Van Morrison
Van Morrison
Sir George Ivan "Van" Morrison, OBEis a Northern Irish singer, songwriter and musician. He has received six Grammy Awards, the 1994 Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music, and has been inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2016 he was knighted for his musical achievements and his services to tourism and charitable causes in Northern Ireland...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth31 August 1945
CityBelfast, Northern Ireland
Van Morrison quotes about
The media is going to stick a label on records. And the public is going to pick it up from that. And that's what I was getting sick of-the whole analyzation thing.
I haven't really heard much that's impressed me the way it was when I first heard Ray Charles or somebody like that. That was really an impression.
There's a realization that you have to do something but you just can't do it all the time.
That's what it is-it's jazz. It's just jazz. That's what the whole thing is about to me. It's about what's happening right now in this context. This conversation is jazz to a certain extent. It's improvisation. What appeals to me about music is the improvization. That's what I don't like about the media-they're not living it.
Jazz comes from a tradition where it swings. Swing was the main ingredient of jazz. And once it loses the swing...well, that's it.
I'd found that what I wrote and put out on records somehow was not fitting into how I perform on stage.
My experiences with dope were not good for me. I had to go another route. Because in my experience, dope didn't give me those insights.
You can put out an album and it could be totally out of the window as far as what you want to do performance-wise.
The trip had become boring. It wasn't exciting anymore to totally be a singer/songwriter because it wasn't working for me.
That's the jazz that I like - the stuff that has a soothing effect.
[Touring] is not necessarily a priority. It's just a part of who I am as a performer. That's obviously why I'm doing it; why I'm in this business is part of me has to perform.
Performing was the natural thing originally and the rest of it [records and so on] is just like offshoots of that. That's how I see it anyway.
It was like I had evolved to a certain stage where I was stuck in this songwriter bag as an image. But basically at heart, I'm a rocker. And I still am. But I was caught up in the singer/songwriter bag and I wasn't really enjoying it.
I was just getting tired of the image bullshit...that man of mystery trip and what have you. What's that all about?