I’m doing what I need to do… singing is like breathing to me, says Van Morrison on album
AS the title of his stellar 1973 live album foretold, “it’s too late to stop now” for Van Morrison.
“Singing is like breathing to me,” says one of Belfast’s favourite sons.
He is reflecting on an epic career stretching back to the late Fifties when he played in skiffle bands while still a pupil at Orangefield Boys’ Secondary School.
Whether it’s jazz, blues, soul or rock ’n’ roll — sometimes infused with a touch of his renowned Celtic mysticism — Van is still the man.
Now 79, this ever-restless soul continues: “I don’t have ambitions, I’m just doing what I need to do. I have this gift, I developed it and I’m taking it further.”
Next month, Van is heading to Los Angeles to perform at a tribute concert for his dear friend in life and music, Robbie Robertson of The Band, who died last year.
Van says: “Someone asked Robbie about me and whether he thought I would ever give up.
“He said, ‘Do you want him to stop breathing?’ He was right . . . I don’t!”
For years, I’ve been hoping to speak to Sir George Ivan Morrison, one of the all-time greats but with a reputation for being, shall we say, a challenging interviewee.
Yet from the moment I pick up the phone to hear that unmistakable Northern Irish voice inquiring, “Hello, is this Simon?”, I find him to be friendly AND forthcoming.
‘I relied on Robbie’
We’re marking the release of New Arrangements And Duets, the beginning, he promises, of many dives into the vast Van Morrison archives.
It follows an astonishing 11 albums over the past nine years, the product of an artist speeding up rather than slowing down.
But before we get on to his latest one, I must tell you what else he had to say about Robbie Robertson.
The singer/guitarist shared a stage with Van, Bob Dylan, Muddy Waters, Joni Mitchell and others, when The Band played their farewell concert in 1976, captured in Martin Scorsese’s film The Last Waltz.
I am basically a jazz singer. No matter what genre I’m working in, I’m always improvising
Van Morrison
Van is pondering another topic when, in an unguarded moment, he stops in his tracks and says: “Getting back to Robbie — he was a friend for a long time.
“He was someone I always relied on, not just to do with work but also personally.
“If I was running into difficulties, I could always ring him up and run something past him.
“I’d say, ‘I have this problem, what do you think about this?’ And Robbie would always be helpful and very supportive.”
Following those touching words, Van yields further insights into what makes him tick — in turn explaining the freewheeling vibe of his new album.
New Arrangements And Duets is drawn from big band sessions in 2014 and studio hook-ups with four special singers during 2018 and ’19, Willie Nelson, Kurt Elling, Curtis Stigers and Joss Stone.
It opens in defiant fashion with Ain’t Gonna Moan No More which finds Van and Elling trading scat singing — nonsense syllables by voices turning into instruments.
Van agrees that jazz is the dominant force across 15 dramatic reinterpretations of deep cuts from his recorded output, going back as far as 1970.
He quotes Hollywood star Jack Nicholson, who once said “the blues and jazz will live forever”.
“I don’t see myself as being part of the rock and pop world,” muses the artist with mainstream success but an outsider mentality.
“I am basically a jazz singer. No matter what genre I’m working in, I’m always improvising.
“Jazz is always forward moving and forward looking.
“I learned from the Louis Armstrong school. Louis said, ‘I never sing a song the same way twice.’
That kind of stuck. And I never sing a lyric the same way twice either.”
Among the New Arrangements, chosen and devised by Van’s band members Chris White and Paul Moran, is a stirring rendition of I’ll Be Your Lover, Too which first appeared on his fourth solo album His Band And The Street Choir in 1970.
How can a 79-year-old guy sing about something he wrote when he was 20?
Van Morrison
Van says: “When I first heard the title, I said, ‘I don’t really want to sing that song,’ but, when I heard the arrangement, I went, ‘Yeah, that’s great.’
“I put a different spin on the whole thing, and brought it more up to date.”
Van insists that not all material he recorded back in the mists of time is suitable for the here and now.
“Stuff like Into The Mystic works but certain other songs don’t,” he says. “For me, they have to be relevant to today in some way.”
One song that won’t be up for reinterpretation or live performance is his first solo single, Brown-Eyed Girl, released in 1967 and still a fan favourite.
“How can a 79-year-old guy sing about something he wrote when he was 20?” he cries.
“It’s basically a teenage song. I can’t relate to it much now, you know.”
So how does he feel about two notable compositions from his days as a member of Them in the mid-Sixties, Gloria and Here Comes The Night?
“They’re doable,” replies Van. “Gloria is basically the blues — it’s based on Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley.
“As for Here Comes The Night, I’ve always liked that song.”
‘I often change lyrics’
It’s clear, too, that songs of a more spiritual nature have remained close to Van’s heart, such as Into The Mystic (from 1970’s Moondance) and one he chose to close a recent concert with, In The Garden (from 1986’s No Guru, No Method, No Teacher).
“They’re always relevant to me,” he affirms.
Two of Van’s New Arrangements originally appeared on his 1990 album Enlightenment, Avalon Of The Heart and So Quiet In Here, and also rose from that deep spiritual well.
I suggest that these jazzy takes are proof positive that his songs are never really finished and that they keep on evolving.
“That’s right, Simon,” he answers graciously. “You’ve got it.
“Dylan Thomas talked about how he was always revisiting and rewriting his poetry, from when he was about 19. It’s an interesting concept.”
It had been on my mind to do a duet with Willie Nelson for a long, long time but I didn’t get the opportunity
Van Morrison
As for Van, he adds: “When I do songs live, I often change lyrics here and there, bringing them up to the present.”
Among other treats in store are two duets with fellow master of phrasing, Willie Nelson, who has rightly been referred to as the “Country Sinatra”.
Van and Willie’s vocals combine in effortless style on What’s Wrong With This Picture? and Steal My Heart Away.
“It had been on my mind to do a duet with Willie Nelson for a long, long time but I didn’t get the opportunity,” explains Van.
Then, just before Covid upended everyone’s lives, the two singers found themselves on the same bill in the States — so studio time in Pittsburgh was booked.
Of the session, Van says: “It was absolutely fantastic. Very relaxing and very professional. Willie came in and delivered.
“I played those songs for him and he was into them. There’s not a lot of pondering with this stuff. The less back and forth the better.
“Willie covers all the bases and, to me, he’s very similar to Ray Charles. I like his work and I heard he liked mine.”
The mention of the late, great Ray Charles, one of Van’s all-time heroes, takes him back to where it all started.
Van was introduced to a lot of music in the Fifties by his shipyard electrician dad George, who owned a fabulous record collection.
The song Choppin’ Wood, cast in fresh light on New Arrangements, pays tribute to the father who helped inspire his lifelong obsession.
‘My own nostalgia’
But he stresses: “I discovered Ray Charles on my own. I first heard him on the radio, on American Forces Network, which came out of Germany.
“They played part of a live album and I immediately went out and bought some 45s.”
Decades later, in 2003, he and Ray shared a stage at the Songwriters Hall Of Fame, singing Van’s Crazy Love.
Then I discovered John Lee Hooker and Ray Charles on my own. This was my grounding for everything that came later
Van Morrison
He says: “With Ray, the word soul comes to mind — S.O.U.L. — same with singers like Sam Cooke, Bobby Bland and Solomon Burke. So much soul.”
We return to the wistful Choppin’ Wood, which Van describes as his “own kind of nostalgia” with its references to his father’s job as a “spark” down at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast.
He says: “My father was part of a small group of people who were into jazz when it wasn’t really that popular.
“The group centred around a guy called Solly Lipsitz who owned Atlantic Records (a shop, NOT the record label).
“They listened to New Orleans jazz — Louis Armstrong, George Lewis and Sidney Bechet — and Chicago blues — Muddy Waters, Little Walter and Bo Diddley.”
Van remembers his dad “having a lot of Lead Belly records and some by Josh White who had a hit with House Of The Rising Sun way back”.
He adds: “Then I discovered John Lee Hooker and Ray Charles on my own. This was my grounding for everything that came later.”
As Van began his first forays into performing, he took his cue from another trailblazer, the “King Of Skiffle” Lonnie Donegan, a Scotsman who put an individual stamp on American roots music.
“This guy was doing Lead Belly stuff like Rock Island Line, which I already knew, but he reinterpreted it and made it his own.
“Donegan has not been appreciated as much as he should be. He opened the door for guys like me.
“I had a skiffle group when I was still in school and he was key in getting me started, getting me going.”
In 1998, Van performed live in Belfast with Donegan and jazz band leader Chris Barber — also the double bass player on Rock Island Line — for an album called The Skiffle Sessions.
He says: “Donegan was a great performer, and good to work with.
“He kept you on your toes all right.”
Last year, Van released an authentic tribute album to the genre, Moving On Skiffle, and another saluting rock ’n’ roll, Accentuate The Positive.
If they represent the sounds of his youth, how crucial was his hometown of Belfast to his development as a singer?
“It wasn’t really the place, it was what you were interested in and what you thought you could do with it,” he says.
“But there were all sorts of opportunities to play live music, in ballrooms and hotels. Big bands had residencies for weeks or months on end.
“Then skiffle and rock ’n’ roll came along. If you felt the impetus to do it, it could be done.”
Van says his favourite rock ’n’ roller was Gene Vincent, whose biggest hit was Be-Bop-a-Lula.
“Later, in ’64, I actually met Gene and got to hang out with him for a bit,” he says.
“He was a great guy, very friendly, very open and amenable to talk to.”
To me, it feels as if New Arrangements And Duets has provided workaholic Van with a bit of a breather, a chance to reflect on his past before moving on again.
So what can we expect next? “It’s complicated,” he replies.
“Not only is there a backlog of old material, stuff that didn’t get released in the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties, but also a backlog of new material.”
“We haven’t worked out the modus operandi yet but we might try to get a lot of it on a boxset.”
To borrow the title of one of his old songs, Van Morrison remains a “Full Force Gale”.