Van Morrison (born 31 August 1945) is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician. He rose to prominence in the mid-1960’s as the lead singer of the R&B band Them, with whom he recorded the garage band classic “Gloria”. His solo career began with the release of the hit single “Brown Eyed Girl” in 1967. His album Moondance established Morrison as a major artist. Morrison continues to record and tour, producing albums and live performances that sell well and are generally warmly received, sometimes collaborating with other artists, such as Georgie Fame and The Chieftains. Morrison has received six Grammy Awards and the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music; and he has been inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. (More from Wikipedia)
The concert event The Wall – Live in Berlin, a July 1990 performance of the 1980 Pink Floyd album The Wall took place at the site of the Berlin Wall that had come down eight months previously. The concert was organized by Roger Waters, who had been the frontman for the band during their hitmaking period in the 1970’s and early 1980’s, though he left Pink Floyd in 1985 over creative differences and attempted to prevent the other bandmembers from continuing to use the name (they settled out of court in 1987).
Roger Waters had said during an interview in July 1989 that the only way he would perform The Wall live again was “if the Berlin Wall came down” – and four months later, it did. Attendance at the concert site itself was a record-breaking 450,000, and it was also broadcast live worldwide. Scorpions opened the concert with “In the Flesh” and also performed on three other songs. Guest artists included Cyndi Lauper, Marianne Faithfull, Thomas Dolby, Sinéad O’Connor, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Bryan Adams, and Levon Helm and Garth Hudson of the Band. Tim Curry, Albert Finney, Ute Lemper and Jerry Hall are actors who also performed, mostly during “The Trial” sequence toward the end. As the concert was performed, a gigantic wall (550 feet long and 82 feet high) that appeared to be made of large styrofoam blocks was completed; at the end of the trial, the judge declared: “Tear down the Wall!”, and the wall was pushed over, row by row.
(April 2013)
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Besides Mouse and the Traps (officially Mouse and Positively 13 O’Clock), the only other band to be featured on the original Nuggets album and also on Pebbles, Volume 1 is the Shadows of Knight. They are best known for their fantastic cover of “Gloria” that outsold the original “Gloria” by Van Morrison and Them in the United States.
(September 2013)
While recording their third and most successful album, Easter, Patti Smith Group encountered Bruce Springsteen who was recording his fourth album, Darkness on the Edge of Town in the adjoining studio. The Boss had recorded “Because the Night” but was unsatisfied with it and did not include it on the album. Jimmy Iovine was the producer and engineer on both albums; he passed along a copy of the tape of the song to Patti Smith, who recast the song and included it on her album. The first performance of “Because the Night” was at a Patti Smith Group concert on December 30, 1977 at New York’s CBGB club, with Bruce Springsteen joining in on guitar and vocals. Bruce and Patti share songwriting credits on “Because the Night”, which is probably Patti Smith’s best known song. Easter also includes several songs about Patti Smith’s feelings on organized religion; and her debut album, Horses includes her version of Van Morrison’s “Gloria” that had the spoken-word introduction, “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine”.
(February 2014)
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The Wikipedia article on Slow Train Coming also states (with no footnotes), in apparent violation of their NPOV (neutral point of view) policy: “In a year when Van Morrison and Patti Smith released their own spiritual works in Into the Music and Wave, respectively, [Bob] Dylan’s album seemed vitriolic and bitter in comparison.” Neither album is particularly Christian, from what I can tell.
(August 2014)
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In 1967, Kim Fowley produced the sole album by the Belfast Gypsies and also co-wrote some of their songs. The band included some members of Van Morrison’s first band Them before he left to become a solo artist. The album was misleadingly named Them Belfast Gypsies (particularly as the title is laid out on the cover). Allmusic gives the album 4 stars, and Richie Unterberger notes in the write-up for the album: “Their tense version of ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue’ is one of the greatest obscure Dylan covers, and the magnificent harmonica on ‘Midnight Train’ is a highlight.”
(January 2015/1)
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As described above, the resulting debut album, Crawdaddy Express by the Crawdaddys was comprised mostly of covers of R&B classics by Bo Diddley, Willie Dixon, Chuck Berry, and John Lee Hooker; plus a few from other sources, such as the old Hank Snow tune “I’m Movin’ On” and the magnificent Van Morrison song “Mystic Eyes” that opened the first album by Them. Only a few familiar songs were included on the album, such as “You Can’t Judge a Book” and “Down the Road a Piece”. Just two original recordings were included on the album, the title song “Crawdaddy Express” and “Got You in My Soul” (both written by Ron Silva and Steve Potterf).
(January 2015/2)
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