Van Morrison

Northern Irish musician

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.

Table of Contents

About the Van Morrison

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.

Frequently Asked Questions

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.

43 Quotes by Van Morrison

  1. 1.

    I learnt from Armstrong on the early recordings that you never sang a song the same way twice.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  2. 2.

    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.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  3. 3.

    The point of jazz is, you do something and then you go on.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  4. 4.

    It was really strange for me when I started to play concerts in America where the audiences were all sitting down.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  5. 5.

    In order to win you must be prepared to lose sometime. And leave one or two cards showing.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  6. 6.

    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.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  7. 7.

    I understood jazz, I understood how it worked. That’s what I apply to everything.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  8. 8.

    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.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  9. 9.

    I think Paul McGuinness and U2 created the Irish music industry. It certainly wasn’t there before that.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  10. 10.

    There is no black-and-white situation. It’s all part of life. Highs, lows, middles.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  11. 11.

    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.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  12. 12.

    Hearing the blues changed my life.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  13. 13.

    I do see value in music criticism. Most of the criticism I have received over the years has been very good.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  14. 14.

    I never paid attention to what was contemporary or what was commercial, it didn’t mean anything to me.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  15. 15.

    Large audiences did not suit my low-key approach.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  16. 16.

    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.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  17. 17.

    The future is keeping you out of the present time.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  18. 18.

    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.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  19. 19.

    As a developing musician, skiffle became a platform for me to start playing music.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  20. 20.

    If it’s what you do and you can do it, then you do it.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  21. 21.

    I never bought the commercial thing, at any stage of the game.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  22. 22.

    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.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  23. 23.

    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.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  24. 24.

    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!

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  25. 25.

    You’ve got to separate the singer and the songs.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  26. 26.

    I educated myself. To me, school was boring.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  27. 27.

    Skiffle was a name that was attached to what was, in essence, American folk music with a beat.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  28. 28.

    What you see is what you get.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  29. 29.

    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.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  30. 30.

    My ambition when I started out was to play two or three gigs a week. And that’s what I’m doing.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  31. 31.

    Music is spiritual. The music business is not.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  32. 32.

    Every performance is different. That’s the beauty of it.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  33. 33.

    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.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  34. 34.

    You can’t stay the same. If you’re a musician and a singer, you have to change, that’s the way it works.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  35. 35.

    I always record far more than I can use. There’s probably twice as much recorded as comes out.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  36. 36.

    I just need somewhere to dump all my negativity.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  37. 37.

    The first piece of music that captured my imagination was probably Ray Charles Live At Newport.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  38. 38.

    You take stuff from different places, and sometimes you stick a line in because it rhymes, not because it makes sense.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  39. 39.

    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.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  40. 40.

    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.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  41. 41.

    I don’t think nostalgia has to be negative.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  42. 42.

    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.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician

  43. 43.

    Being famous was extremely disappointing for me. When I became famous it was a complete drag and it is still a complete drag.

    Van Morrison

    Northern Irish musician