Van Morrison (part II)

BIOGRAPHY (part II)
Taken from Wikipedia website



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.[158] 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."[1][159] After Enlightenment which included the hit single, "Real Real Gone",[160] 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.[161] 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.[162][163][164][165] 1995's Days Like This also had large sales – though the critical reviews were not always favourable.[166] 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",[167] 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."[168] 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.[169]


Recent years: since 2000
Van Morrison continued to record and tour in the 2000s, often performing two or three times a week.[170] 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.[171]

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.[113] 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;[172] 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.[23]

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.[173] 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.[174] 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.[175] 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.[176]

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.[177] Pay the Devil debuted at number twenty-six on The Billboard 200 and peaked at number seven on Top Country Albums.[178][179] 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.[180] 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.[181] 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.[182] 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.[183]

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.[184] The November release in the US and Canada contains twenty-one selected tracks.[185] 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.[186] It comprised eleven self-penned tracks. Morrison promoted the album with a short US tour including an appearance at the SXSW music conference,[187][188] 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.[189]


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 agonizing 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.[35]

The 1974 live double album, It's Too Late to Stop Now, has been on lists of greatest live albums of all time.[12][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]

On Thanksgiving Day 1976, Morrison performed at the farewell concert for The Band. Morrison's first live performance in several years, 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] Morrison was on good terms with The Band as near-neighbours in Woodstock, and they had the shared experience of stage-fright. At the concert, he performed two songs, including "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."[197] The filmed concert served as the basis for Martin Scorsese's 1978 film, The Last Waltz.[198]

It was during his association with The Band that Morrison acquired the nicknames: "Belfast Cowboy" and "Van the Man". When Morrison sang the duet "4% Pantomime" (that he co-wrote with Robbie Robertson), Richard Manuel calls him, "Oh, Belfast Cowboy". It would be included in The Band's album Cahoots. When he left the stage, after performing "Caravan" on The Last Waltz, Robertson calls out "Van the Man!"[126]

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 to half a million people and broadcast live on television.[199] 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.[200]

Van Morrison continued performing concerts in the 2000s throughout the year rather than touring.[170] Playing few of his best-known songs in concert, he has firmly resisted relegation to a nostalgia act.[201][202] 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.[203]

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 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.[205] The new live album on CD was released on 24 February 2009,[206] followed by a DVD from the performances.[207] The DVD, Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl: The Concert Film was released via Amazon Exclusive on 19 May 2009. Morrison began a week of Astral Week Live concerts, interviews and TV appearances with concerts at the WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York City in late February 2009[208] and at the Beacon Theatre in early March[209] with a twenty-four minute interview to Don Imus on his Imus in the Morning radio show on 26 February. Listen[210] Midway between the scheduled concerts at the WaMu and Beacon, he made a guest appearance on Jimmy Fallon's debut show as host of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on 2 March 2009 performing "Sweet Thing" from the Astral Weeks album.[211] Morrison also performed "Sweet Thing" and "Brown Eyed Girl", on Live with Regis and Kelly the next morning on 3 March 2009.[212] Morrison continued with the Astral Weeks performances with two concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in London in April[213][214] and then returned to California in May 2009 performing the Astral Weeks songs at the Hearst Greek Theatre in Berkeley and the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles, California.[215] Morrison filmed the concerts at the Orpheum Theatre so that they could be viewed by Farrah Fawcett, confined to bed with cancer and who therefore could not attend the concerts.[216][217] On 6 May 2009, Morrison appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno performing the updated version of "Slim Slow Slider (I Start Breaking Down)" from Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl.

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";[162] and The Skiffle Sessions - Live in Belfast 1998 recorded with Lonnie Donegan and Chris Barber and released in 2000.

Morrison was scheduled to perform at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 25th anniversary concert on 30 October 2009, but cancelled.[218] 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),[219] but that they would do something else together at "some other stage of the game".[220]

Morrison will perform for the Edmonton Folk Music Festival in Edmonton, Canada on 4 August 2010 as the headline act for the fundraiser.[221]

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.[222] 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.[223] 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.[224] In 2004, Morrison was one of the guests on Ray Charles' album, Genius Loves Company, featuring the two artists performing Morrison's "Crazy Love".


DISCOGRAPHY
Taken from Wikipedia website

Albums
Blowin' Your Mind! (1967)
Astral Weeks (1968)
Moondance (1970)
His Band and the Street Choir (1970)
Tupelo Honey (1971)
Saint Dominic's Preview (1972)
Hard Nose the Highway (1973)
It's Too Late to Stop Now (Live) (1974)
Veedon Fleece (1974)
A Period of Transition (1977)
Wavelength (1978)
Into the Music (1979)
Common One (1980)
Beautiful Vision (1982)
Inarticulate Speech of the Heart (1983)
Live at the Grand Opera House Belfast (1984)
A Sense of Wonder (1985)
No Guru, No Method, No Teacher (1986)
Poetic Champions Compose (1987)
Irish Heartbeat (1988)
Avalon Sunset (1989)
Enlightenment (1990)
Hymns to the Silence (1991)
Too Long in Exile (1993)
A Night in San Francisco (Live) (1994)
Days Like This (1995)
How Long Has This Been Going On (1996)
Tell Me Something: The Songs of Mose Allison (1996)
The Healing Game (1997)
Back on Top (1999)
The Skiffle Sessions - Live in Belfast 1998 (2000)
You Win Again (2000)
Down the Road (2002)
What's Wrong with This Picture? (2003)
Magic Time (2005)
Pay the Devil (2006)
Live at Austin City Limits Festival (Limited edition) (2006)
Keep It Simple (2008)
Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl (2009)

Videos and DVDs
Van Morrison in Ireland 1979 (1981)
Van Morrison The Concert 1989 (1990)
Live At Montreux 1980/1974 (2006) (RIAA certification:Platinum 2009)[8]
Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl: The Concert Film (2009)


THEM With Van Morrison as vocalist:

Albums
The Angry Young Them - (1965) (with Van Morrison), Decca (U.K.), Parrot (U.S.); CD reissue 1990, Deram
Them Again - (1966) (with Van Morrison), Decca (U.K.), Parrot (U.S.); CD reissue 1990, Polygram

Singles
Don't Start Crying Now / One Two Brown Eyes - (1964) (with Van Morrison)
Baby, Please Don't Go / Gloria - (1965) UK #10 (with Van Morrison)
Here Comes the Night / All For Myself - (1965) UK #2, IRE #2 (with Van Morrison)
One More Time / How Long Baby - (1965) (with Van Morrison)
(It Won't Hurt) Half As Much / I'm Gonna Dress In Black - (1965) (with Van Morrison)
Mystic Eyes / If You And I Could Be As Two - (1966) US #33 (with Van Morrison)
Call My Name / Bring 'em On In - (1966) (with Van Morrison)
I Can Only Give You Everything / Don't Start Crying Now - (1966) (with Van Morrison)
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue / I'm Gonna Dress In Black (The Netherlands) - (1966) (with Van Morrison)
Richard Cory / Don't You Know - (1966) (with Van Morrison)
Friday's Child / Gloria - (1967) (with Van Morrison)
The Story Of Them, Part 1 / The Story Of Them, Part 2 - (1967) (with Van Morrison)
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue / Bad Or Good - (1973) GER #13 (with Van Morrison)

EP
Them - (1965) - Don't Start Crying Now/Philosophy/One Two Brown Eyes/Baby, Please Don't Go (with Van Morrison)
Them - (1984) UK #5 (with Van Morrison)

Compilations
The World of Them - (1970) (UK Decca- PA/SPA-86) (with Van Morrison)
Them featuring Van Morrison - (1972) - A double LP consisting of 20 cuts from first two US albums
Rock Roots - 1976 (Decca)
The Story of Them - (1977)
Them featuring Van Morrison - (1985)
The Story of Them Featuring Van Morrison - (1997), Deram; To be remastered and reissued in January, 2009.
Gold - (2005), Deram; 2006 release Universal International; 2008 release Universal Japan. Contains 49 tracks, all from the Van Morrison period.



Special thanks to http://vanmorrisonnews.blogspot.com/ where the photo has been taken from.