I Got My Name Up In Lights
John Prine: Prine says he "loves the music of Van Morrison," adding: "Van is also someone I consider one of the greats of songwriting. I can remember having lunch with him in Florida and we had such a good, long interesting talk about music. He's a huge fan of the music I love, too — country and blues."
Jason Segel: Segel said he was a huge fan of Irish musician Van Morrison and said Astral Weeks was his “favourite album of all time” which is why many songs feature in his new movie.
Christy Moore: At the moment, I'm very into country music - Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard. Last year, I was very into Elvis Costello. I always come back to Van Morrison - everything that he does, I get it and listen to it. But I don't listen to that much music, really. I spend too much time workin' on my own music, really. I tend to listen as a singer rather than a listener, as such.
Warren Haynes: On a recent evening, Gov't Mule guitarist Warren Haynes sat back and listened to Van Morrison's sweeping, improvisational gem Astral Weeks. While the frequent Allman Brothers Band and Dead contributor had cherished this iconic album for several decades, on this particular occasion, the 51-year-old devoured it with renewed awe. "It was a totally different listening experience," Haynes says of hearing the vinyl edition of the 1968 LP for the first time in years. "I had been listing to the CD for the past 25 years or more," he says, "but the difference (in sound) with vinyl is tremendous."
Nick Lowe: I think that’s probably the product of the Van Morrison obsession we had at the time. We were great fans of his first few records. Up to Tupelo Honey, I suppose. We loved those records. Moondance.
Dion Dimucci: I love hanging with 'The Man'... (a good friend) we got the same roots... it's all about the music!
Ian Rankin: 1989. I'd been living in London for three years. Unemployed at first, then eventually answering an ad in the Guardian to become a hi-fi journalist. But London was getting to me, as was my continuing lack of success as a novelist. I started having panic attacks and a doctor told me to get out of town. I grabbed some clothes, my Walkman and a bunch of tapes that had just arrived from Polydor Records. They were reissuing Van Morrison's back catalogue. I had never really given the guy a fair listen. I ended up in Scarborough. It was autumn and the town was blustery, near-empty. I did a lot of walking on the beach, clambering over the rocks with headphones on, listening to Hard Nose the Highway. Music as therapy. That voice, the poetry of the lyrics, the arrangements. It all seemed to make sense, and I felt myself unknotting. When times are bad, I still play Hard Nose. I have it on CD, vinyl, and on my MP3 player. Plus, I still have the tape. It's going in my coffin with me.
Marc Cohn: Q:The greatest album, ever?
Cohn: ..."The Birth of Soul" by Ray Charles. Or Al Green's "Greatest Hits." Or "Moondance" by Van Morrison. Or "Night Beat" by Sam Cooke. Or "Paradise and Lunch" by Ry Cooder. Or "Sticky Fingers," "Pet Sounds," "Harvest," "Born to Run," "The Band," "There Goes Rhymin' Simon," "Revolver," "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan," "Court and Spark," "JT," "I Never Loved A Man," "Sail Away," and "Fulfillingness' First Finale." All of them are the best album, ever.
John Hiatt: EXPRESS: It doesn't sound like you're near death or anything. In fact, as the album title makes clear, there are still a lot of new possibilities in these songs.
HIATT: There you go. That's good. I ain't dying. I'm alive. Barely. But that being said, some of these old guys are doing their best work ever. I'm thinking of people like Van Morrison or Bob Dylan. These guys are writing and singing some of their best stuff. They're older than me, so it gives me something to look forward to.
Paddy Moloney: Of all our collaborations, I've enjoyed most Van Morrison. He's chaotic and has a reputation for being difficult. It's the Irish in him. But he's a genius. We have all the falling-outs you hear about. But to me he's still the best.
Kristen Stewart: I never had any idols. I do cry at concerts if it's great, I once cried horribly at a Van Morrison concert. That was kind of an obsession.
Leonard Cohen: Cohen said not much has changed on his playlist in recent years and rattled off a list of his favorite artists with long breathy pauses between names: "The same people — Tom Waits, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, Judy Collins."
Mark Green (Mick's Son): I also went with him (Mick Green) to stay with Van Morrison in his barn in Bath when they were recording an album together. He was a great guy and got on very well with my dad — who was really cool.
Simon Mayo: In 1989, he (Van) launched his new album, Avalon Sunset, with a live gig at Ronnie Scott's in London. The fortunate hundred or so gathered outside the club full of anticipation. We were all milling around waiting for the security types to let us in when a shambling tramp of a man in a mac (you're ahead of me), possessions in a plastic Comet carrier bag, wandered to the front of the queue and tried to get in.
The bouncers were having none of it. And so it was that Van Morrison was turned away from his own album launch. That's why, two hours later, the fortunate hundred were sitting around their tables in Ronnie Scott's jazz club while Van was still being talked into doing his own gig. Which eventually he did.
And it was one of the greatest concerts I have ever witnessed.
Ray Benson: WCP: Van Morrison helped the Wheel with its first record deal by mentioning you in a Rolling Stone interview—have you ever been able to return the favor?
RB: Yes, in fact when Van did his country record he borrowed my fiddle player and steel guitar player, and took them on the road. Van and I talked two years ago when he came and visited me in Austin about me producing an album for him but he’s still got a lot on his plate.
Ben Chasny: How did you come up with the concept of Six Organs? What initially inspired you to create the compositions you create under the Six Organs name?
One night I stayed up until dawn playing three records in a cycle: The Dead C’s Harsh 70’s Reality, Bob Bannister’s 8 Day Clock and Van Morrison’s Veedon Fleece. The original inspiration came from that night.
What was it about those three records, specifically?
As for Veedon Fleece, that record has always been my favorite. It has a great rural vibe to it. I had read that Van recorded it while driving though the Irish countryside after a divorce.
How did Veedon Fleece come into play? How do you rank Veedon in the Van catalog?
That record and Astral Weeks often trade places in my mind as favorites. Side Two of Saint Dominic’s Preview is right up there as well. There’s also a part on the live record, It’s Too Late To Stop Now, where someone in the audience calls out “Turn it on!” and Van replies, without hesitation, “It’s turned on already.” That might be my favorite moment on any live rock record. It’s a moment that can’t really be explained. You just have to hear it. Tougher than the Cro-Mags! Well, not really ...
Bill Nighy: I finished up our interview by asking him if he had a chance of another life what it would be: he told me he would be a piano player or play the guitar.
"And I'd like to sing too, if I could sing. I'd like to sing the blues like Van Morrison sings them. I think he is an absolute genius, without question. One of the few people you can in complete confidence use the word genius in the same sentence."
Eric Clapton: Q: How do you like young blues rock bands like The White Stripes or The
Black Keys?
EC: I think, they are okay. One probably can find out what I like by looking at the music in my Ipod. I have seen these bands, I respect them, I have nothing against them, but it does not move me. I am not so much interested in finding out more about the younger generation - I have never been that type. I always listened to the older types. Recently I had seen Van Morrison live and it was the bee's knees - it lifted me so high, for so long. If I listen to someone who I admire and he gives me that exaltation, then I want to keep on doing it myself.
Lady Bianca: Saxophone player Alfred "Pee Wee" Ellis "suggested I sing for Van (Morrison)," Bianca recalled. "Of course, I had to do it my way. We still communicate to this day."
She sang - credited under her birth name of Bianca Thornton - on four Morrison albums between 1982-85.
She also was onstage when Morrison - the cantankerous, perfectionist bard of Belfast - recorded "Astral Weeks: Live at the Hollywood Bowl," the first full live performance of his landmark 1968 album. It was released this year on CD and DVD.
"It was fun," she said when asked about the 63-year-old Irishman's moodiness and exacting standards. "He's a great entertainer. That's what makes him him. He's so cute. If he wasn't like that, he wouldn't be Van Morrison."
Mike Farris: ...when I was a kid, I really loved Van Morrison. I loved the way Van Morrison’s songs would paint these pictures and I would always go, ‘This guy must be on a spiritual journey’. Whether he is or not, I wouldn’t know, I’ve never met the guy. But that’s the way it appeared to me, that’s what I got out of it.
Zakir Hussain: Hussain has always been interested in expanding the sound world of the tabla, often through collaboration with musicians from a range of musical genres. In the 1970s, one of his neighbours in the Californian town of San Geronimo was none other than Van Morrison.
“He would come and hang out in the living room and just see what we were doing,” Hussain recalls. Inevitably they ended up working together. “He’s such an incredible musician. I mean, when we went into the recording studio to play, he wasn’t, like, ‘Okay, you guys please put down the bass and the drums and the piano and stuff, and then I’ll come in and sing my part over it later’. He actually sat in there in the studio with all of us and belted out song after song, exactly the way he would have done it on the stage. It really put that energy out there for us to be inspired from and work with.”
WORTHWHILE MUSICAL collaboration, Hussain insists, is always marked by this exchange of energy. “You know how it is when you play with a musician you’ve never played with before,” he says. “You adjust your playing to find a way to be able to interact with them – and in doing so, you find something different about your instrument that you had not done or seen before. So playing with Van or John McLaughlin or Mickey Hart or anybody like that, I learned that there were other shades in my instrument that I had not yet experienced and should look into.
“Even in Indian music, when you play with different musicians and instruments you learn how to react to each one. Because it’s not just the music alone. It’s also the temperament of the artist that you have to work with. So you learn how to exist on stage and help create something positive.”
Graham Parker: The release of Bob Marley’s Catch a Fire in the mid-1970s helped focus his songwriting and move beyond the simple pop format.
”Bob Marley’s ‘Catch a Fire’ had come out in ‘73 or ‘74 and that made me realize that this was the future of music,” he says. ”What Bob Marley was doing — he was writing pop songs as good as Elton John was, but much hipper and, obviously, the guy had the rebel element... so that deeply influenced my music.”
At the same time, Mr. Parker had returned to his soul and R&B roots after several years of listening to British psychedilia (Cream, Jack Bruce’s solo work) and blues (Peter Green’s incarnation of Fleetwood Mac), while also discovering Van Morrison and Bob Dylan.
Mr. Parker had been familiar with Them, Mr. Morrison’s early band, “from the pop charts in the ‘60s, but it wasn’t influential until I got into ‘Astral Weeks’ and then went back to his other albums like ‘Tupelo Honey.’” As for Bob Dylan, he says he was “too obsessed with soul music,” the Beatles and the Stones as a kid to give him much of a listen.
”So, I was starting to write these good songs and when I got influenced by Van Morrison, it all came together,” he says.
But no one should confuse influence with imitation. He is not Van Morrison or Bob Marley or any of the other musicians he grew up listening to. He is not a soul singer, a reggae artist or a roots rocker. Or, maybe, he is all of the above and has been for the 30-plus years he has been recording and performing rock ‘n’ roll.
”All those forms of music have been there” in his music, he says. “And I would say that every one of them is on my first album and every single thing I’ve done since is on my first album in a way.”
Ralph Salmis: Mike: What have been your most memorable gigs?
Definitely the Van Morrison band was the most educational gig that I have done because they are not reading gigs so I have had to work on my memory skills a lot
(Mike: He has a reputation for not being very nice to drummers)
Ralph: yes he does! We did the Montreaux jazz festival and he shouted at me in the middle of a ballad but if your giving your best there is nothing more you can do, but he has the good of the music at heart, working with him is one of the best musical experiences that I have had... I did a track on the Tom Jones reload album with Van that
I really enjoyed it was great just to watch them working together...
Jimmy Fallon: Can you talk about your first guest lining up De Niro, Van Morrison?
Jimmy Fallon: (snip) Van Morrison I just lucked out because he's in the city; he's performing the full album of Astral Weeks. And if you're audiophile or if you love any music you know that that's a phenomenal record. But I'm also - grew up an Irish kid and, you know, he comes on your iPod in your brain when you're born. He's just like - he's one of my favorites of all times. So the fact that he was in town is just pure luck. And I think Astral Weeks is a phenomenal record so it's a double whammy on that one.
Has Van Morrison actually seen your impersonation of him? Do you know what he thinks of it?
Jimmy Fallon: I can almost guarantee you he has no idea who I am. I could almost guarantee that to you. But, yeah, I don't even know if I'm going to show it to him, I don't know. I don't know that guy at all. I was just psyched just to book him. I don't know if I want to, you know, piss him off before he comes on the show. But, yeah, I respect him, I love him and I could sing any song backup if he needs me.
Ciarán Hinds: What song would feature on the soundtrack to your life?
And It Stoned Me by Van Morrison. It's about knowing that when the rain comes, you should just revel in it. Sometime you will dry out, and the light will come back in.
Tom Sturridge: What's everyone's music taste?
Van Morrison is probably the most important person to me in the world. I can't really go a day without... I've already listened to about four Van Morrison songs this morning.
Gordon Lightfoot: Who are some of his favorite singer/songwriters?
Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Steve Goodman, Bryan Adams, James Taylor, Van Morrison, Harry Chapin, Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash.
Paddy Moloney: Of all our collaborations, I've enjoyed most Van Morrison. He's chaotic and has a reputation for being difficult. It's the Irish in him. But he's a genius. We have all the falling-outs you hear about. But to me he's still the best.
Ben Sidran: What’s Van Morrison like to collaborate with in the studio?
He’s exactly as he appears to be onstage. He never does anything the same way twice. Everything put down in the studio is done live, so whatever you play will likely end up on the finished record.
Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumkins): “You no longer have [institutions] to tell you what has more value," he said. "Growing up, I wasn’t necessarily a fan of Van Morrison, but I knew Van Morrison was an important artist just by the way he was talked about, by the way he was portrayed, by the way he was photographed. You don’t get that any more.
Robert Pattinson: Fandango: If you had a chance to collaborate with any music artist, who would it be?
I saw Van Morrison last night at the Hollywood Bowl. I've seen him five times before and he really pulled it out of the bag. He played like it was 30 years ago. I would love to do something with him now. He was my inspiration for doing music in the first place. Yes, he's still got it. He played the entirety of his album Astral Weeks. The whole thing was unbelievable. He was just as free as he was when he was younger, which was amazing.
Ken Bruen: Ken Bruen’s November 2008 Playlist
9) Philosopher’s Stone, Van Morrison. The aching in every line is bittersweet belief. Makes me want to rewrite my thesis for my doctorate.
Robert Pattinson: Interviewer: Tamara asked what is your favorite rock band?
Rob: I really like Van Morrison
Steve Van Zandt: “You accept Van Morrison as a native son right?’ he says.
“‘Gloria’ has become the co-national anthem of garage rock along with ‘Louie Louie’. As obstreperous as he can be, in spite of himself, he’s become quite a hero. I consider Them the archetype garage band actually, there’s been some controversy about who played on the record, but we tend to ignore those things. And he hasn’t been very helpful in that regard!”
Was Van much of an influence on the E Street Band in the early days?
“As a solo artist? Yeah, when I first knew Bruce we were listening to Astral Weeks and things like that. It became an early influence that would surface from time to time, it was one of those things that stayed quite deep in the DNA. At first it was the garage thing, and then he had a certain sort of singer-songwriter poetry sort of impact, and then he had a very significant R&B impact. So he had a very significant influence in at least three areas, and that remains I think with Bruce to this day.”
Eric Alterman: Eric Alterman’s October 2008 Playlist:
1) Comfortably Numb, Van Morrison with the Band. Like a coma, but in a good way … Pink Floyd’s version of this great song is hypnotic. Van Morrison can be hypnotic as well, but in a completely different way. Come to think of it, so can the Band. Roger Waters’ live version of “The Wall is mostly a disaster but this song has my permission to go on forever. Make sure you listen to that version, and not the truncated one that Marty Scorsese used for “The Departed” and Van put on his movie collection.
Richard Gere: Richard, besides going Paddy for The Jackal back in '97, you have been known to make Van Morrison laugh -- just wanted to say, the good people of Ireland have never actually seen that phenomenon, so thank you.
RG: Pleasure.
DL: Is that true, or just a rumour? He laughed?
RG: I played with him several times, and it was some of the most fun I've ever had in my life.
DL: That sounds great.
And what does Van Morrison look like when he's smiling?
RG: He gets taller. He gets a lot taller.
John Anderson (ESPN): What is your favorite kind of music genre and band?
Of the 1000 songs I have on my I-Pod 847 of them are by Van Morrison.
Foy Vance: You have been compared to Van Morrison, how does that feel? Good, I guess. Early Van Morrison is wonderful - he's a living legend. He has given so much to music in general, on the world scene as well as putting Belfast on the map.
Tim Russert: Favorite musicians: Van Morrison and Bruce Springsteen. Every song, every album. My taste hasn’t changed in 25 years, and when I’m preparing for Meet the Press, that music is playing in the background.
Miriam O'Callaghan: Her dream interview would be with musician Van Morrison."I prefer to concentrate on homegrown people and I have a great passion for Van Morrison's music, so he would definitely top my wish-list," she admitted.
"I think he's a really talented musician and a very interesting person -- so I'd love to get him on the show and get to find out what makes him tick.""I know a lot of people say that he's grumpy, but I'd love to have a chat with him and get behind that exterior.
"Even if he came on just to play a song, I'd be very happy."But ever the realist, Miriam conceded: "To be honest, I think it's very unlikely."
Rebecca Walker (Author): Into the Mystic, by Van Morrison. I heard this in the movie “Immediate Family” in 1989. I was 22 and in love. I ran to the now closed Tower Records on Broadway to buy the CD, which ushered in a long Van Morrison period in my life. This song about a man at sea returning to his love makes me weep.
Hal Ketchum: He said he was most influenced by Van Morrison, the Irish singer who delves into rock, soul, blues, R&B, jazz, gospel and country.
“Van is so open-minded about his music,” Ketchum said. “He lets it come to him. He’s a consummate singer, a great player, and he puts great bands together. He was a major influence in my life.”
Laura Dave (author): What is better than Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks?”
My favorite track from this 1968 album makes a prominent appearance in “The Divorce Party.” (It comes toward the end of the book, so I’ll keep which song a secret.) I’ve also been listening to the title song a lot lately. It is quirky, original, and sweetly hopeful. And it speeds up, just in time, to find its near-perfect rhythm. It feels like spring to me.
Jaymay: The greatest album, ever?Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks. I listened to it for a year non-stop. It’s like one long song or a long dream or a long trip on a train through Italy in the rain.
Larry Kirwan: In your opinion, is there one album that defines rock and roll?
LARRY: No. But my own favorite album continues to be "Astral Weeks" by Van Morrison, even though, for a reason, I can no longer listen to it.
Kim CattRall: I love listening to anything by the Beatles in the summer," says the Sex and the City star. "Van Morrison is a favorite, too – I love 'Brown Eyed Girl!'
Johnny Depp: I remember listening to Frampton Comes Alive! too much. My brother's ten years older than me.
He grabbed the needle off the album and there was this horrific noise — wrrrraarrrar. He said, "Listen, man, you're killing me. Try this." And he put on Van Morrison's Astral Weeks. And it stirred me. I'd never heard anything like it. I said, "OK, maybe Frampton Comes Alive! is a little tired."
Dan Fogelberg: Is it true you were a sideman for Van Morrison in your early career?
No, that's not the truth. I never worked for Van Morrison. I did however, open several concerts for Van and his band in 1971. My manager at the time, Irving Azoff was working for a booking agency that booked Van Morrison, so he sent me out with my guitar to open his shows solo. Generally it was me, Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks and thenVan and his band. Strange show, but somehow it seemed to work.
David Gray: "My heroes are people like Van Morrison, John Martyn and Nick Drake, and there are some of my songs where these influences are fairly apparent."
Ray Charles: "They asked me to come to New York to help celebrate Van's induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
I went because I see Van as one of the cats that has kept the faith. Like me, he's always himself—he stays true to the music that means the most to him. It meant a lot to sing `Crazy Love' on stage with Van that evening. That's what you hear at the end of Genius Loves Company, me and Van live."'
Maura O'Connell: Deserted-island discs
1. Poetic Champions Compose, Van Morrison.
This was the first Vanalbum that I felt connected to. I was about 19, so it came out duringa seminal time in my life.
Ronan Keating: What do you listen to these days?
RK: I've been listening to a lot of Van Morrison – both old and new.He's got an awesome voice, and it's amazing how he's never faded withage. Of the newer bands, I like Train and Coldplay.
Tom Jones: "If you're doing something Van understands and likes, he's great,"Jones says. "And if the musicians are playing the way he wants them to play, he's great. But if there's a fly in the ointment he justwalks away. He didn't like the drummer on the session so he said, 'I want you to change places with the percussionist.'
So the drummer changed places with the percussionist and the percussionist played drums, and Van didn't like him either. Instead of trying to explain to these drummers what he did want, he walked out of the studio."Jones continues, "I said to the guy that handles him, 'What now? What are we going to do now?' He said, 'Van doesn't like these drummers,so we have to send to London for a drummer he knows and then we'll have another go at it.'
The session was at Van's studio in Bath, so we had to wait about four or five hours to get this drummer from London. But once Van heard him play and it gelled, he was good as gold."
"The collaborations were just incredible. I went to Van and he wastotally for it as long as we did it on one of his songs ['SometimesWe Cry'], which was totally fine by me. Just to sing with him, what a thrill."
Terry George: Tongue in cheek, George recounted how he has finally become famous in his homeland. Last February, along with another Belfast boy, Van Morrison, George was honored at the second annual “Oscar Wilde: Honoring Irish Writing in Film” event in Los Angeles.
“I was shocked that Van showed up because he’s notoriously shy, and he had a 12-piece band with him and proceeded to blow the hall away.” George recalled. “Word gets around back home and I’m hearing from my mother and brother and others back in Ireland telling me, ‘Terry, you’ve made it - you were on stage with Van Morrison!’”
Pete Doherty: ...launching into his very best Kate Moss impression, 'She was like "You know what actually I don't think that goes there very well, and that line doesn't work and na na na".
"So I'd just keep the peace really", he continued, "You just change the odd line, take suggestions. I think she was listening to a lot of Van Morrison at the time, that song 'The Way Young Lovers Do' and something about Utah and a pair of red shows. So yeah, that's her contribution."
It seems however that Doherty's memory of that period of time may just be a tiny bit hazy as it's Van Morrison's 'Astrals Track' which references red shoes, and 'Natalia' which contains the lyrics 'You Talk'.
John Bell (Widespread Panic): THE EAR: Who are your musical influences? What are your favorite albums or CDs?
BELL: At home, I listen to the whole Van Morrison catalog. I always have my ear peeled for new Van Morrison stuff that comes out. He’s so prolific; he puts out a new album every six months so. I feel lucky to get to be a fan and not be picking his songs apart for song structure, a pitfall that comes with being a musician.I’ve never seen Van Morrison live, but at the end of our last tour, we missed him by one day when he played Atlanta. If it had been a day earlier, I’d have been there.
Jenna Bush: She (Laura Bush) loves music. My dad (President Bush) does, too. And Van Morrison, I mean, they both love Van Morrison.
Nick Lowe: What's amazing, he says, is "I always think that that song (Peace, Love & Understanding) was the first actual original idea that I had. Up till then, I'd been figuring out how to write songs, and, really, I was still rewriting the Band's tunes or Van Morrison's tunes, whoever I thought was really good back then, because that's how anybody starts: You copy the people you admire."
Glen Hansard: Hansard told me they shot the entire film ("Once") in 17 days, and in it he played street versions of several Van Morrison songs. Hansard had met and chatted with Morrison in the past (pictured below), and didn’t feel he’d have a hard time getting permission to use them.
But when he called Morrison’s people to ask for permission, he got a one word answer: No!“But does he know it’s for me, Glen Hansard? The one he chatted with? The one from The Frames?” Hansard pleaded. “Yes, he knows exactly who you are,” the assistant replied. “He knows all that, and he still says no, even though you probably already shot them, didn’t you?”Hansard was crestfallen.
They had indeed already shot the scenes with Morrison’s songs, and there was no money or time to reshoot. His only option was to call back again and beg.After several minutes of groveling, Morrison himself got on the phone. “Of course you can use the songs!” he said. He was just toying with Hansard.
Interestingly enough, those songs didn’t make it into the film’s final cut.But a soulful version of "Into the Mystic" did make it into the concert Hansard and Irglova (pictured above) played for us last night at the Landmark.
Brian Kennedy: Kennedy began his music career combining work as a solo artist with a five-year stint backing another Belfast boy, Van Morrison, in the 1990s.
It was through that association that he first became acquainted with Best, the '60s star of Manchester United and one of the greatest soccer players of all time."I knew him a little bit because any time I played Manchester with Van, George would show up," he says.
"There were a couple of occasions when me and Van and George would end up having a drink together at the hotel. Being around that and listening to these two legends, who were roughly the same age and both from east Belfast ... that was a great privilege, just to sit there and listen to them."
Bap Kennedy: "I've known Van since he took an interest in my first band, EnergyOrchard, in the late 1980s," he explains."Being fellow Belfast lads, we got talking and he said 'Do you fancy writing a song together?'"
Needless to say, I said yes, so we got the acoustic guitars out,threw a lot of lines at each other and, 20 minutes later, there was the song. "Wasn't it a bit scary working with one of your heroes though?"Not at all," he says, laughing at the memory. "Basically, we were just two guys sitting together writing a song."
Julia Stiles: "When I was little, every Sunday my mom would play St. Dominics Preview while cleaning the house... it had a great album cover of a blue church & Van sitting in front of it... I stole the record from her and put it on my wall.Recently I bought the cd and can't stop listening to it.
My favorite track is Redwood Tree St. Dominics Preview while cleaning the house... it had a great album cover of a blue church & Van sitting in front of it... I stole the record from her and put it on my wall.Recently I bought the cd and can't stop listening to it. My favorite track is Redwood Tree St. Dominics Preview while cleaning the house... it had a great album cover of a blue church & Van sitting in front of it... I stole the record from her and put it on my wall.Recently I bought the cd and can't stop listening to it. My favorite track is Redwood Tree with the line "Oh Redwood Tree, please let us under..." - very comforting."
Eric Clapton: "Q: Did you enjoy “The Last Waltz” [the Band’s farewell concert in 1976, in which Clapton, Bob Dylan and a host of greats performed]?
A: I did, yeah. A fantastic event. I loved it... For me, Muddy [Waters] and Van [Morrison] steal the show. Van doing [“Caravan”] with the leg kicks. Some of the greatest live music you’ll ever see.
Sinead O'Connor: "'Beside You' is Morrison talking to his girlfriend, but you wouldn't realise that until the end. There are many versions of this song but the TB Sheets version is my personal favourite.
It's typical of his style lyrically, a stream of consciousness. He's a great storyteller - this one starts with: "Little Jimmy's gone way out of the backstreet, out of the window through the fallin' rain", and it soon becomes very hypnotic. Really, he's telling her that a million things might happen and a long time might pass but he'll always be there beside her.
The line I never forget is: "The dynamo of your smile reflects the barefoot virgin child." I never heard Van until I was 18 and I'd moved to London and this guy from a record company gave me his records. The thing I like about his early stuff is that they only have two chords, but you wouldn't know it because of how he plays and his voice.
Dr. John ('77): With Van, I just think he’s a hell of a singer. He’s an amazing singer considering he’s from Ireland and all of this, that he sounds like he’s from West Memphis, Arkansas or something. I think the cat is phenomenal!He’ll do some more classic records I’m sure in his time. He’s gonna have plenty, plenty product that’ll be fantastic.
Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell: Mayor of Nashville Bill Purcell recently made local music legend Van Morrison an honorary citizen of the American city. During a visit to Belfast last week he told how Morrison was " appreciative" of the accolade, but not exactly "chatty"!
"I found him communicative, appreciative and very pleased to be in Nashville," said Mr Purcell."But chatty would not describe Van Morrison," he joked.
Tim Finn: “We maybe do one or two of our own, but we’ll mostly do The Beatles or songs like ‘Wild Thing.’
We do a Van Morrison song called ‘The Irish Heart Beat,’ which we sang at our mother’s funeral. That’s getting to be a popular request.
Marty Whelan (RTE TV): Whelan had to find all the strength he could when his dear old dad died on August 11, 1998. "I miss him terribly," he tells me. When his father died, Marty played the Enlightenment album by Van Morrison (another only child) all day and night to help him get through it. He always took solace in Morrison's music and quiet contemplation.
He even recited See Me Through as a verse by Van Morrison at his dad's funeral...Ten days after his dad's funeral, Marty was presenting the Rose Of Tralee - and Van was a guest on the show. The singer came back to the hospitality room and Marty says he thinks he "bored" Van for an hour.
They sat and talked about being only children."It was one of the most special meetings that I ever had with anybody. I have never forgotten it. I am a respecter of his enormous ability to make me feel a whole range of emotions.
I told him about how his music had got me through the death of my father."Marty reflects for a moment. "The interesting thing Van said at the end of the conversation was [adopts gruff Van voice]: 'You're not a bit like I thought you'd be.'"
Brian Williams (NBC News): To fellow Sopranos fans:
I don't know what's left to say, but I'm not going to give up that easily: how about "Comfortably Numb?" That version with Van Morrison from The Departed soundtrack is, as a friend of mine put it, "Like being in Church." It's a transforming song -- perhaps among the top three Van Morrison recordings of all time.
