Cave;[273]Rod Stewart;[274] Tom Petty;[275] Rickie Lee Jones (recognises both Laura Nyro and Van Morrison as the main influences on her career);[276][277] Elton John;[278] Graham Parker;[279] Sinéad O'Connor;[280] Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy;[281] Bob Seger ("I know Bruce Springsteen was very much affected by Van Morrison, and so was I." from Creem interview)[279] ("I've Been Working");[282] Kevin Rowland of Dexys Midnight Runners ("Jackie Wilson Said");[283][284] Jimi Hendrix ("Gloria");[285] Jeff Buckley ("The Way Young Lovers Do", "Sweet Thing");[286] Nick Drake;[287] and numerous others, including the Counting Crows (their "sha-la-la" sequence in Mr Jones, is a tribute to Morrison).[288] Morrison's influence reaches into the country music genre, with Hal Ketchum acknowledging, "He (Van Morrison) was a major influence in my life."[289]
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";[290] Ray Lamontagne;[291] James Morrison;[292][293] Paolo Nutini;[294] Eric Lindell[295] David Gray and Ed Sheeran[296] 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.[297] American rock band the Wallflowers have covered "Into the Mystic".[298] Canadian blues-rock singer Colin James also covers the song frequently at his concerts.[299] Actor and musician Robert Pattinson has said that Van Morrison was his "influence for doing music in the first place".[300] Morrison has shared the stage with Northern Irish singer-songwriter Duke Special, who admits Morrison has been a big influence.[301]
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.[153] 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 James Hunter,[302] and fellow Belfast-born brothers, Brian and Bap Kennedy.[303][304]
Morrison has also influenced the other arts: the German painter Johannes Heisig created a series of lithographs illustrating the book In the Garden – for Van Morrison, published by Städtische Galerie Sonneberg, Germany, in 1997.[305]
Personal life
Morrison lived in Belfast from birth until 1967, when he moved to New York after signing with Bang Records. Facing deportation due to visa problems, he managed to stay in the US when his American girlfriend Janet (Planet) Rigsbee agreed to marry him.[306] Once married, Morrison and his wife moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he found work performing in local clubs. The couple had one daughter in 1970, Shana Morrison, who has become a singer-songwriter. Morrison and his family moved around America, living in Boston; Woodstock, New York; and a hilltop home in Fairfax, California. His wife appeared on the cover of the album Tupelo Honey. They divorced in 1973.[307][308]
Morrison moved back to Europe in the late 1970s, first settling in London's Notting Hill Gate area.[309] Later, he moved to Bath, where he purchased The Wool Hall Studio in January 1994.[310] He also has a home in the Irish seaside village of Dalkey near Dublin, where legal actions against two different neighbours concerning safety and privacy issues have been taken to court in 2001 and in 2010.[311][312][313][314] In the former case, Morrison pursued his action all the way to the Irish Supreme Court.[315]
In 2001, nine months into a tour with Linda Gail Lewis promoting their collaboration You Win Again, Ms. Lewis left, later filing claims against Morrison for unfair dismissal and sexual discrimination. Both claims were later withdrawn, and Morrison's solicitor was quoted that "(Van's) pleased that these claims have finally been withdrawn. He accepted a full apology and comprehensive retraction which represents a complete vindication of his stance from the outset. Miss Lewis has given a full and categorical apology and retraction to Mr. Morrison."[316]
Morrison met Irish socialite Michelle Rocca in the summer of 1992, and they often featured in the Dublin gossip columns, an unusual event for the reclusive Morrison. Rocca also appeared on one of his album covers, Days Like This.[317] The couple are married and have two children;[318] a daughter was born in January 2006 and a son was born in August 2007.[319][320]
In December 2009, Texas native and Morrison employee Gigi Lee gave birth to a son whom she asserted was Morrison's and whom she named after him. Lee announced the birth of the child on Morrison's official website although Morrison has subsequently denied paternity of the child. It was revealed in December 2011 that Lee died from throat cancer in October 2011 and her son had died previously in January 2011, from complications of diabetes.
Known as "Van the Man" to his fans, Morrison started his professional career when, as a teenager in the late 1950s, he played a variety of instruments including guitar, harmonica, keyboards and saxophone for various Irish showbands covering the popular hits of the day. He rose to prominence in the mid-1960s as the lead singer of the Northern Irish R&B band Them, with whom he recorded the garage band classic "Gloria". His solo career began under the pop-hit oriented guidance of Bert Berns with the release of the hit single "Brown Eyed Girl" in 1967. After Berns' death, Warner Bros. Records bought out his contract and allowed him three sessions to record Astral Weeks in 1968.[2] Even though this album would gradually garner high praise, it was initially a poor seller; however, the next one, Moondance, established Morrison as a major artist,[3] and throughout the 1970s he built on his reputation with a series of critically acclaimed albums and live performances. Morrison continues to record and tour, producing albums and live performances that sell well and are generally warmly received, sometimes collaborating with other artists, such as Georgie Fame and the Chieftains. In 2008 he performed Astral Weeks live for the first time since 1968.
Much of Morrison's music is structured around the conventions of soul music and R&B, such as the popular singles "Brown Eyed Girl", "Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When You Smile)", "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 Astral Weeks and lesser-known works such as Veedon Fleece and Common One.[4][5] The two strains together are sometimes referred to as "Celtic Soul".[6]
Life and career
Early life and musical roots: 1945–64
George Ivan (Van) Morrison was born on 31 August 1945, at 125 Hyndford Street, Bloomfield, Belfast, Northern Ireland, as the only child of George Morrison, a shipyard electrician, and Violet Stitt Morrison, a singer and tap dancer in her youth.[7] Van Morrison's family roots descend from the Ulster Scots population that settled in Belfast.[8][9][10] From 1950 to 1956, Morrison, who began to be known as "Van" during this time, attended Elmgrove Primary School.[11] Morrison's father had what was at the time one of the largest record collections in Ulster (acquired during his sojourn in Detroit, Michigan, in the early 1950s)[12] and the young Morrison grew up listening to artists such as Jelly Roll Morton, Ray Charles, Lead Belly, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, and Solomon Burke;[11][13] of whom he later 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."[14] His father's record collection exposed him to various musical genres, such as the blues of Muddy Waters; the gospel of Mahalia Jackson; the jazz of Charlie Parker; the folk music of Woody Guthrie; and country music from Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers,[11] while the first record he ever bought was by blues musician Sonny Terry.[15] When Lonnie Donegan had a hit with "Rock Island Line", written by Huddie Ledbetter (Lead Belly), Morrison felt he was familiar with and able to connect with skiffle music as he had been hearing Lead Belly before that.[16][17]
Morrison's father bought him his first acoustic guitar when he was eleven, and he learned to play rudimentary chords from the song book The Carter Family Style, edited by Alan Lomax.[18] A year later, when he was twelve years old, Morrison formed his first band,[19] a skiffle group, "The Sputniks", named after the recently launched Soviet satellite, Sputnik 1.[20] In 1958, the band played at some of the local cinemas, and Morrison took the lead, contributing most of the singing and arranging. Other short-lived groups followed – at fourteen, he formed Midnight Special, another modified skiffle band and played at a school concert.[18] Then, when he heard Jimmy Giuffre playing saxophone on "The Train and The River", he talked his father into buying him a saxophone,[21] and took lessons in tenor sax and music reading.[22] Now playing the saxophone, Morrison joined with various local bands, including one called Deanie Sands and the Javelins, with whom he played guitar and shared singing. The line-up of the band was lead vocalist Deanie Sands, guitarist George Jones and drummer, vocalist Roy Kane.[23] Later the four main musicians of the Javelins, with the addition of Wesley Black as pianist, became known as the Monarchs.[24]
Morrison attended Orangefield Boys Secondary School, leaving in July 1960 with no qualifications.[25] As a member of a working-class community, it was expected that he would get a regular full-time job,[24] so after several short apprenticeship positions, he settled into a job as a window cleaner—later alluded to in his songs "Cleaning Windows" and "Saint Dominic's Preview".[26] However, he had been developing his musical interests from an early age and continued playing with the Monarchs part-time. Young Morrison also played with the Harry Mack Showband, the Great Eight, with his older workplace friend, Geordie (G. D.) Sproule, whom he later named as one of his biggest influences.[27]
At age 17, he toured Europe for the first time with the Monarchs, now calling themselves the International Monarchs. This Irish showband,[28] with Morrison playing saxophone, guitar and harp, in addition to back-up duty on bass and drums, toured steamy clubs and US Army bases in Scotland, England, and Germany, often playing five sets a night.[23] While in Germany, the band recorded a single, "Boozoo Hully Gully"/"Twingy Baby", under the name Georgie and the Monarchs. This was Morrison's first recording, taking place in November 1963 at Ariola Studios in Cologne with Morrison on saxophone; it made the lower reaches of the German charts.[29][30]
Upon returning to Belfast in November 1963, the group disbanded,[31] so 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, later known as the Wheels, Morrison went along and was hired as a blues singer.[32][33]
Them: 1964–66
The roots of Them, the band that first broke Morrison on the international scene, came in April 1964 when he responded to an advert for musicians to play at a new R&B club at the Maritime Hotel – an old dance hall frequented by sailors.[34] The new R&B club needed a band for its opening night; however, Morrison had left the Golden Eagles (the group with which he had been performing at the time), so he created a new band out of the Gamblers, an East Belfast group formed by Ronnie Millings, Billy Harrison, and Alan Henderson in 1962.[35][36] Eric Wrixon, still a schoolboy, was the piano player and keyboardist.[37] Morrison played saxophone and harmonica and shared vocals with Billy Harrison. They followed Eric Wrixon's suggestion for a new name, and the Gamblers morphed into Them, their name taken from the Fifties horror movie Them![38]
The band's strong R&B performances at the Maritime attracted attention. Them performed without a routine and Morrison ad libbed, creating his songs live as he performed.[39] While the band did covers, they also played some of Morrison's early songs, such as "Could You Would You", which he had written in Camden Town while touring with the Manhattan Showband.[40] The debut of Morrison's "Gloria" took place on stage here. Sometimes, depending on his mood, the song could last up to twenty minutes. Morrison 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 performances on their records.[41] The statement also reflected the instability of the Them line-up, with numerous members passing through the ranks after the definitive Maritime period. Morrison and Henderson would remain the only constants, and a less successful version of Them even soldiered on after Morrison's departure.[42]
Dick Rowe of Decca Records became aware of the band's performances, and signed Them to a standard two-year contract. In that period, they released two albums and ten singles, with two more singles released after Morrison departed the band. They had three chart hits, "Baby, Please Don't Go" (1964), "Here Comes the Night" (1965), and "Mystic Eyes" (1965),[43] but it was the B-side of "Baby, Please Don't Go", the garage band classic "Gloria",[44] that went on to become a rock standard covered by Patti Smith, the Doors, Shadows of Knight, Jimi Hendrix and many others.[45]
Building on the success of their singles in the United States, and riding on the back of the British Invasion, Them undertook a two-month tour of America in May and June 1966 that included a residency from 30 May to 18 June at the Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles.[47] The Doors were the supporting act on the last week,[48] and Morrison's influence on the Doors singer, Jim Morrison, was noted by John Densmore in his book Riders On The Storm. Brian Hinton relates how "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."[49] On the final night, the two Morrisons and the two bands jammed together on "Gloria".[50][51][52]
Toward the end of the tour the band members became involved in a dispute with their manager, Decca Records' Phil Solomon, over the revenues paid to them; that, coupled with the expiry of their work visas, meant the band returned from America dejected. After two more concerts in Ireland, Them split up. Morrison concentrated on writing some of the songs that would appear on Astral Weeks, while the remnants of the band reformed in 1967 and relocated in America.[53]
Start of solo career with Bang Records and "Brown Eyed Girl": 1967
Bert Berns, Them’s producer and composer of their 1965 hit, "Here Comes the Night", persuaded Morrison to return to New York to record solo for his new label, Bang Records.[55] Morrison flew over and signed a contract he had not fully studied.[56] Then, during a two-day recording session at A & R Studios starting 28 March 1967, eight songs were recorded, originally intended to be used as four singles.[57] Instead, these songs were released as the album Blowin' Your Mind! without Morrison being consulted. He said he only became aware of the album's release 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."[58]
However, from these early sessions emerged "Brown Eyed Girl". Captured on the 22nd take on the first day,[59] this song was released as a single in mid-June 1967,[60] reaching number ten in the US charts in 1967. "Brown Eyed Girl" became Morrison's most played song and over the years it has remained a classic; forty years later in 2007, it was the fourth most requested song of DJs in the US.[61]
Following the death of Berns in 1967, Morrison became involved in a contract dispute with Berns' widow, Ilene Berns, that prevented him from performing on stage or recording in the New York area.[62] The song "Big Time Operators", released in 1993, is thought to allude to his dealings with the New York music business during this time period.[63] 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 concert bookings.[64] However, through the few gigs he could find, he regained his professional footing and started recording with the Warner Bros. Records label.[65][66] The record company managed to buy out his contract with Bang Records. Morrison fulfilled a clause that bound him to submit thirty-six original songs within a year to Web IV Music, Berns' music publishing company, by recording thirty-one songs in one session; however, Ilene Berns thought the songs "nonsense music ... about ringworms" and did not use them.[67][68] The throwaway compositions would come to be known as the "revenge" songs.[69]
Astral Weeks: 1968
"Astral Weeks is about the power of the human voice – ecstatic agony, agonising ecstacy. Here is an Irish tenor reborn as a White Negro – a Caucasian Soul Man – pleading and beseeching over a bed of dreamy folk-jazz instrumentation: acoustic bass, brushed drums, vibes and acoustic guitar, the odd string quartet – and of course flute."
–Barney Hoskyns – Mojo[70]
His first album for Warner Bros. Records was Astral Weeks (which he had already performed in several clubs around Boston), a mystical song cycle, often considered to be his best work and one of the best albums of all time.[72] [73][74] Morrison has said, "When Astral Weeks came out, I was starving, literally."[75] Released in 1968, the album eventually 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.[73] It has been compared to French Impressionism and mystical Celtic poetry.[76][77][78] 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."[79] Alan Light would later describe Astral Weeks as "like nothing he had done previously—and really, nothing anyone had done previously. Morrison sings of lost love, death, and nostalgia for childhood in the Celtic soul that would become his signature."[6] It has been placed on many lists of best albums of all time. In the 1995 Mojo list of 100 Best Albums, it was listed as number two and was number nineteen on the Rolling Stone magazine's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003.[80][81] In December 2009, it was voted the top Irish album of all time by a poll of leading Irish musicians conducted by Hot Press magazine.[82][83]
From Moondance to Into the Music: 1970–79
Morrison's third solo album, Moondance, which was released in 1970, became his first million selling album and reached number twenty-nine on the Billboard charts.[84][85][86] The style of Moondance stood in contrast to that of Astral Weeks. Whereas Astral Weeks had a sorrowful and vulnerable tone, Moondance restored a more optimistic and cheerful message to his music,[87] which abandoned the previous record's abstract folk compositions in favor of more formally composed songs and a lively rhythm and blues music he would expand on throughout his career.[88] The title track, although not released in the US as a single until 1977, received heavy play in FM radio formats.[89] "Into the Mystic" has also gained a wide following over the years.[90][91] "Come Running", which reached the American Top 40, rescued Morrison from what seemed then as Hot 100 obscurity.[92] Moondance was both well received and favourably reviewed. Lester Bangs and Greil Marcus had a combined full page review in Rolling Stone, stating that Morrison now had "the striking imagination of a consciousness that is visionary in the strongest sense of the word."[93] "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.[94] Moondance was listed at number sixty-five on the Rolling Stone magazine's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[81] In March 2007, Moondance was listed as number seventy-two on the NARM Rock and Roll Hall of Fame list of the "Definitive 200".[95]
Over the next few years, he released a succession of albums, starting with a second one in 1970. His Band and the Street Choir had a freer, more relaxed sound than Moondance, but not the perfection, in the opinion of critic Jon Landau, who felt like "a few more numbers with a gravity of 'Street Choir' would have made this album as perfect as anyone could have stood."[96] It contained the hit single "Domino", which charted at number nine in the Billboard Hot 100.[97]
In 1971, he released another well-received album, Tupelo Honey.[98] This album produced the hit single "Wild Night" that was later covered by John Mellencamp. The title song has a notably country-soul feel about it[99] and the album ended with another country tune, "Moonshine Whiskey". Morrison said he originally intended to make an all country album.[100] The recordings were as live as possible – after rehearsing the songs the musicians would go into the studio and play a whole set in one take.[101] His co-producer, Ted Templeman, described this recording process 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."[102]
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 a versatility not previously found in his earlier albums.[103] Two songs, "Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When You Smile)" and "Redwood Tree", reached the Hot 100 singles chart.[92] The songs "Listen to the Lion" and "Almost Independence Day" are each over ten minutes long and employ the type of poetic imagery not heard since Astral Weeks.[103][104] It was his highest charting album in the US until his Top Ten debut on Billboard 200 in 2008.[105]
He released his next album Hard Nose the Highway in 1973 receiving mixed, but mostly negative, reviews. The album contained the popular song "Warm Love" but otherwise has been largely dismissed critically.[106] In a 1973 Rolling Stone review, it was described as: "psychologically complex, musically somewhat uneven and lyrically excellent."[107]
During a three-week vacation visit to Ireland in October 1973, Morrison wrote seven of the songs that would make up his next album, Veedon Fleece.[108] Though it attracted scant initial attention, its critical stature grew markedly over the years—with Veedon Fleece now often considered to be one of Morrison's most impressive and poetic works.[109][110] In a 2008 Rolling Stone review, Andy Greene writes that when released in late 1974: "it was greeted by a collective shrug by the rock critical establishment" and concludes: "He's released many wonderful albums since, but he's never again hit the majestic heights of this one."[111] "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.[112]
Morrison would not release a follow-up album for another three years. After a decade without taking time off, he said in an interview, he needed to get away from music completely and ceased listening to it for several months.[113] Also suffering from writer's block, he seriously considered leaving the music business for good.[114] Speculation that an extended jam session would be released either under the title Mechanical Bliss, or Naked in the Jungle, or Stiff Upper Lip, came to nothing,[115] and Morrison's next album was A Period of Transition in 1977, a collaboration with Dr. John, who had appeared at The Last Waltz concert with Morrison in 1976. The album received a mild critical reception and marked the beginning of a very prolific period of song making.
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')
The following year, Morrison released Wavelength; it became at that time the fastest-selling album of his career and soon went gold.[116] The title track became a modest hit, peaking at number forty-two. Making use of 1970s synthesisers, it mimics the sounds of the shortwave radio stations that he listened to in his youth.[117] The opening track, "Kingdom Hall" evoked Morrison's own childhood experiences attending church with his mother[116] and foretold a religious theme that would be more evident in his next album, Into the Music.[118]
Considered by AllMusic as "the definitive post-classic-era Morrison",[119] Into the Music, was released in the last year of the 1970s. Songs on this album for the first time alluded to the healing power of music, which would become an abiding interest of Morrison's.[120] "Bright Side of the Road" was a joyful, uplifting song that would appear on the soundtrack of the movie, Michael.[121]
Common One to Avalon Sunset: 1980–89
With his next album, the new decade found Morrison following his muse into uncharted territory and merciless reviews.[122][123] In February 1980, Morrison and a group of musicians travelled to Super Bear, a studio in the French Alps, to record (on the site of a former abbey) what is considered to be the most controversial album in his discography; later "Morrison admitted that his original concept was even more esoteric than the final product."[124][125] The album, Common One, consisted of 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."[124] 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."[122] Morrison insisted that the album was never "meant to be a commercial album."[122] Biographer Clinton Heylin concludes: "He would not attempt anything so ambitious again. Henceforth every radical idea would be tempered by some notion of commerciality."[125] Later the critics would reassess the album more favourably with the success of "Summertime in England".[125] Lester Bangs wrote in 1982, "Van was making holy music even though he thought he was, and us rock critics had made our usual mistake of paying too much attention to the lyrics."[122]
Morrison's next album, Beautiful Vision, released in 1982, had him returning once again to the music of his Northern Irish roots.[126] Well received by the critics and public, it produced a minor UK hit single, "Cleaning Windows", that referenced one of Morrison's first jobs after leaving school.[127] 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 Morrison's spiritual interests and serve as a steadying influence on him throughout most of the 1980s.[128] "Scandinavia", with Morrison on piano,[129] was nominated in the Best Rock Instrumental Performance category for the 25th Annual Grammy Awards.[130]
Much of the music Morrison released throughout the 1980s continued to focus on the themes of spirituality and faith. His 1983 album, Inarticulate Speech of the Heart was "a move towards creating music for meditation" with synthesisers, uilleann pipes and flute sounds and four of the tracks were instrumentals.[131] The titling of the album and the presence of the instrumentals were noted to be indicative of Morrison's long-held belief that "it's not the words one uses but the force of conviction behind those words that matters."[129] During this period of time, Morrison had studied Scientology and gave "Special Thanks" to L. Ron Hubbard on the album's credits.[132]
A Sense of Wonder, Morrison's 1985 album, pulled together the spiritual themes contained in his last four albums, which were defined in a Rolling Stone review as: "rebirth (Into the Music), deep contemplation and meditation, (Common One); ecstasy and humility (Beautiful Vision); and blissful, mantra like languor (Inarticulate Speech of the Heart)."[133] The single, "Tore Down a la Rimbaud" was a reference to Rimbaud and an earlier bout of writer's block that Morrison had encountered in 1974.[134] In 1985, Morrison also wrote the musical score for the movie, Lamb starring Liam Neeson.[135]
Morrison's 1986 release, No Guru, No Method, No Teacher, was said to contain a "genuine holiness...and musical freshness that needs to be set in context to understand."[136] Critical response was favourable with a Sounds reviewer calling the album "his most intriguingly involved since Astral Weeks" and "Morrison at his most mystical, magical best."[137][138] It contains the 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".[136] He entitled the album as a rebuttal to media attempts to place him in various creeds.[139] 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.[140]
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.[141] The romantic ballad from this album, "Someone Like You", has been featured subsequently in the soundtracks of several movies, including 1995's French Kiss, and in 2001, both Someone Like You and Bridget Jones's Diary.[121][142]
In 1988, he released Irish Heartbeat, a collection of traditional Irish folk songs recorded with the Irish group the Chieftains, which reached number 18 in the UK album charts. The title song, "Irish Heartbeat", was originally recorded on his 1983 album Inarticulate Speech of the Heart.[143]
The 1989 album, 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)),[144] reached 13 on the UK album chart. Although considered to be a deeply spiritual album,[145] it also contained "Daring Night", which "deals with full, blazing sex, whatever its churchy organ and gentle lilt suggest"(Hinton).[146] Morrison's familiar themes of "God, woman, his childhood in Belfast and those enchanted moments when time stands still" were prominent in the songs.[147] He can be heard calling out the change of tempo at the end of this song, repeating the numbers "1 – 4" to cue the chord changes (the first and fourth chord in the key of the music). He often completed albums in two days, frequently releasing first takes.[148][149]
The Best of Van Morrison to Back on Top: 1990–99
The early to middle 1990s were commercially successful for Morrison with three albums reaching the top five of the UK charts, sold-out concerts, and a more visible public profile; but this period also marked a decline in the critical reception to his work.[150] The decade began with the release of The Best of Van Morrison; compiled by Morrison himself, the album was focused on his hit singles, and became a multi-platinum success remaining a year and a half on the UK charts. AllMusic determined it to be "far and away the best selling album of his career."[90][151] After Enlightenment which included the hit singles "Real Real Gone" and the title cut in 1990, an ambitious double album "Hymns to the Silence" was released the following year, his only double studio album. Another compilation album, The Best of Van Morrison Volume Two was released in January 1993, followed by Too Long in Exile in June, another top five chart success.[152] The 1994 live double album A Night in San Francisco received favourable reviews as well as commercial success by reaching number eight on the UK charts.[153][154][155][156] 1995's Days Like This also had large sales – though the critical reviews were not always favourable.[157] This period also saw a number of side projects, including the live jazz performances of 1996's How Long Has This Been Going On, from the same year 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 early musical influences.
In 1997, Morrison released The Healing Game. The album received mixed reviews, with the lyrics being described as "tired" and "dull",[158] though critic Greil Marcus praised the musical complexity of the album by saying: "It carries the listener into a musical home so perfect and complete he or she might have forgotten that music could call up such a place, and then populate it with people, acts, wishes, fears."[159] The following year, Morrison finally released some of his previously unissued studio recordings in a 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.[160]
Recent years: 2000–present
Van Morrison continued to record and tour in the 2000s, often performing two or three times a week.[161] He formed his own independent label, Exile Productions Ltd, which enables him to maintain 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.[162]
The album, Down the Road released in May 2002, received a good critical reception and proved to be his highest charting album in the US since 1972's Saint Dominic's Preview.[105] It had a nostalgic tone, with its fifteen tracks representing the various musical genres that Morrison had previously covered—including R&B, blues, country and folk;[163] one of the tracks was written as a tribute to his late father George, who had played a pivotal role in nurturing his early musical tastes.[11]
Morrison's 2005 album, Magic Time, debuted at number twenty-five on the US Billboard 200 charts upon its May release, some forty years after Morrison first entered the public's eye as the frontman of Them. Rolling Stone listed it as number seventeen on The Top 50 Records of 2005.[164] Also in July 2005, Morrison was named by Amazon as one of their top twenty-five all-time best-selling artists and inducted into the Amazon.com Hall of Fame.[165] 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.[166] Morrison composed the song, "Blue and Green", featuring 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 UK. Van Morrison was a headline act at the international Celtic music festival, The Hebridean Celtic Festival in Stornoway Outer Hebrides in the summer of 2005.[167]
He released an album with a country music theme, entitled Pay the Devil, on 7 March 2006 and appeared at the Ryman Auditorium where the tickets sold out immediately after they went on sale.[168] Pay the Devil debuted at number twenty-six on the Billboard 200 and peaked at number seven on Top Country Albums.[169][170] Amazon Best of 2006 Editor's Picks in Country listed the country album at number ten in December 2006. Still promoting the country album, Morrison's performance as the headline act on the first night of the Austin City Limits Music Festival on 15 September 2006 was reviewed by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the top ten shows of the 2006 festival.[171] In November 2006, a limited edition album, Live at Austin City Limits Festival was issued by Exile Productions, Ltd. A later deluxe CD/DVD release of Pay the Devil, in the summer of 2006 contained tracks from the Ryman performance.[172] In October 2006, Morrison had released his first commercial DVD, Live at Montreux 1980/1974 with concerts taken from two separate appearances at the Montreux Jazz Festival.
A new double CD compilation album The Best of Van Morrison Volume 3 was released in June 2007 containing thirty-one tracks, some of which were previously unreleased. Morrison selected the tracks, which ranged from the 1993 album Too Long in Exile to the song "Stranded" from the 2005 album Magic Time.[173] On 3 September 2007, Morrison's complete catalogue of albums from 1971 through 2002 were made available exclusively at the iTunes Store in Europe and Australia and during the first week of October 2007, the albums became available at the US iTunes Store.[174]
Still on Top – The Greatest Hits, a thirty-seven track double CD compilation album was released on 22 October 2007 in the UK on the Polydor label. On 29 October 2007, the album charted at number two on the Official UK Top 75 Albums—his highest UK charting.[175] The November release in the US and Canada contains twenty-one selected tracks.[176] The hits that were released on albums with the copyrights owned by Morrison as Exile Productions Ltd.—1971 and later—had been remastered in 2007.
Keep It Simple, Morrison's 33rd 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 US and Canada on 1 April 2008.[177] It comprised eleven self-penned tracks. Morrison promoted the album with a short US tour including an appearance at the SXSW music conference,[178][179] and a UK concert broadcast on BBC Radio 2. In the first week of release Keep It Simple debuted on the Billboard 200 chart at number ten, Morrison's first Top Ten charting in the US.[180]
Morrison released his 34th studio album, Born to Sing: No Plan B on 2 October 2012 on Blue Note Records. The album was recorded in Belfast, Morrison's birthplace and hometown.[181] The first single from this album, "Open the Door (To Your Heart)", was released on 24 August 2012.[182]
A selection of Morrison's lyrics, Lit Up Inside, was published by City Lights Books in the US and Faber & Faber in the UK [183] the book was released on 2 October 2014 and an evening of words and music commenced at the Lyric Theatre, London on 17 November 2014 to mark its launch. Morrison himself selected his best and most iconic lyrics from a catalog of 50 years of writing [184]
Morrison's 35th studio album, Duets: Re-working the Catalogue was released on 24 March 2015 on the RCA record label.[185]
In 2015 he was knighted for his services to popular music.[186]
Live performances
By 1972, after being a performer for nearly ten years, Morrison 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 agonising 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.[23]
The 1974 live double album, It's Too Late to Stop Now has been noted to be one of the greatest recordings of a live concert[187] [188][189] and has appeared on lists of greatest live albums of all time.[190][191][192][193] Biographer Johnny Rogan states that "Morrison was in the midst of what was arguably his greatest phase as a performer."[194] Performances on the album were from tapes made during a three-month tour of the US and Europe in 1973 with the backing group the Caledonia Soul Orchestra. Soon after recording the album, Morrison restructured the Caledonia Soul Orchestra into a smaller unit, the Caledonia Soul Express.[195]
Morrison performs in 1976 at The Band's final concert filmed for The Last Waltz.
On Thanksgiving Day 1976, Morrison performed at the farewell concert for the Band. It was his first live performance in several years, and 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."[196][197] Morrison was on good terms with the members of the Band as near-neighbours in Woodstock, and they had the shared experience of stage fright. At the concert, he performed two songs. His first was a rendition of the classic Irish song "Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ral".[198] His second song was "Caravan", from his 1970 album Moondance. Greil Marcus, in attendance at the concert, wrote: "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."[199] The filmed concert served as the basis for Martin Scorsese's 1978 film, The Last Waltz.[200]
During his association with the Band, Morrison acquired the nicknames "Belfast Cowboy" and "Van the Man".[201] On the Band's album Cahoots, as part of the duet "4% Pantomime" that Morrison sings with Richard Manuel (and that he co-wrote with Robbie Robertson), Manuel addresses him, "Oh, Belfast Cowboy". When he leaves the stage after performing "Caravan" on The Last Waltz, Robertson calls out "Van the Man!"[118]
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 three hundred thousand and half a million people and broadcast live on television.[202] He sang "Comfortably Numb" with Roger Waters, and several members from The Band: Levon Helm, Garth Hudson and Rick Danko. At concert's end, he and the other performers sang "The Tide Is Turning".
Morrison performed before an estimated audience of sixty to eighty thousand 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.[203]
Van Morrison continued performing concerts in the 2000s throughout the year rather than touring.[161] Playing few of his best-known songs in concert, he has firmly resisted relegation to a nostalgia act.[204][205] 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.[206]
On 7 and 8 November 2008, at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California, Morrison performed the entire Astral Weeks album live for the first time. The Astral Weeks band featured guitarist Jay Berliner, who had played on the album that was released forty years previously in November 1968. Also featured on piano was Roger Kellaway. A live album entitled Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl resulted from these two performances.[208] The new live album on CD was released on 24 February 2009,[209] followed by a DVD from the performances.[210] The DVD, Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl: The Concert Film was released via Amazon Exclusive on 19 May 2009. In February and March 2009, Morrison returned to the US for Astral Weeks Live concerts, interviews and TV appearances with concerts at Madison Square Garden and at the Beacon Theatre in New York City.[211][212] He was interviewed by Don Imus on his Imus in the Morning radio show and put in guest appearances on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and Live with Regis and Kelly.[213][214][215] Morrison continued with the Astral Weeks performances with two concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in London in April[216][217] and then returned to California in May 2009 performing the Astral Weeks songs at the Hearst Greek Theatre in Berkeley, the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles, California and appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.[218] Morrison filmed the concerts at the Orpheum Theatre so that they could be viewed by Farrah Fawcett, confined to bed with cancer and thus unable to attend the concerts.[219][220]
In addition to It's Too Late to Stop Now and Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl, Morrison has released three other live albums: Live at the Grand Opera House Belfast in 1984; A Night in San Francisco in 1994 that Rolling Stone magazine felt stood out 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";[153] and The Skiffle Sessions – Live in Belfast 1998 recorded with Lonnie Donegan and Chris Barber and released in 2000.
Morrison performs at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival in 2010.
Morrison was scheduled to perform at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 25th anniversary concert on 30 October 2009, but cancelled.[221] In an interview on 26 October, Morrison told his host Don Imus that he had planned to play "a couple of songs" with Eric Clapton (who had cancelled on 22 October due to gallstone surgery),[222] but that they would do something else together at "some other stage of the game".[223]
Morrison performed for the Edmonton Folk Music Festival in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada on 4 August 2010 as the headline act for the fundraiser and scheduled as second day headliner at the Feis 2011 Festival in London's Finsbury Park on 19 June 2011.[224][225][226]
Morrison appeared in concert at Odyssey Arena in Belfast on 3 February and at the O2 in Dublin on 4 February 2012. He appeared at the 46th Montreux Jazz Festival as a headliner on 7 July 2012.[227]
In 2014 Morrison's former high school Orangefield High School, formerly known as Orangefield Boys' Secondary School closed its doors permanently. To mark the school's closure Morrison performed in the school assembly hall for three nights of concerts from 22–24 August. The performance on the 22 August was exclusively for former teachers and pupils and the two remaining concerts were for members of the public [228]
The first night of the Nocturne Live [229] concerts at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, UK on 25 June 2015, featured Morrison and Grammy Award-winning American Jazz vocalist and songwriter Gregory Porter.
Collaborations
During the 1990s, 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 to Morrison's band; and Brian Kennedy's vocals complemented the grizzled voice of Morrison, both in studio and live performances.
The 1990s also 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.[230]
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 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.[231] The project capped a series of Morrison and Hooker collaborations that began in 1971 when they performed a duet on the title track of Hooker's 1972 album Never Get Out of These Blues Alive. On this album, Hooker also recorded a cover of Morrison's "T.B. Sheets".[232]
Morrison additionally collaborated with Tom Jones on his 1999 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 2000 album, Sailing to Philadelphia.[233] In 2004, Morrison was one of the guests on Ray Charles' album, Genius Loves Company, featuring the two artists performing Morrison's "Crazy Love".
In 2000, Morrison recorded a classic country music duet album You Win Again with Linda Gail Lewis. The album received a three star review from AllMusic who called it "a roots effort that never sounds studied".[234]
Music
Vocals
It is at the heart of Morrison’s presence as a singer that when he lights on certain sounds, certain small moments inside a song—hesitations, silences, shifts in pressure, sudden entrances, slamming doors—can then suggest whole territories, completed stories, indistinct ceremonies, far outside anything that can be literally traced in the compositions that carry them.
–Greil Marcus[235]
Featuring his characteristic growl—a mix of folk, blues, soul, jazz, gospel, and Ulster Scots Celtic influences—Morrison is widely considered by many rock historians to be one of the most unusual and influential vocalists in the history of rock and roll.[236][237][238] Critic Greil Marcus has gone so far as to say that "no white man sings like Van Morrison."[239] In his 2010 book, Marcus wrote, "As a physical fact, Morrison may have the richest and most expressive voice pop music has produced since Elvis Presley, and with a sense of himself as an artist that Elvis was always denied."[240]
As Morrison began live performances of the 40-year-old album Astral Weeks in 2008, there were comparisons to his youthful voice of 1968. His early voice was described as "flinty and tender, beseeching and plaintive".[71] Forty years later, the difference in his vocal range and power were noticeable but reviewers and critic's comments were favourable: "Morrison's voice has expanded to fill his frame; a deeper, louder roar than the blue-eyed soul voice of his youth – softer on the diction – but none the less impressively powerful."[207] Morrison also commented on the changes in his approach to singing: "The approach now is to sing from lower down [the diaphragm] so I do not ruin my voice. Before, I sang in the upper area of my throat, which tends to wreck the vocal cords over time. Singing from lower in the belly allows my resonance to carry far. I can stand four feet from a mic and be heard quite resonantly."[241]
Songwriting and lyrics
Morrison has written hundreds of songs[242][243] during his career with a recurring theme reflecting a nostalgic yearning for the carefree days of his childhood in Belfast.[244] Some of his song titles derive from familiar locations in his childhood, such as "Cyprus Avenue" (a nearby street), "Orangefield" (the boys school he attended), and "On Hyndford Street" (where he was born). Also frequently present in Morrison's best love songs is a blending of the sacred-profane as evidenced in "Into the Mystic" and "So Quiet in Here".[245][246]
Beginning with his 1979 album, Into the Music and the song "And the Healing Has Begun", a frequent theme of his music and lyrics has been based on his belief in the healing power of music combined with a form of mystic Christianity. This theme has become one of the predominant qualities of his work.[247]
His lyrics show an influence of the visionary poets William Blake and W. B. Yeats[248] and others such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth.[249] Biographer Brian Hinton believes "like any great poet from Blake to Seamus Heaney he takes words back to their origins in magic...Indeed, Morrison is returning poetry to its earliest roots – as in Homer or Old English epics like Beowulf or the Psalms or folk song – in all of which words and music combine to form a new reality."[245] Another biographer John Collis believes that Morrison's style of jazz singing and repeating phrases preclude his lyrics from being regarded as poetry or as Collis asserts: "he is more likely to repeat a phrase like a mantra, or burst into scat singing. The words may often be prosaic, and so can hardly be poetry."[250]
Morrison has described his songwriting method by remarking that: "I write from a different place. I do not even know what it is called or if it has a name. It just comes and I sculpt it, but it is also a lot of hard work doing the sculpting."[241]
Performance style
"Van Morrison is interested, obsessed with how much musical or verbal information he can compress into a small space, and, almost, conversely, how far he can spread one note, word, sound, or picture. To capture one moment, be it a caress or a twitch. He repeats certain phrases to extremes that from anybody else would seem ridiculous, because he's waiting for a vision to unfold, trying as unobtrusively as possible to nudge it along...It's the great search, fuelled by the belief that through these musical and mental processes illumination is attainable. Or may at least be glimpsed."
–Lester Bangs[251]
Critic Greil Marcus 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."[252] Or in the words of Jay Cocks: "He extends himself only to express himself. Alone among rock's great figures—and even in that company he is one of the greatest—Morrison is adamantly inward. And unique. Although he freely crosses musical boundaries— R&B, Celtic melodies, jazz, rave-up rock, hymns, down-and-dirty blues—he can unfailingly be found in the same strange place: on his own wavelength."[253]
His transcendental signature style first came into full expression with his 1968 classic, Astral Weeks and he was noted to have remained a "master of his transcendental craft" in 2009 while performing the Astral Weeks songs live.[254][255][256][257] This musical art form was based on stream of consciousness songwriting and emotional vocalising of lyrics that have no basis in normal structure or symmetry. His live performances are dependent on building dynamics with spontaneity between himself and his band, whom he controls with hand gestures throughout, sometimes signalling impromptu solos from a selected band member. The music and vocals build towards a hypnotic and trance-like state that depends on in-the-moment creativity. Scott Foundas with LA Weekly wrote "he seeks to transcend the apparent boundaries of any given song; to achieve a total freedom of form; to take himself, his band and the audience on a journey whose destination is anything but known."[244][258] Greil Marcus wrote an entire book devoted to examining the moments in Morrison's music where he reaches this state of transcendence and explains: "But in his music the same sense of escape from ordinary limits – a reach for, or the achievement of, a kind of violent transcendence – can come from hesitations, repetitions of words or phrases, pauses, the way a musical change by another musician is turned by Morrison as a bandleader or seized on by him as a singer and changed into a sound that becomes an event in and of itself. In these moments, the self is left behind, and the sound, that "yarragh," becomes the active agent: a musical person, with its own mind, its own body."[259] A book reviewer further described it as "This transcendent moment of music when the song and the singer are one thing not two, neither dependent on the other or separate from the other but melded to the other like one, like breath and life..."[260]
Morrison has said he believes in the jazz improvisational technique of never performing a song the same way twice and except for the unique rendition of the Astral Weeks songs live, doesn't perform a concert from a preconceived set list.[204] Morrison has said he prefers to perform at smaller venues or symphony halls noted for their good acoustics.[261] His ban against alcoholic beverages, which made entertainment news during 2008, was an attempt to prevent the disruptive and distracting movement of audience members leaving their seats during the performances.[262] In a 2009 interview, Morrison stated: "I do not consciously aim to take the listener anywhere. If anything, I aim to take myself there in my music. If the listener catches the wavelength of what I am saying or singing, or gets whatever point whatever line means to them, then I guess as a writer I may have done a day's work."[263]
Genre
The music of Van Morrison has encompassed many genres since his early days as a blues and R&B singer in Belfast. Over the years he has recorded songs from a varying list of genres drawn from many influences and interests. As well as blues and R&B, his compositions and covers have moved between pop music, jazz, rock, folk, country, gospel, Irish folk and traditional, big band, skiffle, rock and roll, new age, classical and sometimes spoken word ("Coney Island") and instrumentals.[264] Morrison defines himself as a soul singer.[265]
Some of Morrison's music has been classified in a genre of its own and referred to as "Celtic soul"[6] or what biographer Brian Hinton referred to as a new alchemy called "Caledonian soul."[245] Another biographer, Ritchie Yorke quoted Morrison as believing that he has "the spirit of Caledonia in his soul and his music reflects it."[266] According to Yorke, Morrison claimed to have discovered "a certain quality of soul" when he first visited Scotland (his Belfast ancestors were of Ulster Scots descent) and Morrison has said he believes there is some connection between soul music and Caledonia. Yorke relates that Morrison "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 Scottish folk music."[266]
Caledonia
The name "Caledonia" has played a prominent role in Morrison's life and career. Biographer Ritchie Yorke had pointed out already by 1975 that Morrison has referred to Caledonia so many times in his career that he "seems to be obsessed with the word".[266] In his 2009 biography, Erik Hage found that "Morrison seemed deeply interested in his paternal Scottish roots during his early career, and later in the ancient countryside of England, hence his repeated use of the term Caledonia (an ancient Roman name for Scotland/northern Britain)".[267] As well as being his daughter Shana's middle name, it is the name of his first production company, his studio, his publishing company, two of his backing groups, his parents' record store in Fairfax, California in the 1970s, and he also recorded a cover of the song "Caldonia" (with the name spelled "Caledonia") in 1974.[266][268] Morrison used "Caledonia" in what has been called a quintessential Van Morrison moment in the song, "Listen to the Lion" with the lyrics, "And we sail, and we sail, way up to Caledonia".[269] As late as 2008, Morrison used "Caledonia" as a mantra in the live performance of the song, "Astral Weeks" recorded at the two Hollywood Bowl concerts.[263]
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 & Schuster, 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".[236] His influence includes U2 (Bono was quoted saying "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.");[270] John Mellencamp ("Wild Night");[271] Jim Morrison;[49] Joan Armatrading (the only musical influence she will acknowledge);[272] Nick Cave;[273]Rod Stewart;[274] Tom Petty;[275] Rickie Lee Jones (recognises both Laura Nyro and Van Morrison as the main influences on her career);[276][277] Elton John;[278] Graham Parker;[279] Sinéad O'Connor;[280] Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy;[281] Bob Seger ("I know Bruce Springsteen was very much affected by Van Morrison, and so was I." from Creem interview)[279] ("I've Been Working");[282] Kevin Rowland of Dexys Midnight Runners ("Jackie Wilson Said");[283][284] Jimi Hendrix ("Gloria");[285] Jeff Buckley ("The Way Young Lovers Do", "Sweet Thing");[286] Nick Drake;[287] and numerous others, including the Counting Crows (their "sha-la-la" sequence in Mr Jones, is a tribute to Morrison).[288] Morrison's influence reaches into the country music genre, with Hal Ketchum acknowledging, "He (Van Morrison) was a major influence in my life."[289]
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";[290] Ray Lamontagne;[291] James Morrison;[292][293] Paolo Nutini;[294] Eric Lindell[295] David Gray and Ed Sheeran[296] 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.[297] American rock band the Wallflowers have covered "Into the Mystic".[298] Canadian blues-rock singer Colin James also covers the song frequently at his concerts.[299] Actor and musician Robert Pattinson has said that Van Morrison was his "influence for doing music in the first place".[300] Morrison has shared the stage with Northern Irish singer-songwriter Duke Special, who admits Morrison has been a big influence.[301]
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.[153] 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 James Hunter,[302] and fellow Belfast-born brothers, Brian and Bap Kennedy.[303][304]
Morrison has also influenced the other arts: the German painter Johannes Heisig created a series of lithographs illustrating the book In the Garden – for Van Morrison, published by Städtische Galerie Sonneberg, Germany, in 1997.[305]
Personal life
Morrison lived in Belfast from birth until 1967, when he moved to New York after signing with Bang Records. Facing deportation due to visa problems, he managed to stay in the US when his American girlfriend Janet (Planet) Rigsbee agreed to marry him.[306] Once married, Morrison and his wife moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he found work performing in local clubs. The couple had one daughter in 1970, Shana Morrison, who has become a singer-songwriter. Morrison and his family moved around America, living in Boston; Woodstock, New York; and a hilltop home in Fairfax, California. His wife appeared on the cover of the album Tupelo Honey. They divorced in 1973.[307][308]
Morrison moved back to Europe in the late 1970s, first settling in London's Notting Hill Gate area.[309] Later, he moved to Bath, where he purchased The Wool Hall Studio in January 1994.[310] He also has a home in the Irish seaside village of Dalkey near Dublin, where legal actions against two different neighbours concerning safety and privacy issues have been taken to court in 2001 and in 2010.[311][312][313][314] In the former case, Morrison pursued his action all the way to the Irish Supreme Court.[315]
In 2001, nine months into a tour with Linda Gail Lewis promoting their collaboration You Win Again, Ms. Lewis left, later filing claims against Morrison for unfair dismissal and sexual discrimination. Both claims were later withdrawn, and Morrison's solicitor was quoted that "(Van's) pleased that these claims have finally been withdrawn. He accepted a full apology and comprehensive retraction which represents a complete vindication of his stance from the outset. Miss Lewis has given a full and categorical apology and retraction to Mr. Morrison."[316]
Morrison met Irish socialite Michelle Rocca in the summer of 1992, and they often featured in the Dublin gossip columns, an unusual event for the reclusive Morrison. Rocca also appeared on one of his album covers, Days Like This.[317] The couple are married and have two children;[318] a daughter was born in January 2006 and a son was born in August 2007.[319][320]
In December 2009, Texas native and Morrison employee Gigi Lee gave birth to a son whom she asserted was Morrison's and whom she named after him. Lee announced the birth of the child on Morrison's official website although Morrison has subsequently denied paternity of the child. It was revealed in December 2011 that Lee died from throat cancer in October 2011 and her son had died previously in January 2011, from complications of diabetes.
VAN MORRISON ESSEN 4.APRIL 1982 Complete Concert
Van Morrison - Candy Dulfer Live Rockpalast
Van Morrison Live at Blues On The Bay Festival - 2016
„Spider“ John Koerner *31.08.1938
„Spider“ John Koerner (* 31. August 1938 in Rochester, New York) ist ein US-amerikanischer Sänger, Gitarrist und Songwriter, der vor allem durch seine Zusammenarbeit mit Dave „Snaker“ Ray und Tony „Little Sun“ Glover bekannt geworden ist.
In den 1960er Jahren sind die drei zunächst gemeinsam unter dem Namen Koerner, Ray & Glover aufgetreten und haben Schallplatten veröffentlicht, sind dann seit Anfang der 1970er Jahre z. T. eigene musikalische Wege gegangen.
Koerner hat den frühen Bob Dylan beeinflusst und ist in dessen Autobiographie Chronicles erwähnt.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Koerner
"Spider" John Koerner (born August 31, 1938, Rochester, New York, United States) is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He is best known as a guitarist and vocalist for the blues trio Koerner, Ray & Glover, which included Dave Ray and Tony Glover. He has also made albums as a solo performer and with collaborator Willie Murphy.
Biography
Koerner grew up in Rochester, New York, and after a brief military service attended the University of Minnesota. He intended to major in engineering, but soon became involved in the local music scene where he met Dave Ray and Tony Glover. They formed a loose-knit trio, releasing albums under the name Koerner, Ray & Glover. The group gained notoriety with Blues, Rags and Hollers originally released by Audiophile in 1963 and then re-released by Elektra Records.[1][2]
Koerner was an early influence on Bob Dylan and is mentioned in his autobiography Chronicles. Of that time period, Koerner later said, "We were all goofy, you know. We were thinkers and drinkers and artists and players, and Dylan was one of us. He was another guy."[3]
In 1965, Koerner recorded his first solo album, Spider Blues, for Elektra and appeared at the Newport Folk Festival accompanied by Glover. He continued playing on the folk circuit and joined with Willie Murphy to record Running, Jumping, Standing Still in 1969.[4] The duo eventually split up and Koerner pursued an unsuccessful career in film-making, retiring from music and moving to Copenhagen, Denmark.[5] He later returned to music in the traditional folk music genre and continued to perform and release new albums from time to time.[1] He now lives in Minneapolis and has two sons and a daughter.
On Sunday March 11, 2012, Koerner reported, in an interview with WLRN-FM's Michael Stock, that he will soon be returning to the Newport Folk Festival.
Biography
Koerner grew up in Rochester, New York, and after a brief military service attended the University of Minnesota. He intended to major in engineering, but soon became involved in the local music scene where he met Dave Ray and Tony Glover. They formed a loose-knit trio, releasing albums under the name Koerner, Ray & Glover. The group gained notoriety with Blues, Rags and Hollers originally released by Audiophile in 1963 and then re-released by Elektra Records.[1][2]
Koerner was an early influence on Bob Dylan and is mentioned in his autobiography Chronicles. Of that time period, Koerner later said, "We were all goofy, you know. We were thinkers and drinkers and artists and players, and Dylan was one of us. He was another guy."[3]
In 1965, Koerner recorded his first solo album, Spider Blues, for Elektra and appeared at the Newport Folk Festival accompanied by Glover. He continued playing on the folk circuit and joined with Willie Murphy to record Running, Jumping, Standing Still in 1969.[4] The duo eventually split up and Koerner pursued an unsuccessful career in film-making, retiring from music and moving to Copenhagen, Denmark.[5] He later returned to music in the traditional folk music genre and continued to perform and release new albums from time to time.[1] He now lives in Minneapolis and has two sons and a daughter.
On Sunday March 11, 2012, Koerner reported, in an interview with WLRN-FM's Michael Stock, that he will soon be returning to the Newport Folk Festival.
Koerner & Glover - Last Lonesome Blues
dust my broom-Koerner, Ray and glover
Bobby Parker *31.08.1937
Bobby Parker (* 31. August 1937 in Lafayette, Louisiana; † 31. Oktober 2013 in Bowie, Maryland[1]) war ein US-amerikanischer Blues-Gitarrist, Sänger und Songschreiber. Parker wurde von etlichen bekannten Musikern als Vorbild genannt, darunter Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page und vor allem Carlos Santana.Parker, geboren in Louisiana, wuchs in Los Angeles auf. Er sah Auftritte von Jazz- und Bluesgrößen wie Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, T-Bone Walker, Lowell Fulson und Johnny Guitar Watson, und er entschied sich für eine Karriere als Bluesmusiker.
Bobby Parker spielte in den 1950ern als Gitarrist unter anderem bei Otis Williams and the Charms, Bo Diddley, Paul „Hucklebuck“ Williams, Sam Cooke und den Everly Brothers. 1961 zog er nach Washington, D.C., wo er eine Solokarriere begann.
Im gleichen Jahr hatte Parker mit Watch Your Step einen Hit, der später unter anderem von der Spencer Davis Group, Santana und Dr. Feelgood neu eingespielt wurde. Nach internationalen Erfolgen in den 1960ern wurde es in den 1970ern und 1980ern etwas ruhiger um Bobby Parker. Er trat hauptsächlich in der Gegend um Washington auf.
In den 1990ern nahm Parker seine ersten Alben auf, Bent Out of Shape (1993) und Shine Me Up (1995). Bei seinen Auftritten und Tourneen spielt er vor allem eigene Stücke.
Robert Lee "Bobby" Parker (August 31, 1937 – October 31, 2013[2]), was an American blues-rock guitarist, singer and songwriter.[3] He is best known for his 1961 song "Watch Your Step", a single for the V-Tone record label which reached the Billboard Hot 100; the song was performed by, and influenced, the Beatles among others.
Biography
Born in Lafayette, Louisiana, but raised in Los Angeles, California, Parker first aspired to a career in entertainment at a young age.[3] By the 1950s, Parker had started working on electric guitar with several blues and R&B bands of the time, with his first stint being with Otis Williams and the Charms. Over the next few years, he also played lead guitar with Bo Diddley (including an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show),[3] toured with Paul Williams, Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, LaVern Baker, Clyde McPhatter, and the Everly Brothers. He first recorded, as Bobby Parks, with the Paul Williams band in 1956.[4]
His first solo single, "Blues Get Off My Shoulder", was recorded in 1958, while he was still working primarily with Williams' band. The B-side, "You Got What It Takes", also written by Parker, was later recorded for Motown by Marv Johnson, but with the songwriting credited to Berry Gordy, Gwen Fuqua and Roquel Davis. Parker told the Forgotten Hits newsletter in 2008:[5]
"I wrote 'You've Got What It Takes,' that was MY song. Even had the Paul Hucklebuck Williams band playing on it behind me... And then Berry Gordy just stole it out from under me, just put his name on it. And what could I do? I was just trying to make a living, playing guitar and singing, how was I going to go on and fight Berry Gordy, big as he was, and Motown Records? There wasn't really nothing I could do about it - it was just too big and I didn't have any way to fight them..."
Parker also performed frequently at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, and in the late 1950s toured with Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and Little Richard. By the early 1960s, he had settled into living in the Washington, D.C. area and played at blues clubs there after having left Williams' band.
He recorded the single "Watch Your Step" for the V-Tone label in 1961. The song was written by Parker, inspired by Dizzy Gillespie's "Manteca" and Ray Charles' "What'd I Say".[6] It reached no.51 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1961,[7] although it did not make the national R&B chart. It was later covered by the Spencer Davis Group, Dr. Feelgood, Steve Marriott, Adam Faith, and Carlos Santana,[3] and was performed by the Beatles in concerts during 1961 and 1962. The song's guitar riff inspired the introduction to the Beatles' 1964 hit single "I Feel Fine",[8] and, according to John Lennon, also provided the basis for "Day Tripper".[6] In relation to the Beatles' use of the riff, Parker said: "I was flattered, I thought it was a cool idea. But I still had, (in the) back of my mind, (the idea) that I should have gotten a little more recognition for that."[9] Led Zeppelin also used the riff as the basis for their instrumental "Moby Dick."[10]
With the success of the song, both in the United States and overseas, he toured the UK in 1968 and recorded his next record, "It's Hard But It's Fair" produced by Mike Vernon and released on Blue Horizon. Jimmy Page was a fan of Parker's and wanted to sign up Parker with Swan Song Records. Page offered an advance of US$2000 to fund the recording of a demo tape, but Parker never completed the recording, and an opportunity for Parker to be exposed to an international audience was lost.[citation needed] On January 1, 2012, Parker's "Watch Your Step" sound recording became Public Domain in Europe, due to the 50 year copyright law limit in the E.U.[11][12]
For the next two decades, Parker played almost exclusively in the D.C. area. By the 1990s, he started to record again for a broader audience. He recorded his first official album, Bent Out of Shape, for the Black Top Records label in 1993, with a follow-up in 1995, Shine Me Up.[3] In 1993, he also was the headliner for the Jersey Shore Jazz and Blues Festival. Parker continued to perform as a regular act at Madam's Organ Blues Bar in Washington.
Bobby Parker died of a heart attack on October 31, 2013, at the age of 76.
Biography
Born in Lafayette, Louisiana, but raised in Los Angeles, California, Parker first aspired to a career in entertainment at a young age.[3] By the 1950s, Parker had started working on electric guitar with several blues and R&B bands of the time, with his first stint being with Otis Williams and the Charms. Over the next few years, he also played lead guitar with Bo Diddley (including an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show),[3] toured with Paul Williams, Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, LaVern Baker, Clyde McPhatter, and the Everly Brothers. He first recorded, as Bobby Parks, with the Paul Williams band in 1956.[4]
His first solo single, "Blues Get Off My Shoulder", was recorded in 1958, while he was still working primarily with Williams' band. The B-side, "You Got What It Takes", also written by Parker, was later recorded for Motown by Marv Johnson, but with the songwriting credited to Berry Gordy, Gwen Fuqua and Roquel Davis. Parker told the Forgotten Hits newsletter in 2008:[5]
"I wrote 'You've Got What It Takes,' that was MY song. Even had the Paul Hucklebuck Williams band playing on it behind me... And then Berry Gordy just stole it out from under me, just put his name on it. And what could I do? I was just trying to make a living, playing guitar and singing, how was I going to go on and fight Berry Gordy, big as he was, and Motown Records? There wasn't really nothing I could do about it - it was just too big and I didn't have any way to fight them..."
Parker also performed frequently at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, and in the late 1950s toured with Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and Little Richard. By the early 1960s, he had settled into living in the Washington, D.C. area and played at blues clubs there after having left Williams' band.
He recorded the single "Watch Your Step" for the V-Tone label in 1961. The song was written by Parker, inspired by Dizzy Gillespie's "Manteca" and Ray Charles' "What'd I Say".[6] It reached no.51 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1961,[7] although it did not make the national R&B chart. It was later covered by the Spencer Davis Group, Dr. Feelgood, Steve Marriott, Adam Faith, and Carlos Santana,[3] and was performed by the Beatles in concerts during 1961 and 1962. The song's guitar riff inspired the introduction to the Beatles' 1964 hit single "I Feel Fine",[8] and, according to John Lennon, also provided the basis for "Day Tripper".[6] In relation to the Beatles' use of the riff, Parker said: "I was flattered, I thought it was a cool idea. But I still had, (in the) back of my mind, (the idea) that I should have gotten a little more recognition for that."[9] Led Zeppelin also used the riff as the basis for their instrumental "Moby Dick."[10]
With the success of the song, both in the United States and overseas, he toured the UK in 1968 and recorded his next record, "It's Hard But It's Fair" produced by Mike Vernon and released on Blue Horizon. Jimmy Page was a fan of Parker's and wanted to sign up Parker with Swan Song Records. Page offered an advance of US$2000 to fund the recording of a demo tape, but Parker never completed the recording, and an opportunity for Parker to be exposed to an international audience was lost.[citation needed] On January 1, 2012, Parker's "Watch Your Step" sound recording became Public Domain in Europe, due to the 50 year copyright law limit in the E.U.[11][12]
For the next two decades, Parker played almost exclusively in the D.C. area. By the 1990s, he started to record again for a broader audience. He recorded his first official album, Bent Out of Shape, for the Black Top Records label in 1993, with a follow-up in 1995, Shine Me Up.[3] In 1993, he also was the headliner for the Jersey Shore Jazz and Blues Festival. Parker continued to perform as a regular act at Madam's Organ Blues Bar in Washington.
Bobby Parker died of a heart attack on October 31, 2013, at the age of 76.
Bobby Parker live at Montreaux Jazz Festival
Chill out (Carlos Santana & Bobby Parker)
Jam Session at Montreux (Carlos Santana,Buddy Guy,Bobby Parker & Nile Rodgers)
Michael Juan Nunez *31.08.
Michael Juan Nunez is a singer, guitarist, songwriter, from South Louisiana whose music taps into the heart of American southern culture. It’s fresh, and urgent, yet unmistakably sprouting from very deep roots. His music paints pictures of life, as seen through the eyes of southern Louisiana. His guitar playing is raw and passionate…moaning, screaming, singing, and driving modern day melodies, with echoes of long lost dancehalls.Michael has played with many groups, most notably Zachary Richard (with whom he toured the US, Canada, and France), Roddie Romero and the HubCity AllStars (with whom he was part of the Grammy Nominated CD “The La Louisianne Sessions”), Mr. Harry Hippolyte (Guitarist for the late Zydeco legend Clifton Chenier), as well as his own group, ‘The RiverBabys’. Along the way, he has worked on stage, and in the studio with many other artists from time to time, including the great Chess Records pianist Mr. Henry Gray, and legendary NOLA musician 'The Night Tripper' Dr. John.
The RiverBabys, (Nunez, along with long time Drummer, Jeff Lewis, and Chad Willis) have toured the Gulf South making a name for themselves on the blues circuit. They competed in the IBC in Memphis, TN in 2001 and made it to the finals, where they were disqualified for playing over their time limit…the band was rockin’, the crowd was rockin’, there seemed to be no reason to stop!!! It was the opinion of many attendees, as well as some judges (which included Alligator records founder Bruce Iglauer) , as well as Memphis news papers, that had it not been for the ‘error in judgment, of playing to long’ they would have won the competition. Never the less, the band made new friends, and fans.
Michael Juan Nunez has played numerous festivals, to excited crowds, including, The King Biscuit Blues Festival, in Helena, Arkansas, The Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Festival International in Lafayette, Louisiana, The Harvest Moon Blues Festival in Atlanta, Georgia, The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, Festivals Acadian, as a performer, and at times giving clinics as well. In 2010 he also was part of a documentary called “Songs Of The Soul” shot live at Angola, Louisiana State Penitentiary.
Michael has opened for and performed with the likes of Sonny Landreth, Eric Johnson, Jimmy Vaughn, Dr. John, Kenny Wayne Sheppard, Corey Harris, C.C Adcock, Eric Burden, Taj Mahal, Dege Legg, Tab Benoit, Anders Osborne, Drew Landry and many, many others. His music has also been featured in the hit HBO series “True Blood.”
Stepping out on his own, Nunez teamed up with producer A.J. Dauphin in 2001 to record his debut solo album simply titled 'Michael Juan Nunez'. It was an all acoutsic album...the bulk of it being MJN and guitar, period. The album recieved favorable critical review, but Nunez was itching to pick up the electric guitar again, and in 2005 he again teamed up with Dauphin again for the album that would become an underground explosion 'About To Snap'. The album was voted to many top lists for 2005, and got air play nationally on blues, roots, and rock stations. It featured an appearence by one of MJN's mentors, and close friends, Cajun singer/songwriter Mr. D.L. Menard...as well as some of the finest musicians in the Acadiana area. It was recorded over a period of nearly 2 years while Nunez was touring with both Roddie Romero and Zachary Richard. It was cut, and mixed in living rooms, hotel rooms, airplanes, theaters, and tool sheds around the country. It reamins classic, and is still being discovered by many fans of roots rock music today.
His third solo release, ‘The American Electric’ is an eclectic collection of music built on a platform of American roots that twists into an almost indescribable, but yet familiar sound…Rock-N-Roll from the marshes and swamps of south Louisiana. It has received great reviews
MJN teamed up with A.J. Dauphin (co-producer of his self titled debut release, and ‘About To Snap’) and Grammy award winning engineer Tony Daigle in 2011 to record a new record. April 17th of 2012 ParishLine records released ‘My Little Train Wreck’ to rave critical reviews. The album features a bluesy south Louisiana sound that flat out rocks. It also has a guest appearance by Sonny Landreth on the title track. It marked the first time that Michael recorded in the same studio space for an entire album. Recorded in Tony Daigle's personal studio in Lafayette, LA, it features the band 'The American Electric' (Clint "Chief" Redwing on drums, and Chad Willis on bass. Dudley 'Cruz' Fruge (former drummer for TAE also makes an apperance on the record, playing drums on two cuts, as well as percussion and backing vocals throughout the album). most of the tracks were cut live, with very few overdubs, giving the album the energy and feel of a band interacting with one an other.
Ever restless, and always writing, Nunez began work on a new project in the spring of 2013. As of yet, untitled, he has once again brought in A.J. Dauphin to over see the production and act as 'The Ambassador Of Good Taste'. It also marks a return to the 'where and whenever the spirit hits' approach to recording that made 'About To Snap' such a classic. No time limit has been set for its release...so stay tuned.
http://www.michaeljuannunez.com/allabout
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=13&v=sz88HhNd6wY
My Little Train Wreck
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=13&v=sz88HhNd6wY
Kay Kay Greenwade *31.08.1955
ODESSA,
TX – It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of blues
singer Kay Kay Greenwade, who died on Monday, July 9, at age 56 in an
Odessa, Texas, nursing home. She had endured several health issues after
suffering a stroke in 2006, including diabetes and a brain tumor, and
was unable to resume her career. Funeral services will be Saturday, July
14, 2012, at Rose of Sharon Baptist Church in Odessa. Several members
of Kay Kay and the Rays, the band she fronted for many years, will be in
attendance. (Attached is a color photo of Kay Kay Greenwade for your
use.)Linda "Kay Kay" Greenwade was a life-long resident of Odessa, Texas, who was born there on August 31, 1955. She is survived by two brothers, Ronald Greenwade and Gary Greenwade, and a granddaughter, N’Sha Lynn Price, all of Odessa.
“Kay Kay was an amazing talent and a good friend,” said Bob Trenchard, head of Catfood Records. “You had to hear and see her live to realize how powerful she was and the effect she could have on the crowd. I have talked to several former band members and all of us agree that while it is sad to think of what could have been had we been able to continue working together, we are glad to have had the opportunity to work with Kay Kay and know her.”
Kay Kay was a gospel singer who was a choir member and an in-demand soloist before she began performing secular music with Kay Kay and the Rays. Last November, Catfood Records released a 15-track compilation CD, The Best of Kay Kay and the Rays, to immense critical acclaim. The retrospective included tracks from all three of the band’s recorded catalogue: Kay and the Rays Featuring Abner Burnett (1999), Texas Justice (2001) and Big Bad Girl (2003).
“The song ‘Big Bad Girl’ says, ‘she was six feet one with three inch heels.’ That was Kay Kay, the big woman with the big voice who could bring the crowd to its feet cheering,” said the album’s liner notes. “The music of Kay Kay and the Rays was a fusion of soul, funk and blues. The lyrics were often social commentary.”
The band’s lyrics pulled no punches in jabbing at powerful corporations, politicians or superficiality. Songs such as “Junk Blues,” “Stop the Killing” and “Lord Save Me from L.A.” took dead aim at social and political injustices. And the tracks “Lone Star Justice,” “Enron Field” and “Texas Justice – Billy’s Story” all resonated with truths that often provoked outrage from certain people in power (even provoking feature stories on the controversy in both Houston and Corpus Christi newspapers) in the Lone Star State, while endearing them to the crowds of people who cheered their live shows and bought their albums.
Aside from their songs with powerful messages, Kay Kay and the Rays also exemplified the best of classic soul, blues, gospel and funk on such tracks as “No Mama’s Boys,” “Hey Big Boy,” “Don’t Have to Tell Me,” Hold On to What You Got” (featuring a killer duet with Kay Kay and Johnny Rawls trading verses and layering harmonies in the best tradition of Stax Records), “Love Me Baby” and the R&B chestnut, “They’ll Come a Time,” that closed the set. The Best of Kay Kay and the Rays showcased a band of immense grit, soul and musicality, with a dynamic rhythm section, funky guitar work and punchy horns, led by a singer who was one of the best of her generation. Throughout the album, Kay Kay was sexy, soulful, tender, sassy, playful and gutsy – often within the same song.
Kay Kay and the Rays were formed in 1997 by keyboardist Abner Burnett and bass player/songwriter Bob Trenchard in Odessa, Texas. Abner was told about a talented gospel singer he needed to hear by the owner of a club in town called Sam’s Blues and Barbeque. Kay Kay Greenwade auditioned and soon the name of the band was changed from The Abner Burnett Blues Band to Kay Kay and the Rays.
The group began playing clubs on weekends in West Texas and recorded their first album, Kay Kay and the Rays Featuring Abner Burnett (more or less a demo for clubs) in 1999. Not long after that, they were discovered by the great soul blues singer Johnny Rawls. When Burnett moved to Mexico in 2000, Bob Trenchard became the leader by default. Bob had opened a large Odessa nightclub and named it Kay Kay’s Blues Club earlier that year. The band drew capacity crowds when they played the club, with eight musicians on stage - including four horns - backing Kay Kay.
Johnny Rawls produced the band’s next album, Texas Justice, in 2001, which gained the group national attention. For the next three years the band toured regionally and nationally, gaining increased popularity. They played top venues like the House of Blues in Boston, Humphrey’s by the Bay in San Diego, Biscuits and Blues in San Francisco and Buddy Guy’s Legends in Chicago; and did four tours from Texas to Florida, traveling all the way down to Key West. The 2003 performance of the band at the WC Handy Festival was broadcast as an hour long program on PBS stations across the country.
Also in 2003, the band released its Big Bad Girl album, produced by multiple Grammy winner Jim Gaines, which received rave reviews, resulting in the Big Bad Girl CD hitting the top ten blues radio charts. During Easter weekend in 2004, Kay Kay and the Rays played at the five day, sold out East Coast Blues and Roots Festival in Australia as part of a tour there to rave reviews.
Family tragedies caused the band to break up a few months later after tours to Florida and California. The music on The Best of Kay Kay and the Rays is a wonderful reminder that Kay Kay and the Rays really were a “seamless blend of soul and funk” as they were described by Blues Revue and that Kay Kay Greenwade had “established herself as a leading light of contemporary blues” as noted by Living Blues.
Kay Kay & The Rays 4 of 7
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6RUfUtfbh8
R.I.P.
Jesse Fortune +31.08.2009
Jesse Fortune (February 28, 1930 – August 31, 2009) was an American Chicago blues singer and barber.
Born in Macon, Mississippi,[1] Fortune was trained as a barber before moving to Chicago, Illinois in 1952. In Chicago, he worked as a barber during the day and a blues singer at night.[2] Fortune became one of the most popular performers for "heavy duty vocal work" in the Chicago blues scene of the 1950s and 1960s.[3] In 1952, he was hired by Otis Rush as a vocalist for the Otis Rush Band show. He also performed as a vocalist with Buddy Guy and Willie Dixon. Fortune became better known as the "Fortune Tellin' Man."[1][2][4] Blues guitarist Dave Specter said of Fortune, "He was one of the great Chicago blues singers. He had an amazingly powerful voice, kind of in the style of early B.B. King. He had so much presence he almost didn't need a microphone."[4] Fortune's best known recording was "Too Many Cooks," released in 1963.[1][2] The Robert Cray Band later covered Fortune's "Too Many Cooks." Fortune released a number of records for the USA label, but became disillusioned with the music business. He later said that he "never made a dime from his recordings."[3]
In 1992, Fortune made a come back with the release of a new album titled Fortune Tellin' Man.[5] Down Beat Magazine wrote, "Fortune's Delmark CD, Fortune Tellin' Man, showcases his gospelly vocal grit; he uses his love for B.B. King's style as a springboard instead of a crutch."[3] And Cadence Magazine wrote, "His voice is expressive yet never sounds strained or labored. He is deeply soulful with a strutting rhythmic style ... that give this material such a freshness not often hear on Blues releases these days. Jesse Fortune's return to recording and gigging is a most welcome event."[3] Fortune operated a barber shop on Chicago's west side in his later years and continued to perform occasionally in Chicago's blues clubs.[3]
Delmark Records founder Bob Koester recalled Fortune's love of being a barber: "Barbering was his trade and he took more than a little pride in it. He liked running his barbershop."[4] Fortune once "had an opportunity to sing in Europe but turned it down because he didn't want to disappoint his haircut customers."[4]
In August 2009, Fortune died at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Chicago after collapsing on stage while performing at Gene's Playmate Lounge, a Chicago blues club.[1][4] An autopsy showed he died of coronary atherosclerosis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Fortune
JESSE FORTUNE W/ BUDDY GUY - HEAVY HEART BEAT - 1963
Jesse Fortune - Vocals
Buddy Guy - Lead Guitar
Big Walter Hornton - Harmonica
Lafayette Leake - Piano
Jack Myers - Bass
Willie Smith - Drums
Buddy Guy - Lead Guitar
Big Walter Hornton - Harmonica
Lafayette Leake - Piano
Jack Myers - Bass
Willie Smith - Drums
Saunders King +31.08.2000
Saunders King - Swingin'
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