Morrison, Van

Morrison, Van

▪ Irish singer-songwriter
Introduction
in full  George Ivan Morrison 
born Aug. 31, 1945, Belfast, N.Ire.

      Irish singer-songwriter and occasional saxophonist who played in a succession of groups, most notably Them, in the mid-1960s before enjoying a long, varied, and increasingly successful solo career.

      Morrison was born into a working-class Protestant family in Belfast. Having been exposed early to blues and jazz through his father's record collection and having taken up the saxophone, guitar, and harmonica, he began playing in bands while in his mid-teens. When he first appeared before British television audiences in 1965, fronting Them's thrilling rearrangement of an old blues song (Big Joe Williams's “Baby Please Don't Go”), it was clear that Morrison was different. Unlike his rivals, such as Mick Jagger (Rolling Stones, the) or Eric Burdon (Animals, the), he seemed unwilling to flirt with the audience or even to make eye contact with them. The passion behind his harsh, stuttering delivery was obvious, but it seemed to be directed elsewhere.

      More than anyone else, Morrison signaled the graduation of the rock singer from simple entertainer to something darker, more complex, and less susceptible to the music industry's mechanisms of control. He admired the integrity of the old bluesmen and the willfulness of poets, and his distaste for ingratiation provided a useful template for such later figures as Elvis Costello (Costello, Elvis) and John Mellencamp (Mellencamp, John), who traded in related forms of surliness. It also won him a small but devoted following when it became apparent that, despite the success of “Brown Eyed Girl”—a snappy slice of uptown rhythm and blues that was his first solo single after leaving Them in 1967 and moving to the United States—the usual career yardsticks would not be applied. Indeed, that hit was never followed up. Instead, a year later he released Astral Weeks, an album of astonishing originality and inventiveness that stretched the frontier of rock music. A cycle of extended semi-improvised songs with backing from an acoustic group including vibraharp, flute, guitar, bass, drums, and a small string section, it was neither rock nor folk nor jazz, and yet it was something of all three. Almost ignored at the time, it has come to be recognized as one of the most mesmerizingly intense and genuinely poetic works in the history of rock—not least for its classic track, the nine-minute “Madame George,” in which Morrison achieves a sort of poetic trance wholly new to rock.

      This mode, heavily influenced by the writings of John Donne (Donne, John), William Blake (Blake, William), and William Butler Yeats (Yeats, William Butler), was to come in for further investigation in “Listen to the Lion” (1972) and “Vanlose Stairway” (1982), but his future direction was more clearly indicated by Moondance, Astral Weeks's successor, in which he deployed a snappy little rhythm-and-blues band behind tautly structured songs. The title song was the most obvious example, but it was followed over the years by such favourites as “Wild Night” and “Jackie Wilson Said” in pursuit of a style that was to affect the work of Tim Buckley and Bruce Springsteen (Springsteen, Bruce), among others.

      Moving between California, Ireland, and London, Morrison seemed oblivious to public taste and reaction to him. He pursued an interest in the music of his Celtic roots by collaborating with the Chieftains, developed his lifelong fondness for jazz with appearances at Ronnie Scott's Club in London, and wrote a series of songs in his own increasingly complex style that gave unmistakable evidence of a deep and unfulfilled spiritual yearning. Yet he was at his best onstage, where he could mix, match, and contrast all these approaches, indulging his love of the gifts of skilled musicians to his advantage and, no less, to theirs.

Richard Williams

Representative Works

Them
(The Angry Young) Them (1965)

Van Morrison
Blowin' Your Mind (1967)
Astral Weeks (1968)
Moondance (1970)
Saint Dominic's Preview (1972)
Inarticulate Speech of the Heart (1983)
A Night in San Francisco (1994)

Additional Reading
Steve Turner, Van Morrison: Too Late to Stop Now (1993), surveys Morrison's life and work. Mark J. Prendergast, The Isle of Noises (1990), discusses his contribution to Irish music. Brian Hinton, Celtic Crossroads: The Art of Van Morrison (1997), provides a wealth of analysis, drawing largely on secondary sources.

* * *


Universalium. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужна курсовая?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Van Morrison — ] Morrison promoted the album with a short US tour including an appearance at the SXSW music conference. [] [] (Note:This list is accurate as of October 2008)Van Morrison discographyAwards and RecognitionGrammy Awards::* Best Pop Collaboration… …   Wikipedia

  • Van Morrison The Concert — 1989 Video de Van Morrison Publicación 1990 Grabación Noviembre de 1989 Género …   Wikipedia Español

  • Van Morrison in Ireland — 1979 Video de Van Morrison Publicación 1981 Grabación Febrero de 1979 Género …   Wikipedia Español

  • Van Morrison — en el Marin Civic Center en 2007 …   Wikipedia Español

  • Van Morrison — Pour les articles homonymes, voir Morrison. Van Morrison Van Morrison en 2007 …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Van Morrison — Ван Моррисон Van Morrison На концерте, 2007 год Полное имя George Ivan Morrison Дата рождения 31 августа 1945 (63 года) Место рождения …   Википедия

  • Van Morrison — (2007) Van Morrison (* 31. August 1945 in Belfast; eigentlich George Ivan Morrison) ist ein nordirischer Musiker, Sänger und Komponist. Inhaltsverzeichnis …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Van Morrison at the Movies - Soundtrack Hits — Saltar a navegación, búsqueda Van Morrison at the Movies Soundtrack Hits Álbum recopilatorio de Van Morrison Publicación …   Wikipedia Español

  • Van Morrison at the Movies — Soundtrack Hits Álbum recopilatorio de Van Morrison Publicación 12 de febrero de 2007 …   Wikipedia Español

  • Morrison Academy — Morrison Christian Academy (Taichung Main Campus) 馬禮遜美國學校 Location 136 1, Shui Nan Rd. Beitun District, Taichung City 40679, Taiwan, Republic of Chi …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”