Douglas Hyde
first President of Ireland; historian, poet, and folklorist (1860-1949)
Van Morrison, the renowned singer-songwriter from Northern Ireland, has had a prolific career spanning over seven decades. Known for his unique blend of soul, rhythm and blues, and Celtic influences, he has created a vast and acclaimed body of work, earning him numerous accolades and a loyal fan base worldwide.
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Sir George Ivan Morrison OBE is a singer-songwriter and musician from Northern Ireland whose recording career spans seven decades.
Morrison began performing as a teenager in the late 1950s, playing a variety of instruments including guitar, harmonica, keyboards and saxophone for various Irish showbands, covering the popular hits of that time. Known as “Van the Man” to his fans, Morrison rose to prominence in the mid-1960s as the lead singer of the Belfast R&B band Them, with whom he wrote and recorded “Gloria”, which became a garage band staple. His solo career started under the pop-hit oriented guidance of Bert Berns with the release of the hit single “Brown Eyed Girl” in 1967.
After Berns’s death, Warner Bros. Records bought Morrison’s contract and allowed him three sessions to record Astral Weeksestablished Morrison as a major artist, and he built on his reputation throughout the 1970s with a series of acclaimed albums and live performances.
Much of Morrison’s music is structured around the conventions of soul music and early rhythm and blues. An equal part of his catalogue consists of lengthy, spiritually inspired musical journeys that show the influence of Celtic tradition, jazz and stream of consciousness narrative, such as the album Astral Weeks. The two strains together are sometimes referred to as “Celtic soul”, and his music has been described as attaining “a kind of violent transcendence”.
Morrison’s albums have performed well in the UK and Ireland, with more than 40 reaching the UK top 40. He has scored top ten albums in the UK in four consecutive decades, following the success of 2021’s Latest Record Project, Volume 1. Eighteen of his albums have reached the top 40 in the United States, twelve of them between 1997 and 2017. Since turning 70 in 2015, he has released – on average – more than an album a year. He has received two Grammy Awards, the 1994 Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music, the 2017 Americana Music Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting and has been inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2016, he was knighted for services to the music industry and to tourism in Northern Ireland.
Van Morrison is a singer-songwriter and musician from Northern Ireland whose recording career spans seven decades. He rose to prominence in the 1960s as the lead singer of the Belfast R&B band Them, and he has since enjoyed a successful solo career, releasing acclaimed albums and achieving critical and commercial success.
Van Morrison was born on August 31, 1945 in Northern Ireland.
Van Morrison is a multi-instrumentalist, playing guitar, harmonica, keyboards, and saxophone throughout his career.
Some of Van Morrison’s most famous songs include ,Gloria,, which he wrote and recorded with his band Them, and ,Brown Eyed Girl,, a hit single from the start of his solo career.
Van Morrison has released over 40 albums that have reached the UK top 40, and he has continued to release new music at a prolific pace, even after turning 70 in 2015.
Van Morrison has been the recipient of numerous awards and accolades, including two Grammy Awards, the 1994 Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music, the 2017 Americana Music Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting, and inductions into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He was also knighted in 2016 for his contributions to the music industry and tourism in Northern Ireland.
Van Morrison’s music is often described as a blend of soul, rhythm and blues, and Celtic tradition, with influences from jazz and stream of consciousness narrative. His music has been praised for its ,violent transcendence, and for the spiritual and introspective qualities that are present throughout his vast catalogue.
I learnt from Armstrong on the early recordings that you never sang a song the same way twice.
Northern Irish musician
Even today, skiffle is a defining part of my music. If I get the opportunity to just have a jam, skiffle is what I love to play.
Northern Irish musician
The point of jazz is, you do something and then you go on.
Northern Irish musician
It was really strange for me when I started to play concerts in America where the audiences were all sitting down.
Northern Irish musician
In order to win you must be prepared to lose sometime. And leave one or two cards showing.
Northern Irish musician
A famous person to themselves, they don’t get up in the morning and think, I’m famous. I’m not famous to me. Famous is a perception.
Northern Irish musician
I understood jazz, I understood how it worked. That’s what I apply to everything.
Northern Irish musician
These days politics, religion, media seem to get all mixed up. Television became the new religion a long time back and the media has taken over.
Northern Irish musician
I think Paul McGuinness and U2 created the Irish music industry. It certainly wasn’t there before that.
Northern Irish musician
There is no black-and-white situation. It’s all part of life. Highs, lows, middles.
Northern Irish musician
When I started studying tenor saxophone as a kid in Belfast, I did so with a guy named George Cassidy, who was also a big inspiration.
Northern Irish musician
Hearing the blues changed my life.
Northern Irish musician
I do see value in music criticism. Most of the criticism I have received over the years has been very good.
Northern Irish musician
I never paid attention to what was contemporary or what was commercial, it didn’t mean anything to me.
Northern Irish musician
Large audiences did not suit my low-key approach.
Northern Irish musician
If you’re a pop singer, you don’t need to evolve. You just get a set together, have some hit songs and play them over and over.
Northern Irish musician
The future is keeping you out of the present time.
Northern Irish musician
There’s always got to be a struggle. What else is there? That’s what life is made of. I don’t know anything else. If there is, tell me about it.
Northern Irish musician
As a developing musician, skiffle became a platform for me to start playing music.
Northern Irish musician
If it’s what you do and you can do it, then you do it.
Northern Irish musician
I never bought the commercial thing, at any stage of the game.
Northern Irish musician
When I started you were more in touch with the people you were playing to. There wasn’t the distance or the separation that there is now.
Northern Irish musician
I’m not a rock singer and I don’t want to be a rock singer. I’m not interested. It doesn’t seem to get across.
Northern Irish musician
I’ve never felt like I was born with a silver spoon at all, although I’ve felt like howling at the moon a lot of times!
Northern Irish musician
You’ve got to separate the singer and the songs.
Northern Irish musician
I educated myself. To me, school was boring.
Northern Irish musician
Skiffle was a name that was attached to what was, in essence, American folk music with a beat.
Northern Irish musician
What you see is what you get.
Northern Irish musician
I write songs. Then, I record them. And, later, maybe I perform them on stage. That’s what I do. That’s my job. Simple.
Northern Irish musician
My ambition when I started out was to play two or three gigs a week. And that’s what I’m doing.
Northern Irish musician
Music is spiritual. The music business is not.
Northern Irish musician
Every performance is different. That’s the beauty of it.
Northern Irish musician
I don’t feel comfortable doing interviews. My profession is music, and writing songs. That’s what I do. I like to do it, but I hate to talk about it.
Northern Irish musician
You can’t stay the same. If you’re a musician and a singer, you have to change, that’s the way it works.
Northern Irish musician
I always record far more than I can use. There’s probably twice as much recorded as comes out.
Northern Irish musician
I just need somewhere to dump all my negativity.
Northern Irish musician
The first piece of music that captured my imagination was probably Ray Charles Live At Newport.
Northern Irish musician
You take stuff from different places, and sometimes you stick a line in because it rhymes, not because it makes sense.
Northern Irish musician
I’d love to live in Ireland but I’d like to live as me, not what someone thinks I am. People don’t understand – I lived there before I was famous.
Northern Irish musician
I went back to Belfast and started a club, the Maritime. No one had thought about doing a blues club, so I was the first.
Northern Irish musician
I don’t think nostalgia has to be negative.
Northern Irish musician
I’m very lucky, I’m happy with life because my experiences led me to do what I had to do. I don’t have any regrets whatsoever.
Northern Irish musician
Being famous was extremely disappointing for me. When I became famous it was a complete drag and it is still a complete drag.
Northern Irish musician