Van Morrison: Any Positive Stories?

When he made it big, he was living in California. He brought his parents over and set his Father up with a little record store. The man had been a great music lover and introduced Van to much of the Blues and other Great music. His Dad has worked as a laborer his whole life and made very little money. That must have made his last years very pleasant.

 

Van set his girlfriend (and baby's Mama) up with a nice house, ownership of 15 of his Companies, and privacy, by telling the Press he was not the baby's daddy, nor had he met his girlfriend. sure he cheated on his current wife, but he made it as right as he could.. sad that both girlfriend and baby would die within a year of each other

 

This is one of the most incredible stories I have heard. Damn.

 

I once saw him in a book store and said hi to him very nervously. He said hi back and was genuinely nice about it.

 

Looks like you just have to catch the right moment

Tim

 

Thanks for sharing that awesome video!

 

Neil is prolific and most of his records are in print. I think he changes his mind about stuff (which he has the right to do) but always has something cooking for his fans. I dont think you can really compare him to Van Morrison. C'mon puts on a benefit show on for children with disabilities every year...

 

That is a fantastic story.

 

lovely story, thanks for sharing!

 

I actually had a close encounter of the Van kind myself some years ago... It was in the late 90's and I got invited to a movie premier in Dublin. Afterwards there was a reception in a big historic building with many large roms and people walking back and forth. I didn't really know anyone and I remember just wandering around... At one point I was standing, looking into the next room, and someone passed me from behind wearing a bolero hat. They took about ten steps past me, stopped, and then turned and looked right at me. It was Van! We looked at each other for several seconds, and then he turned and walked off. To this day I wonder if that was just some random occurrence or if there was some kind of sixth sense at work!

 

I have never met Van, but I have worked with someone in his band on a song of my own. After recording the song with me, he showed a rough mix of it to Van. What he said amounted to something positive but curt, almost exactly what Glen Hansard described. I had zero idea that showing my song to Van was something even possible, much less that it occurred. This was told to me right before a terrible NYC gig I played in the 90's. Of course, I was over the moon about the news and called it "The Day Van Morrison Listened To Me". That is my positive Van story!



Dan

 

Thank you for posting over 10 minutes of jaw-dropping, "What an incredible story!!!", listening. Best interview of one great describing meeting another great that I've ever heard.

 

I think it's all organized by Neil's wife Pegi. Of course these world class artists would not turn up if Neil wasn't there.

 

Many, many years ago we saw Van at the Circle Star Theater, which was one of those in-the-round setups. During the last part of the show he invited a section of the audience up onstage to sit at his feet as he finished the show. Sounds odd in the telling, I know, but it was very cool. I've never heard of another performer doing it before or since.

 

Here's an extract from the diary of John "Rabbit" Bundrick (ex-Free, Back Street Crawler, Who etc) and his one and only encounter with Van the Man. This entry was posted on his website, along with his other diary musings, but then mysteriously "disappeared" a few years ago.

DECEMBER 1976.
I suppose the only really odd thing that happened this month was when me, Terry, and Tony got asked by Van Morrison to join him for an audition to play in his band.

The rehearsal-audition took place at a dump called the Cabin, in London. I was reluctant to do it in the first place because I'd always heard what a 'd*ck' Van was, and how hard he was to work for, and he wasn't my favorite artist of all time anyway, but decided to do it for Terry and Tony's sake. I'd thought, "I'll go with the flow, for their sakes, and see what happens".

Well, just as I expected, nothing much did happen. There the three of us were in this horrible dank room, perched behind our instruments, and in walks Van the Man. He was just an arrogant fellow. Pushy, stark, to the point, rough and rude. We played for awhile, and decided to have a break. We'd join up in 30 minutes after some lunch.

Well, Van should have never taken that break, cause that was my way out! He left the room and I said to the guys, "He's a complete jerk! If ya'll want to work with him go ahead, but I'm not. He's too arrogant for me. I'm going to the pub across the street. Ya'll decide for yourselves what you want to do, but if I ain't back in 30 minutes, then I ain't coming back at all".

30 minutes later, when Van returned to the rehearsal room, he got his answer as to whether we wanted to be in his band or not. He returned to an empty room. We were nowhere to be found. I just stayed in the pub, got drunk, and said "**** it!, I'm off home". The guys said, "Aren't you gonna even go back and tell him your not interested"? I said, "Nope!, I'm so 'not' interested, I can't even be bothered to tell him so".

Whether they went back out of politeness or not, I don't know, but I went home and forgot about it all. End of story! No way! Not my cup of tea, mate!...

 

Holy holy. Amazing story. "Nice voice, nice songs, blah blah blah" indeed.

 

Van Morrison's 'BBC Four Sessions' concert from St. Luke's Church in London in 2008. Never officially made it to DVD but there's a few video clips on the BBC website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/musictv/bbcfoursessions/vanmorrison/​

[Edit] I just found full concert on YouTube:

​

 

What does this have to do with the thread topic? We have plenty of threads about artists behaving badly. Ironically, I would say that John also acted like an unprofessional childish twit. Everyone has to deal with jerks occasionally in the work world.

 

Very True.
Keep it up Van.Your doing fine.

 

He's often spotted in record shops is he not?

 

Let's not forget the great joint interview with Spike Milligan from 1989....
http://www.pauldunoyer.com/pages/journalism/journalism_item.asp?journalismID=291

 

Wow. Just wow. What an amazing story.

 

Van gave one of the greatest concerts I've ever seen, then a year later he gave one of the worst I've ever seen -- seemingly on purpose.
That's just Van.
I will say that the guy does quite a few radio broadcasts and TV concerts, like the excellent BBC Four Sessions linked earlier in this thread. I wish more artists would be so generous in letting their live work get out there, even if it's not an official DVD or CD release.

 

For all of Van's supposed spiritual enlightenment then why is he such a bitter mean-spirited man?

 

Great share with that video, thank you.

I worked security for Van's 1978 concert at my school, UMass-Amherst. What an amazing show.