Sir George Ivan Morrison is a Northern Irish musician, singer, and songwriter whose recording career started in the 1960s. Morrison's albums have performed well in the UK and Ireland, with more than 40 reaching the UK Top 40, as well as internationally, including in the United States, Germany, and the Netherlands.
real name: George Ivan Morrison
labels: Decca, Warner Bros. Records, Bang Records, Mercury Records
genres: rock music, jazz fusion, blue-eyed soul, Celtic music
awards: Officer of the Order of the British Empire, Officer of Arts and Letters, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Johnny Mercer Award, Americana Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting, Knight Bachelor
plays: guitar, saxophone, harmonica, voice, alto saxophone, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, 12-string guitar
member of: Them
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George Ivan Morrison was born on 31 August 1945, at 125 Hyndford Street, Bloomfield, Belfast, Northern Ireland, as the only child of George Morrison, a shipyard electrician, and Violet Morrison (née Stitt), who had been a singer and tap dancer in her youth. The previous occupant of the house was the writer Lee Child's father. Morrison's family were working class Protestants descended 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. His father had what was at the time one of the largest record collections in Northern Ireland (acquired during his time in Detroit, Michigan, in the early 1950s) and the young Morrison grew up...
Bert Berns, Them's producer and writer 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. During a two-day recording session at A & R Studios starting 28 March 1967, he recorded eight songs, originally intended to be used as four singles. Instead, these songs were released as the album Blowin' Your Mind! without Morrison's consultation. He said he only became aware of the album's release when a friend mentioned that he had bought a copy. Morrison was unhappy with the album and said he "had a different concept of it".
Critic Greil Marcus argues that, given the truly distinctive breadth and complexity of Morrison's work, it is almost impossible to cast his work among that of others: "Morrison remains a singer who can be compared to no other in the history of rock & roll, a singer who cannot be pinned down, dismissed, or fitted into anyone's expectations." Or in the words of Jay Cocks: "He extends himself only to express himself. Alone among rock's great figures—and even in that company he is one of the greatest—Morrison is adamantly inward. And unique. Although he freely crosses musical boundaries— R&B, Celtic melodies, jazz, rave-up rock, hymns, down-and-dirty blues—he can unfailingly be found in the same strange place: on his own wavelength."
Morrison's influence can readily be heard in the music of a diverse array of major artists. According to The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001), "his influence among rock singers/song writers is unrivaled by any living artist outside of that other prickly legend, Bob Dylan. Echoes of Morrison's rugged literateness and his gruff, feverish emotive vocals can be heard in latter day icons ranging from Bruce Springsteen to Elvis Costello". He has influenced an array of top tier performers, including U2, with Bono recalling, "I am in awe of a musician like Van Morrison. I had to stop listening to Van Morrison records about six months before we made The Unforgettable Fire because I didn't want his very original...
"Brown Eyed Girl" is a song by Northern Irish singer and songwriter Van Morrison. Written by Morrison and recorded in March 1967, it was released as a single in June of the same year on the Bang label, peaking at No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The song spent a total of sixteen weeks on the chart. It featured the Sweet Inspirations singing back-up vocals and is considered to be Van Morrison's signature song.
After finishing his contract with Decca Records and the mid-1966 break-up of his band, Them, Morrison returned to Belfast seeking a new recording company. When he received a phone call from Bert Berns, owner of Bang Records, who had produced a number of recordings with Them, he flew to New York City and hastily signed a contract (which biographer Clinton Heylin says probably still gives him sleepless nights). During a two-day recording session starting 28 March 1967, he recorded eight songs intended to be used as four singles. The recording session took place at A & R Studios and "Brown Eyed Girl" was captured on the 22nd take on the first day. Of the musicians Berns had assembled, there were two guitarists – Hugh McCracken and Al Gorgoni...
The song's nostalgic lyrics about a former love were considered too suggestive at the time to be played on many radio stations. A radio-edit of the song was released which removed the lyrics "making love in the green grass", replacing them with "laughin' and a-runnin', hey hey" from a previous verse. This edited version appears on some copies of the compilation album The Best of Van Morrison. Lyrically, it "shows early hints of the idealized pastoral landscapes that would flow through his songs through the decades, a tendency that links him to the Romantic poets, whom Morrison has cited as an influence". There is also mention of "the Hollow" in the first verse, a park and waterway location in Bloomfield, East Belfast, about 200 metres from...
Morrison's original recording of "Brown Eyed Girl" has remained widely familiar, as the uncensored version of the song is regularly played by many "oldies" and "classic rock" radio stations. In 2011, "Brown Eyed Girl" was honoured for having 10 million US radio air plays; it was one of only ten songs registered with BMI to have received that number of radio plays. As of 2015, "Brown Eyed Girl" remains the most downloaded and most played song of the entire 1960s decade. As of 2020, the song remains one of the longest-surviving songs from the 1960s in recurrent rotation in an era when the music of that decade has become increasingly rare as oldies stations have transitioned to 1970s and 1980s classic hits.
When Boris Johnson was mayor of London, he listed the song as one of his eight Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4. Fashion designer Betty Jackson also included the song on her list in 2002, as did British actor, comedian and singer Hugh Laurie on in 2013.