Morrison 1st rose to prominence when a lead singer of the British/Irish band Them, penning their germinal 1966 hit "Gloria". Two or three years late, Morrison left the band for a successful solo career.

Morrison has pursued an idiosyncratic musical path. Great deal of his music is tightly structured around a conventions of American soul and R&B, such as the popular singles "Brown-Eyed Girl", "Moondance", and "Domino". An equal a share of his catalogue consists of extended, loosely attached, spiritually elysian musical journeying that indicate a influence of Celtic tradition, jazz, and stream-of-consciousness narrative, such as his classic album Astral Weeks. Them tries together come periodically known as "Celtic Soul".

Morrison’s career spanning a bit of tetrad decades, has influenced several popular musical creative person. He was inducted into a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Inside 2000, Morrisin ranked total Twenty-five on Our contries cable music channel VH1’s list of the One c Greatest Artists of Rock & Roll. History
Early History
Growing higher around Belfast, Morrison wwhen studied to music from either an early age, as his father collected American jazz and blues albums, and his mother was the singer. His father's taste within music was passed in to him, he grew higher listening to creative person like Ray Charles, Leadbelly and Solomon Burke. Inside the 2005 Rolling Stone article he said that "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. [http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/7371946/vanmorrison?pageid=rs.Home&pageregion=single2]"

1960s
Morrison left personal at age Xv to pursue the music career. He played within many local skiffle and rock n roll bands before joining a class action The Monarchs and touring through Europe. He so formed a class action Them, in 1964 & come to prominence fronting a band. a band got a total of chart hits, virtually all notably the rock standard, "Gloria", later covered by numbers of creative person, including Shadows of Knight.

Morrison became unhappy by owning increasing emphasis on the utilize of studio musicians, & left the band fallowing a U.S. tour within 1966. He returned to Belfast, intending to quit a music business. The children’s producer, Bert Berns, persuaded him to return to Just released York & record solo for the Bang Records label. From either these early sessions emerged one of his right-known songs, "Brown Eyed Girl" (which reached #10 around the US in 1967). Master session drummer Gary Chester played on that song. A album that come from either people sessions was ''Blowin' Your Mind!''. Morrison late admitted he wasn't supprised using the resolutions, claiming around a Rolling Stone locate inside 1969, "It came out wrong and they released it without my consent." Recordings from either these sessions were once within a while re-freed by Bang & in black-market form, under various list. A complete recordings were repackaged around 1991 when a Bang Masters. These include an surrogate require of "Brown Eyed Girl" as well as early versions of "Beside You" and "Madame George", songs that appear by having slightly different chord changes, instrumentatiin, & lyrics on Morrison's 2nd album.

Morrison's seminal 1968 album Astral Weeks When Berns’s dying inside 1967, Morrison moved to Boston, Massachusetts. He was presently confronted using portable & fiscal problems. He experienced entered an alcohol-aided depression & experienced condition selecting gigs. Still, through a couple of gigs he can buy, he regained his sales person footing & began recording by using the Warner Bros. label. His 1st album for the two was Astral Weeks (which he had already performed around many clubs around Boston), the free song cycle considered by many to exist as his better function. Discharged within 1968, a album was critically acclaimed, however standard an indifferent response from either the public. Morrison, inside the Rolling Stone locate around 1970, described the album as a rock opera by having a definite story line. Astral Weeks has been located in many lists of the better albums ever.

1970s
Morrison so moved to California & freed his next album, Moondance in 1970, which reached #29 on the Billboard charts. A style of this album was inside outstanding counterpoint to it of Astral Weeks. Astral Weeks was the sorrowful & vulnerable album, Moondance on the other h& wasThe very much extra affirmative and upbeat affair. A title track, though never freed inside the America as a only, was heavy played in several radio formats. A reminiscent song "Into the Mystic" has besides gained a wide below on top the years. He produced a album himself because he felt there is no of these else knew what he was wanting to find.

Across a next couple of years, he freed many acclaimed albums (particularly 1970's His Band and the Street Choir, 1971's Tupelo Honey and 1972's ''Saint Dominic's Preview''), which spawned the hits "Domino" (#9 in the US in 1970), "Wild Night", and "Tupelo Honey". By 1972, despite being the performing artist for about Tenner years, he before long began getting stage-fright whenever performing ahead of big audiences, before of 100s to thousands of population when opposed to the hundreds he got had inside his early career. He would make their way anxious in stage & stand difficulty establishing eye-email by having a audience. He it used to be that said in an locate just about performing in stage, "I dig singing the songs but there are times when it's pretty agonizing for me to be out there." [http://www.harbour.sfu.ca/~hayward/van/van.html]

When the brief break from either music, he began performing around clubs & regained his ability to perform survive, albeit by owning the little audience. He so formed a class action, The Caledonia Soul Orchestra and ventured on the triplet-year Usa tour by using the babies. This tour was captured for posterity on the live double album, ''It's Too Late to Stop Now, widely regarded as one of the great live albums in rock history.

Around 1973 Morrison disbanded a Caledonia Soul Orchestra & divorced his married woman of vii years, the fiddler Janet Planet, with whom he got the girl. He so freed a self-examining & poignant album Veedon Fleece in 1974. Though it attracted little attention at a period of its release, its critical stature has grown all over a years, & Veedon Fleece'' is currently considered one of Morrison's better works. "You Don't Pull No Punches, But You Don't Push the River", one of a album's side closers, exemplifies a yearn, mesmeric, cryptic Morrison, by owning its information to airy poet William Blake and to the apparently Grail-like Veedon Fleece object.

Morrison would non release the watch-higher album for the next Trey years. When you took this period, he was breathe to write & record the total of newly songs, & inside the KSAN radio locate within 1974, Van indicated plans to release a recently album, Mechanical Bliss, the mere Four-Five months fallowing Veedon Fleece. A projected February 1975 street date came & went forswearing the release when Morrison continued to operate on the album. When you took this period, the album title underwent a total of changes (at once, it was to exist as known as Hard Upper Lip, sometimes it was retitled Naked In The Jungle), & a painter Zox was potentially commissioned to produce a sleeve-artwork. A design was at long last abandoned, & great deal of the act done would use to hold off until 1998's ''Philosopher's Stone'' to see official release. (Zox's painting was late incorporated into a handle art to The Royal Scam, a Steely Dan album released around 1976.) [http://www.harbour.sfu.ca/~hayward/van/van.html]

Around 1976, Morrison performed at a farewell concert for The Band, which took place on Thanksgiving Day. It was his number one survive performance inside quite a select few period, & Morrison considered skipping his appearance higher until a super eleventh hour. He performed deuce songs, one of the two existence "Caravan", from either his 1970 album, Moondance; many assume that rendition to exist as a high point of the concert. A concert was filmed & late issued inside Martin Scorsese's 1978 film, The Last Waltz, which is widely considered a landmark concert film.

Within 1977, Morrison finally freed A Period of Transition, a collaboration with Dr. John, who also appeared at The Last Waltz. Always fired when subpar act, it did lead off the super prolific period of song making. A as a consequence month, Morrison freed Wavelength; it, too, was widely dismissed, however the piquant title track became a mild hit. A opening track, "Kingdom Hall" (all about Morrison's have childhood own household budget in the area of Jehovah's Witnesses), also foreshadowed the religious turn in Morrison's next album, Into the Music.

Discharged around 1979, Into the Music was hailed as a masterpiece. Dave Marsh described the album in The Rolling Stone Album Cure, 2d Edition when, "An erotic/religious cycle of songs that culminates in the greatest side of music Morrison has created since Astral Weeks."

1980s
Good deal of a music Morrisin freed throughout the 80s continued to focus on themes of spirituality & faith when Morrison's compositions steered towards Up to date Age territory. "Summertime In England" from either Most common Of these, "Cleaning Windows" from either Beautiful Vision, "Rave On, John Donne" from either Unarticulate Speech Of The Heart (the concert highlight), & "Tore Down A La Rimbaud" from either The Feel Of Question come maybe a better examples of his act in the period of this comparatively uneven period of his career.

The revivification began using 1986's There are There is There is no Guru, No Method, No Teacher; that album & its successor, 1987's Poetic Champions Compose, were greeted by having Morrison's better reviews within years. Inside 1988, he freed Irish Heartbeat with the Irish class action, The Chieftains; the popular-selling record, a album featured a collection of traditional Irish folk ballad. Within 1989, Morrison freed an potentially further popular trafficker, Avalon Sunset, which featured the hit duet by having Cliff Richard, "Whenever God Shines His Light"; & a ballad, "Have I Told You Lately" (besides popularised by Rod Stewart). a critical & commercial profits, Morrisin was entity to capitalize on its profits by owning the release of The Right of Van Morrison. Does'nt to become mistaken by owning a similarly-titled compilation freed inside 1967 (& yearn out-of-print), this was the number 1 collection ever to survey his entire career. Compiled by Morriswithin himself & focusing on his hit singles, it became a multi-platinum profits & remains the virtually all popular item in Van Morrison's catalogue.

1990s
Around 1990 Morrison also joined several more guests for Roger Waters' massive performance of The Wall in Berlin, in which he sang "Comfortably Numb" with Roger Waters, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson and Rick Danko.

Morrisin would last on to collaborate using numerous more creative person for numerous years to came. Equally mentioned, he performed the duet by having Cliff Richard on Morrison's 1989 album, Avalon Sunset, but he likewise performed by having singer Tom Jones on the 1999 album Reload and with musical legend Ray Charles on his 2004 album Genius Loves Company. Within 1997, Morrison collaborated by using blues legend John Lee Hooker on Hooker's album, ''Don't Look Back''. the title track from either a album would last in to win a Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals in 1998. This was nin a number 1 instance them experienced worked together; Morrison appeared on two Hooker's Never Get Out of These Blues Alive and Chill Out previously.

Though Morrison's commercial profits would prove my point throughout a Nineties, a critical reception to his function began to decline. 1990's Enlightenment yielded 1 hit individual, "Real Real Gone" (1st recorded decade years earliest), & 1991's double-Video Hymns To The Silence was one of his virtually all challenging works, however 1993's As well Long Around Exile, 1995's Times Prefer This, & others were non swell recieved.

This period of time was besides marked by a total of side projects, including the survive, jazz performances of 1996's How else Long Has This Been Running In, 1997's Tell Us Something: A Songs Of Mose Allison, & 2000's A Skiffle Sessions - Infect Belfast, tons of which discovered Morrison paying tribute to his long-instance favourites.

Within 1997, Morrison freed A Healing Game, arguably his better album of the Nineties. the ensuing season, Morrison eventually freed a select few of his unissued studio recordings within a warmly standard both-disc placed, ''A Philosopher's Stone''. His next release, 1999's Back In Top, was the mild profits, existence his greatest charting album since 1978's Wavelength (album).

2000s
Van Morrison continued to record & tour in the 2000s, performing deuce or threefold the week. Swimming fewer of his easily-known songs cranelike than all but any more creative person from either his erthe, Morrison refused to exist as relegated into a nostalgia work.

Clinton Heylin's biography of Morrison, Can You Feel The Silence?, published in 2003 Around 2000, Morrison freed the collaboration by having (Jerry Lee Lewis's sister) Linda Gail Lewis, You Win Again. An additional side task, this period focusing in r&b and country-and-western standards, Lewis proved to be an excellent duet partner, and the project set the stage for Morrison's next album, ''Choppin' Wood''. Clinton Heylin's book, Can You Sense A Silence?, discusses this time period inside groovy detail, however due to legal issues surrounding a matter, non all about can be divulged. Per prevent of 2000, the album was au fond finished whenever Lewis & Morrison experienced a rupture. The cover of the May 2005 edition of Wavelength, a magazine dedicated to Van MorrisonAs a result, Morrison went back and re-recorded and/or remixed virtually all of the tracks, removing Lewis's contributions in the run. Two or three songs were flushed from either a final heading choose & further freshly ones were added within. A effect wwhen freed around 2002 as Later. Arguably Morrison's strongest release since Avalon Sunset, Heylin contends that a original version, ''Choppin' Wood'', would've been the avowedly link to to form. It's doubtful in case that notion might ever exist as put to a line 2 text because a original recordings stand eventually to circulate, privately or even publicly.

"In recognition of his unique position as one of the most important songwriters of the past century," Van Morrison was inducted into a Songster Hall of Fame at an awards ceremony witharound Just released York City in June 2003.

In the equivalent month, Morrison freed ''What's Incorrectly Sustaining This Picture?'' on the legendary jazz record label, Blue Note Records. the album would down the road receive a Grammy nomination for 'Best Contemporary Blues Album.'

Inside 2004, his song "Bright Side of the Road", off his 1979 album, Into A Music was featured in the UNESCO ads for the World Press Freedom Day.

Morrison however remains popular by using a public; his latest album, Magic Time debuted at #25 on the US Billboard stock and index charts upon release around May 2005, some Xl years fallowing foremost typing a public's eye when a frontman of The children.

Influence
Morrison's influence may be readily seen in the music of numbers of major creative person, including U2 (much of The Unforgettable Fire), Bruce Springsteen ("Spirit in the Night", "Backstreets"), Bob Seger, Rod Stewart, Patti Smith (her poetic-proto-punk "Gloria" most explicitly), Graham Parker, Thin Lizzy, Dexys Midnight Runners, and many others.

Awards and Recognition
Grammy Awards:

More recognition:

Discography
Albums