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Δευτέρα 5 Ιουλίου 2010

Eric Clapton (part II)

DISCOGRAPHY

Taken from Wikipedia website

with The Yardbirds (1963-1965)
1963 - London 1963: The First Recordings!
1964 - Five Live Yardbirds (live)
1965 - For Your Love
1965 - Having a Rave Up (compilation)
1966 - Sonny Boy Williamson and The Yardbirds (live)
1971 - Guitar Boogie (compilation)

with The Immediate All-Stars (1965)
1968 - Blues Anytime Vol. 1 (compilation)
1968 - Blues Anytime Vol. 2 (compilation)
1968 - Blues Anytime Vol. 3 (compilation)

with Powerhouse (1966)
1966 - What's Shakin' (compilation)

with Cream (1966-1968, reunion 2005)
1966 - Fresh Cream
1967 - Disraeli Gears
1968 - Wheels of Fire
1969 - Goodbye
1969 - Best of Cream (compilation)
1970 - Live Cream (live)
1972 - Live Cream Volume II (live)
1972 - Heavy Cream (compilation)
1983 - Strange Brew (compilation)
1995 - The Very Best of Cream (compilation)
1997 - Those Were the Days (box set)
2000 - 20th Century Masters (compilation)
2003 - BBC Sessions (compilation)
2005 - Cream Gold (compilation)
2005 - I Feel Free Ultimate Cream (compilation)
2005 - Royal Albert Hall London May 2-3-5-6, 2005 (live)

with Blind Faith (1968-1969)
1969 - Blind Faith

with John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band (1969)


with Vivian Stanshall and the Sean Head Showband (1970)
1974 - The History of the Bonzos (compilation)
1992 - Cornology (compilation)
2000 - New Tricks (compilation)


Solo career (1970s-present)
Studio albums

Live albums

Compilation albums
1972 - The History of Eric Clapton
1972 - Eric Clapton at His Best
1973 - Clapton
1981 - Steppin' Out
1982 - Time Pieces: The Best of Eric Clapton
1984 - Backtrackin'
1987 - The Cream of Eric Clapton (UK)
1988 - Crossroads (box set)
1991 - Eric Clapton Story
1995 - The Cream of Clapton (US)
1999 - Blues
1999 - Clapton Chronicles: The Best of Eric Clapton
2003 - Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues: Eric Clapton
2007 - Complete Clapton

Collaborations and guest appearances
1968 - The Beatles, (appears on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" with The Beatles)
1968 - Wonderwall Music (soundtrack from the 1968 film, Wonderwall)
1970 - All Things Must Pass
1971 - The Concert for Bangladesh (live, with various artists)
1974 - Dark Horse
1976 - The Best of George Harrison (compilation)
1979 - George Harrison
1987 - Cloud Nine
1989 - Best of Dark Horse 1976–1989 (compilation)
1992 - Live in Japan (live)
2003 - Concert for George (live, with various artists)
2004 - The Dark Horse Years 1976–1992 (box set)

Collaborations and guest appearances
2. With other artists
1968 - Lady Soul (appears on "Good To Me As I Am To You") / Aretha Franklin
1968 - Lumpy Gravy / Frank Zappa
1970 - Stephen Stills (appears on "Go Back Home") / Stephen Stills (Stills' solo debut)
1970 - Leon Russell / Leon Russell
1971 - The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions / Howlin' Wolf
1971 - The Sun, Moon & Herbs / Dr. John
1977 - Rough Mix / Pete Townshend and Ronnie Lane
1978 - The Last Waltz (appears on "Further on up the Road" (live)) / The Band, et al.
1978 - White Mansions / Waylon Jennings, et al.
1980 - The Party LP (live) / Alexis Korner
1981 - Face Value (appears on "The Roof Is Leaking" and "If Leaving Me Is Easy") / Phil Collins
1981 - The Secret Policeman's Other Ball (live) / Jeff Beck, et al.
1984 - The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking / Roger Waters (Waters' solo debut)
1986 - Persona / Liona Boyd
1986 - Deep In The Heart Of Nowhere / Bob Geldof
1986 - Dancing on the Ceiling / Lionel Richie
1987 - ...Nothing Like the Sun / Sting
1988 - Taking It Home / Buckwheat Zydeco
1989 - ...But Seriously (appears on "I Wish it Would Rain Down") / Phil Collins
1989 - Oro incenso e birra (appears on "A Wonderful World") / Zucchero
1991 - Johnnie B. Bad / Johnnie Johnson
1991 - Stranger in This Town (appears on "Mr. Bluesman") / Richie Sambora (Sambora's solo debut)
1991 - Zucchero / Zucchero
1992 - The One (appears on "Runaway Train") / Elton John
1993 - "It's Probably Me" (single) / Sting
1997 - Retail Therapy / TDF
1999 - Mary (appears on "Give Me You") / Mary J. Blige
1999 - Supernatural (appears on "The Calling") / Santana
1999 - Anyway the Wind Blows / Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings
2003 - Ringo Rama' (appears on "Never Without You" and Imagine Me There") / Ringo Starr
2004 - Zu & Co. (appears on "A Wonderful World") / Zucchero
2004 - Zu & Co. Live at the Royal Albert Hall (live) / Zucchero
2004 - Stardust: The Great American Songbook, Volume III (appears on "Blue Moon") / Rod Stewart
2005 - Africa Unite: The Singles Collection (appears on "Slogans") / Bob Marley
2006 - Live at Montreux 1986 (live) / Otis Rush
2008 - Nine Lives (appears on "Dirty City") / Steve Winwood
2008 - The City that Care Forgot / Dr. John
2008 - Skin Deep / Buddy Guy
2009 - Roll On (appears on "Roll On") / JJ Cale
2010 - Supernatural (Legacy Edition) (appears on "The Calling" and disc two's "The Calling Jam") / Santana

Clapton's music in film and TV
Mean Streets (1973) – "I Looked Away"
Purple Haze (1983) - "I Feel Free"
The Hit (1984) – Score
Back to the Future (1985) – Heaven Is One Step Away
Edge of Darkness (1985) – Soundtrack
The Color of Money (1986) – "It's In The Way That You Use It"
SpaceCamp (1986 film) – "Forever Man" plays when Tate Donovan's character arrives at the Space Camp.
The German car manufacturer Opel and Vauxhall in the UK used the guitar riff of Clapton's "Layla" in its advertising campaign throughout in 1987–95.
Lethal Weapon (1987) – Soundtrack with Michael Kamen
Lethal Weapon 2 (1989) – "Knockin' On Heaven's Door"
Goodfellas (1990) – "Layla" and "Sunshine of Your Love"[82]
Rush (1991) – Clapton wrote the score
Wayne's World (1992) – "Loving your Loving"
Peter's Friends (1992) – "Give Me Strength"
Lethal Weapon 3 (1992) - Clapton contributed to the score and co-wrote and co-performed the song "It's Probably Me" with Sting and "Runaway Train" with Elton John.
True Lies (1994) – "Sunshine of Your Love"
The Simpsons episode "Mother Simpson" (1995) – "Sunshine of Your Love"
Twister (1996) – "Motherless Child"
Phenomenon (1996) – "Change the World"
The Van (1996) – (Soundtrack)
Happy Gilmore (1996) - "Wonderful Tonight"
Patch Adams (1998) – "Let It Rain"
Lethal Weapon 4 (1998) – "Pilgrim"
City of Angels (1998) – "Further On Up The Road"
Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes "Band Candy" and "Forever" (1998) – "Tales of Brave Ulysses"
Runaway Bride (1999) – "Blue Eyes Blue "
The Story of Us (1999) – "(I) Get Lost" (featured multiple times)
Friends episode "The One with the Proposal, Part 2" (2000) - "Wonderful Tonight"
Dancing At The Blue Iguana (2000) – "River of Tears"
A Knight's Tale (2001) – "Further On Up The Road"
Blow (2001) – "Strange Brew"
Friends episode "The One Where Rachel Has a Baby, Part Two" (2002) - "River of Tears"
Futurama episode "The 30% Iron Chef" (2002) – "Sunshine of Your Love"
The Sopranos episode "Whitecaps" (2002) – Tony Soprano is seen listening to "Layla" in his Suburban.
School Of Rock (2003) – "Sunshine of Your Love"
Starsky & Hutch (2004) – "Cocaine"
Anger Management (2004) – "Strange Brew"
Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) – "Cocaine"
Bad News Bears (2005) – "Cocaine"
Lords of Dogtown (2005) – "Strange Brew"
Lord of War (2005) – "Cocaine"
United States of Tara episode – "Cocaine"

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Eric Clapton (part I)

BIOGRAPHY

Taken from Eric Clapton official website

Eric Patrick Clapton was born on 30 March 1945 in his grandparents’ home at 1 The Green, Ripley, Surrey, England. He was the son of 16-year-old Patricia Molly Clapton (b. 7 January 1929, d. March 1999) and Edward Walter Fryer (b. 21 March 1920, d. 1985), a 24-year-old Canadian soldier stationed in England during World War II. Before Eric was born, Fryer returned to his wife in Canada.

It was extraordinarily difficult for an unmarried 16-year-old to raise a child on her own in the mid-1940s. Pat’s parents, Rose and Jack Clapp, stepped in as surrogate parents and raised Eric as their own. Thus, he grew up believing his mother was his sister. His grandparents never legally adopted him, but remained his legal guardians until 1963. Eric’s last name comes from Rose’s first husband and Pat’s father, Reginald Cecil Clapton (d. 1933).

Eric’s mother, Pat, eventually married and moved to Canada and Germany as her husband, Frank MacDonald, continued his military career. They had two girls and a boy. Eric’s half-brother, Brian, was killed in a road accident in 1974 at the age of 26. His half-sisters are Cheryl (b. May 1953) and Heather (b. September 1958).

Eric was raised in a musical household. His grandmother played piano and his uncle and mother both enjoyed listening to the sounds of the big bands. Pat later told Eric’s official biographer, Ray Coleman, that his father was a gifted musician, playing piano in several dance bands in the Surrey area.Quiet and polite, he was characterized as an above-average student with an aptitude for art. But, from his earliest years in school, he realized something was not quite right when he wrote his name as “Eric Clapton” and his parents’ names as “Mr. and Mrs. Clapp”. At the age of nine, he learned the truth about his parentage when Pat returned to England with his six-year-old half brother for a visit. This singular event affected him deeply and was a defining moment in his life. He became moody and distant and stopped applying himself at school. Emotionally scarred by this event, Eric failed the all-important 11 Plus Exams. He was sent to St. Bede’s Secondary Modern School and two years later, entered the art branch of Holyfield Road School.

By 1958, Rock and Roll had exploded onto the world. For his 13th birthday, Eric asked for a guitar. Finding the inexpensive German-made Hoyer difficult to play - it had steel strings - he put it aside. In 1961, when he was 16, Eric began studying at the Kingston College of Art on a one-year probation. He was expelled at the end of that time for lack of progress as he had not submitted enough work. The reason? Guitar playing and listening to the blues dominated his waking hours.

Typical of his introspective nature, Eric looked beneath the surface and explored the roots of rock in American Blues. The blues also meshed perfectly with his self-perception as an outsider and of being “different” from other people. Sometime in 1962, he asked for his grandparents’ help in purchasing a £100 electric double cutaway Kay (a Gibson ES-335 clone) after hearing the electric blues of Freddie King, B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, and others.

Eric spent his early days in music busking around Richmond and Kingston, he also began spending time in London and the West End. In early 1963, 17 year-old Eric joined his first band, The Roosters. Following the band’s demise in August 1963, he spent one month in the pop-oriented Casey Jones and The Engineers. Before turning to music as a full-time career, he supported himself as a laborer at building sites, working alongside his grandfather, a master bricklayer and plasterer.

In October 1963, Keith Relf and Paul Samwell-Smith recruited him to become a member of The Yardbirds because Clapton was the most talked about guitar player on the R&B pub circuit. During his 18-month tenure with The Yardbirds, he earned his nickname, Slowhand, and recorded his first albums: Five Live Yardbirds and Sonny Boy Williamson and The Yardbirds. The band also recorded the single, “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl”. But, Eric had not abandoned his serious research into the American Blues. When The Yardbirds began moving towards a more commercial sound with “For Your Love”, he quit. His path in music was the blues.

In April 1965, John Mayall invited Eric to join his band, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. With this group, Clapton established his reputation as a guitarist and earned his second nickname: “God”. It came from an admirer’s graffiti on the wall of London’s Islington Tube Station that boldly proclaimed “Clapton is God.” Eric’s time with the band was turbulent and he left for a while to tour Greece with friends. Upon his return from Greece, Eric rejoined the Bluesbreakers. It was during this time that the now classic Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton was recorded. While with the Bluesbreakers, Eric also recorded a one-off four-track session with a band dubbed “The Powerhouse”. This studio band included John Paul Jones, Steve Winwood and Jack Bruce.

After leaving the Bluesbreakers for a second and final time in July 1966, Eric teamed up with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker to form Cream. Extensive touring in the U.S. and three solid albums - Fresh Cream, Disraeli Gears, and Wheels of Fire - brought the band worldwide acclaim. While a member of Cream, he cemented his reputation as rock’s premier guitarist and was elevated to superstar status. Although Cream was together for only two years, they are considered one of the most influential rock groups of the modern era. Clapton was unique because he did not simply replicate the blues riffs he heard on records. He incorporated the emotion of the original performances into his own style of playing, thus expanding the vocabulary of blues guitar. Cream crumbled beneath the weight of the member’s egos and constant arguing. They disbanded after two final performances at London’s Royal Albert Hall on 26 November 1968.Following Cream’s break-up, Clapton founded Blind Faith - rock’s first “supergroup” - with Steve Winwood, Ginger Baker, and Rick Grech. Disbanding after one album and a disastrous American tour, Eric tried to hide from his growing fame by touring as a sideman with Delaney & Bonnie & Friends. While with this outfit, Eric was encouraged to sing by Delaney Bramlett. He also began composing more. A live album from the Delaney & Bonnie tour was released in 1970. Clapton’s self-titled debut was released that same year.

In the summer of 1970, Eric formed Derek and the Dominos with Jim Gordon, Carl Radle and Bobby Whitlock from Delaney & Bonnie’s band . The Dominos would go on to record the seminal rock album, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. A concept album, its theme revolved around Clapton’s unrequited love for George Harrison’s wife, Patti. The band would drift apart following an American tour and a failed attempt at recording a second album.

Hit hard by the break up of The Dominos, the commercial failure of the Layla album and his unrequited love, Eric sunk into three years of heroin addiction. Although he rarely emerged from his Surrey Estate, he filled box upon box with tapes of songs. He kicked his drug addiction and re-launched his career in January 1973 with two concerts at London’s Rainbow Theater organized by his friend, Pete Townshend (The Who). The concerts represented a turning point in his career. In 1974, he reappeared with a new style and sound with 461 Ocean Boulevard. Eric had become an assured vocalist and composer in addition to a guitar hero.

With each album after 461 Ocean Boulevard, Eric reinvented himself musically. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, albums and tours would follow year in and year out. In 1985, Clapton found a new audience following his performance at the worldwide charity concert, Live Aid. Annual stands at the Royal Albert Hall and successful albums like August, Journeyman and the Crossroads box set kept him well in the public mind. In the late 80s, he carved out a second career as the composer of film scores. His career went from strength to strength and reached new heights in 1992 with the release of Unplugged and the Grammy winning single, “Tears In Heaven.”

In 1994, Eric returned to his blues roots with the release of From The Cradle. The album was Clapton’s tribute to his musical heroes and contained cover versions of blues classics. 1997 brought an excursion into electronica with the release of TDF’s Retail Therapy . Eric posed as X-Sample in the studio “band” TDF. In 1998, he released the soul-influenced Pilgrim, his first album of all new material in nine years. In 2000, he continued his love affair with the blues when he recorded an album with American blues legend, B.B. King. Riding With The King was released in June and within three weeks of release, was certified gold.

Shortly after the release of Riding With The King, Clapton was back in the studio recording his next solo project. Reptile was released in March 2001. In late 2002, he began to record a new studio album. Work continued through the summer of 2003 and enough material was recorded for two albums. In addition to new solo material, Eric recorded covers of Robert Johnson songs during these sessions. The Johnson songs were assembled and in March 2004, Eric’s tribute album, Me and Mr. Johnson was released. The solo material recorded during these sessions was released in 2005 on Back Home.

In 2005, Eric also revisted the past. He, Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce re-formed Cream for four very special reunion shows at London’s Royal Albert Hall. The concerts took place at the venue where their farewell shows took place 37 years earlier, in November 1968. In October 2005, the men performed three further concerts at New York’s Madison Square Garden. The London shows were released on CD and DVD in late 2005.

Eric’s next recording project was to be produced by one of the architects of the “Tulsa Sound,” J.J. Cale. Eric had long admired Cale’s work, having recorded cover versions of “After Midnight,” “Cocaine,” and “Travelin’ Light.” After working in the studio a short time, it turned into a collaborative effort. The Road To Escondido was released on 7 November 2006 to critical acclaim. It won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album (Vocal or Instrumental) at the 50th Annual Awards Ceremony in Los Angeles on 10 February 2008.
In his more than 40 year career, Eric Clapton has received many awards. He is the only triple inductee into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame (as a member of both the Yardbirds and Cream and as a solo artist). He has also won or shared in eighteen Grammy Awards.

Eric has also contributed to numerous artists’ albums over the decades. The most well known session occurred in September 1968, when he added guitar to George Harrison’s composition, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” It is on the album, The Beatles (best known as “The White Album”). He can also be heard on albums by Aretha Franklin, Steven Stills, Bob Dylan, Elton John, Plastic Ono Band (John Lennon and Yoko Ono), Ringo Starr, Sting, and Roger Waters.
Eric has always toured extensively performing thousands of concerts around the globe. Recent solo world tours took place in 2001, 2004 and 2006 / 2007 and a 27 date Summer Tour in 2008 which visited the eastern U.S., Canada and Europe. Additionally, in February 2008 Eric performed three concerts with long-time friend Steve Winwood at New York’s Madison Square Garden. In 2009, Eric will again be on the road with his band visiting Japan, New Zealand and Australia before returning home for a 11 night stand at London’s Royal Albert Hall in May.After conquering his heroin addiction in the early 70s, Eric replaced it with an addiction to alcohol. Throughout the remainder of the decade and into the 1980s, his life and work suffered due to his alcoholism. In January 1982, Eric entered the Hazelden Foundation, a rehabilitation facility in the United States. He did backslide but entered rehab a second time a few years later. He has been sober since 1987 through the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Since that time, Eric has been committed to working with others who suffer from addictions to drugs and alcohol.

In February 1998, Eric announced the opening of Crossroads Centre, a rehabilitation facility for drug and alcohol abuse on the island of Antigua. One of its principles is to provide subsidized care for some of the poorest people of the Caribbean who can not afford such care on their own. A foundation was established to provide “scholarships” for these individuals. On 24 June 1999, Clapton auctioned 100 of his guitars, including “Brownie” (the guitar on which he recorded “Layla”), at Christie’s Auction House / New York. The 1999 auction netted almost $5 million (US) for the foundation. On 30 June 1999, Clapton hosted a concert to benefit the Centre at New York City’s Madison Square Garden. Proceeds from its airing on America’s VH1 and DVD and video sales benefited the Centre. Five years later, Eric planned the second and final major fundraising effort for the Centre. On 4, 5 and 6 June 2004, he hosted the First Crossroads Guitar Festival in Dallas, Texas. The three day event presented the cream of the world’s guitarists in a benefit event for the Centre. The event was filmed and proceeds from the sale of the DVD also benefit the foundation. Additionally, a second guitar auction took place on 24 June 2004. It raised an additional $6 million for the foundation and included the sale of “Blackie”, his legendary Fender Stratocaster and a cherry red Gibson ES335, known as “The Cream Guitar”. The Second Crossroads Guitar Festival, with proceeds again benefitting the Crossroads Centre Foundation, took place on 28 July 2007 in Chicago, Illinois. The event was filmed and a DVD was released on 6 November 2007.

In October 2007, Eric’s autobiography, Clapton, was published. It is available in twelve languages and topped the best-seller lists around the world.

Eric is married. He and his wife, Melia, have three daughters - Julie Rose (b. June 2001), Ella Mae (b. January 2003) and Sophie (b. February 2005). The couple married on 1 January 2002.Eric’s eldest child is his daughter, Ruth (b. January 1985).His son, Conor (b. August 1986), died on 20 March 1991 when he fell from a window in his mother’s New York City apartment. Conor’s mother is Lori del Santo, a film actress / television personality.

Eric married his first wife, Pattie Boyd Harrison on 27 March 1979. They had no children and divorced in 1989.

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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.


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Van Morrison (part I)

BIOGRAPHY
Taken from Wikipedia website

Early life and musical roots: 1945–64
George Ivan (Van) Morrison was born on 31 August 1945, in 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. Van Morrison's family roots descend from the Ulster Scots population that settled in Belfast. From 1950 to 1956, Morrison, who began to be known as "Van" during this time, attended Elmgrove Primary School. 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), and the young Morrison grew up listening to artists such as Jelly Roll Morton, Ray Charles, Lead Belly, and Solomon Burke; of whom Morrison 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."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, while the first record he ever bought was by blues musician Sonny Terry. 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.

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. A year later, when he was twelve years old, Morrison formed his first band, a skiffle group, "The Sputniks", named after the recently launched Soviet satellite, Sputnik 1. 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. Then, when he heard Jimmy Giuffre playing saxophone on "The Train and The River", he talked his father into buying him a saxophone, and took lessons in tenor sax and music reading. 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. Later the four main musicians of the Javelins, with the addition of Wesley Black as keyboard player, became known as the Monarchs.

Morrison attended Orangefield High School, leaving in July 1960 with no qualifications. As a member of a working-class community, it was expected that he would get a regular full-time job, 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". 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 Sproule whom he later named as one of his biggest influences.
At age 17, he toured Europe for the first time with the Monarchs, now calling themselves the International Monarchs. This Irish showband, 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. 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.
Upon returning to Belfast in November 1963, the group disbanded, 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, Morrison went along and was hired as a blues singer.

Them: 1964–66
The roots of Them, the band that first broke Morrison on the international scene, came in April 1964 when Morrison 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.[45] 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.[46][47] Eric Wrixon, still a schoolboy, was the piano player and keyboardist.[48] 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!.[49]

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.[50] 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.[51] 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.[52] The statement also reflected the instability of the Them lineup, with numerous members passing through the ranks after the definitive Maritime period. Morrison and Henderson would remain the only constants, and a highly unsuccessful version of Them even soldiered on after Morrison's departure.[53]

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),[54] though it was the b-side of "Baby, Please Don't Go", the garage band classic, "Gloria",[55] that went on to become a rock standard covered by Patti Smith, The Doors, Shadows of Knight, Jimi Hendrix and others.[56]

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.[58] The Doors were the supporting act on the last week,[59] 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."[60] On the final night, the two Morrisons and the two bands jammed together on "Gloria".[61][62][63]

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 the band; 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.[64]

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.[66] Morrison flew over and signed a contract he had not fully studied.[67] 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.[68] 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."[69]

However, from these early sessions, emerged "Brown Eyed Girl". Captured on the 22nd take on the first day,[70] this song was released as a single in mid-June 1967,[71] 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.[72]

Following the death of Berns in 1967, Morrison became involved in a contract dispute with Berns' widow that prevented him from performing on stage or recording in the New York area.[73] 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.[74] 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.[75] However, through the few gigs he could find, he regained his professional footing and started recording with the Warner Bros. Records label.[76][77] 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 didn't use them.[78][79] The throwaway compositions would come to be known as the "revenge" songs.[80]

Astral Weeks – 1968
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.[83] Morrison has said, "When Astral Weeks came out, I was starving, literally."[84] 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.[85] It has been compared to French Impressionism and mystical Celtic poetry.[86][87][88] 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."[89] 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."[18] It has been placed on many lists of best albums of all time.[10] 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.[90][91] 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.[92][93]

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.[94][95][96] 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.[97] The title track, although not released in the US as a single until 1977, received heavy play in FM radio formats.[98] "Into the Mystic" has also gained a wide following over the years.[1][99] The single released was "Come Running", which reached the American Top 40.[100] 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."[101] "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.[102] Moondance was listed at number sixty-five on the Rolling Stone magazine's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[91] In March 2007, Moondance was listed as number seventy-two on the NARM Rock and Roll Hall of Fame list of the "Definitive 200".[103]

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 free, 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."[104] It contained the hit single "Domino", which charted at number nine in the Billboard Hot 100.[105]

In 1971, he released another well-received album, Tupelo Honey.[106] 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[107] and the album ended with another country tune, "Moonshine Whiskey". Morrison said he originally intended to make an all country album.[108] 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.[109] 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."[110]

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.[111] Two songs, "Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When You Smile)" and "Redwood Tree", reached the Hot 100 singles chart.[100] 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.[111][112] It was his highest charting album in the US until his Top Ten debut on Billboard 200 in 2008.[113]

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.[114] In a 1973 Rolling Stone review, it was described as: "psychologically complex, musically somewhat uneven and lyrically excellent."[115]
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.[116] 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.[117][118] 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."[119] "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.[120]

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.[121] Also suffering from writer's block, he seriously considered leaving the music business for good.[122] 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,[123] 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.

The following year, Morrison released Wavelength; it became at that time the fastest-selling album of his career and soon went gold.[124] The title track became a modest hit, peaking at number forty-two. Making use of 1970s synthesizers, it mimics the sounds of the shortwave radio stations that he listened to in his youth.[125] The opening track, "Kingdom Hall" evoked Morrison's own childhood experiences attending church with his mother[124] and foretold a religious theme that would be more evident in his next album, Into the Music.[126]

Considered by Allmusic as "the definitive post-classic-era Morrison",[127] Into the Music, was released in the last year of the 1970s with songs on this album that alluded to what would become recurring themes: "religious redemption, Celtic myths and the redemptive power of music."[128] "Bright Side of the Road" was a joyful, uplifting song that would appear on the soundtrack of the movie, Michael.[129]


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.[130][131] In February 1980, Morrison and a group of musicians traveled 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."[132][133] 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."[132] 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."[130] Morrison insisted that the album was never "meant to be a commercial album."[130] Biographer Clinton Heylin concludes: "He would not attempt anything so ambitious again. Henceforth every radical idea would be tempered by some notion of commerciality."[133] Later the critics would reassess the album more favourably with the success of "Summertime in England".[133] Lester Bangs wrote in 1982, "Van was making holy music even though he thought he was, and us [sic] rock critics had made our usual mistake of paying too much attention to the lyrics."[130]

Morrison's next album, Beautiful Vision, released in 1982, had him returning once again to the music of his Northern Irish roots.[134] 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.[135] 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.[136] "Scandinavia", with Morrison on piano,[137] was nominated in the Best Rock Instrumental Performance category for the 25th Annual Grammy Awards.[138]

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.[139] 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."[137] During this period of time, Morrison had studied Scientology and gave "Special Thanks" to L. Ron Hubbard on the album's credits.[140]

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)."[141] 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.[142] In 1985, Morrison also wrote the musical score for the movie, Lamb starring Liam Neeson.[143]

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."[144] 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."[145][146] 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".[144] He entitled the album as a rebuttal to media attempts to place him in various creeds.[147] 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.[148]

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.[149] 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.[129][150]

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.[151]

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),[152] reached 13 on the UK album chart. Although considered to be a deeply spiritual album,[153] it also contained "Daring Night" which "deals with full, blazing sex, whatever it's churchy organ and gentle lilt suggest."(Hinton)[154] Morrison's familiar themes of "God, woman, his childhood in Belfast and those enchanted moments when time stands still" were prominent in the songs.[155] He can be heard calling out the change of tempo in the ending of this song, repeating the numbers "1 4". He refers to the chordal changes in the music he wants to hear, (the first chord and the fourth chord in the key of the music). He often completed albums in two days, with first takes frequently being the norm.[156][157]

to be continued ...

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