| Name | Van Morrison |
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| Background | solo_singer |
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| Birth name | George Ivan Morrison |
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| Alias | Van the ManThe Belfast Cowboy |
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| Birth date | August 31, 1945 |
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| Origin | Belfast, Northern Ireland |
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| Genre | Rock, blues, rhythm and blues, folk, blue-eyed soul, celtic, rock and roll, jazz fusion, country, soft rock |
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| Instrument | Vocals, guitar, harmonica, saxophones, keyboards, drums, tambourine, ukulele |
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| Occupation | Singer-songwriter, musician |
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| Years active | 1958–present |
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| Label | DeccaBangWarner Bros.LondonMercuryExile/PolydorVervePoint BlackVirginUniversalBlue NoteLost HighwayListen to the Lion/EMIManhattan |
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| Associated acts | Them |
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| Website | www.vanmorrison.com
}} |
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Van Morrison,
OBE (born
George Ivan Morrison; 31 August 1945) is a
Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are regarded as transcendental and inspired; while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums ''
Astral Weeks'' and ''
Moondance'', and the live album ''
It's Too Late to Stop Now'', are widely viewed as among the greatest ever made.
Known as "Van the Man" to his fans, Morrison started his professional career when, as a teenager in the late 1950s, he played a variety of instruments including guitar, harmonica, keyboards and saxophone for various Irish showbands covering the popular hits of the day. He rose to prominence in the mid-1960s as the lead singer of the Northern Irish R&B; band Them, with whom he recorded the garage band classic "Gloria". His solo career began under the pop-hit oriented guidance of Bert Berns with the release of the hit single "Brown Eyed Girl" in 1967.
After Berns' death, Warner Bros. Records bought out his contract and allowed him three sessions to record ''Astral Weeks'' in 1968. Even though this album would gradually garner high praise, it was initially poorly received; however, the next one, ''Moondance'', established Morrison as a major artist, and throughout the 1970s he built on his reputation with a series of critically acclaimed albums and live performances. Morrison continues to record and tour, producing albums and live performances that sell well and are generally warmly received, sometimes collaborating with other artists, such as Georgie Fame and The Chieftains. In 2008 he performed ''Astral Weeks'' live for the first time since 1968.
Much of Morrison's music is structured around the conventions of soul music and R&B;, such as the popular singles "Brown Eyed Girl", "Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When You Smile)", "Domino" and "Wild Night". An equal part of his catalogue consists of lengthy, loosely connected, spiritually inspired musical journeys that show the influence of Celtic tradition, jazz, and stream-of-consciousness narrative, such as ''Astral Weeks'' and lesser-known works such as ''Veedon Fleece'' and ''Common One''. The two strains together are sometimes referred to as "Celtic Soul".
Morrison has received considerable acclaim, including six Grammy Awards, being inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and appearing on several "Greatest Artists" lists.
George Ivan (Van) Morrison was born on 31 August 1945, at 125 Hynford Street,
Bloomfield,
East 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. The line-up of the band was lead vocalist Deanie Sands, guitarist George Jones and drummer, vocalist Roy Kane. Later the four main musicians of the Javelins, with the addition of Wesley Black as pianist, 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 (G. D.) 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.
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. 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. Eric Wrixon, still a schoolboy, was the piano player and keyboardist. 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!''.
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. 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. 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. 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.
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), though it was the b-side of "Baby, Please Don't Go", the garage band classic, "Gloria", that went on to become a rock standard covered by Patti Smith, The Doors, Shadows of Knight, Jimi Hendrix and many others.
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. The Doors were the supporting act on the last week, 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." On the final night, the two Morrisons and the two bands jammed together on "Gloria".
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.
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. Morrison flew over and signed a contract he had not fully studied. 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. 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."
However, from these early sessions emerged "Brown Eyed Girl". Captured on the 22nd take on the first day, this song was released as a single in mid-June 1967, 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.
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. 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. 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. However, through the few gigs he could find, he regained his professional footing and started recording with the Warner Bros. Records label. 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. The throwaway compositions would come to be known as the "revenge" songs.
"Astral Weeks is about the power of the human voice – ecstatic agony, agonising ecstacy. Here is an Irish tenor reborn as a White Negro – a Caucasian Soul Man – pleading and beseeching over a bed of dreamy folk-jazz instrumentation: acoustic bass, brushed drums, vibes and acoustic guitar, the odd string quartet – and of course flute." Barney Hoskyns – ''Mojo''
''Into the Music'': "The album's last four songs, "Angelou", "And the Healing Has Begun", and "It's All in the Game/You Know What They're Writing About" are a veritable tour-de-force with Morrison summoning every vocal trick at his disposal from "Angelou's climactic shouts to the sexually-charged, half-mumbled monologue in "And the Healing Has Begun" to the barely audible whisper that is the album's final sound."
(Scott Thomas Review')
The following year, Morrison released ''Wavelength''; it became at that time the fastest-selling album of his career and soon went gold. 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. The opening track, "Kingdom Hall" evoked Morrison's own childhood experiences attending church with his mother and foretold a religious theme that would be more evident in his next album, ''Into the Music''.
Considered by Allmusic as "the definitive post-classic-era Morrison", ''Into the Music'', was released in the last year of the 1970s. Songs on this album for the first time alluded to the healing power of music, which would become an abiding interest of Morrison's. "Bright Side of the Road" was a joyful, uplifting song that would appear on the soundtrack of the movie, ''Michael''.
With his next album, the new decade found Morrison following his
muse into uncharted territory and merciless reviews. 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." 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." 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." Morrison insisted that the album was never "meant to be a commercial album." Biographer Clinton Heylin concludes: "He would not attempt anything so ambitious again. Henceforth every radical idea would be tempered by some notion of commerciality." Later the critics would reassess the album more favourably with the success of "Summertime in England".
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."
Morrison's next album, ''Beautiful Vision'', released in 1982, had him returning once again to the music of his Northern Irish roots. 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. 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. "Scandinavia", with Morrison on piano, was nominated in the ''Best Rock Instrumental Performance'' category for the 25th Annual Grammy Awards.
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. 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." During this period of time, Morrison had studied Scientology and gave "Special Thanks" to L. Ron Hubbard on the album's credits.
''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'')." 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. In 1985, Morrison also wrote the musical score for the movie, ''Lamb'' starring Liam Neeson.
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." 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." 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". He entitled the album as a rebuttal to media attempts to place him in various creeds. In an interview in the Observer he told Anthony Denselow:
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. 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''.
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''.
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), reached 13 on the UK album chart. Although considered to be a deeply spiritual album, it also contained "Daring Night" which "deals with full, blazing sex, whatever it's churchy organ and gentle lilt suggest."(Hinton) Morrison's familiar themes of "God, woman, his childhood in Belfast and those enchanted moments when time stands still" were prominent in the songs. He can be heard calling out the change of tempo at the end of this song, repeating the numbers "1 – 4" to cue the chord changes (the first and fourth chord in the key of the music). He often completed albums in two days, frequently releasing first takes.
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. 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."
After ''
Enlightenment'' which included the hit singles "
Real Real Gone" and the title cut in 1990, an ambitious double album "
Hymns to the Silence" was released the following year, his only double studio album. 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.
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. 1995's ''
Days Like This'' also had large sales – though the critical reviews were not always favourable. 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", 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." 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''.
Van Morrison continued to record and tour in the 2000s, often performing two or three times a week. 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.
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''. 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.
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''. 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. 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. 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.
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. ''Pay the Devil'' debuted at number twenty-six on The Billboard 200 and peaked at number seven on Top Country Albums. 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. 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. 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''. 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.
''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. The November release in the US and Canada contains twenty-one selected tracks. 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. It comprised eleven self-penned tracks. Morrison promoted the album with a short US tour including an appearance at the SXSW music conference, 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.
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.
The 1974 live double album, ''It's Too Late to Stop Now'', has been on lists of greatest live albums of all time. Biographer Johnny Rogan states that "Morrison was in the midst of what was arguably his greatest phase as a performer." 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.
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." 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. His first was a rendition of the classic Irish song Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ral. His second song was "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." The filmed concert served as the basis for Martin Scorsese's 1978 film, ''The Last Waltz''.
During his association with The Band, 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!"''
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. 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.
Van Morrison continued performing concerts in the 2000s throughout the year rather than touring. Playing few of his best-known songs in concert, he has firmly resisted relegation to a nostalgia act. During a 2006 interview, he told Paul Sexton:
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