Sir Van Morrison OBE
Morrison in 2015
Background information
Also known as	Van the Man The Belfast Cowboy
Born	George Ivan Morrison (1945-08-31) 31 August 1945 (age 80) Belfast, Northern Ireland
Genres	Blue-eyed soul Celtic rock R&B folk blues jazz country gospel Christian
Occupations	Musician singer songwriter
Instruments	Vocals guitar harmonica saxophone
Works	Van Morrison discography
Years active	1958–present
Labels	Decca Parrot Bang Warner Bros. London Mercury Exile Polydor Verve Pointblank Virgin Universal Blue Note Lost Highway Listen to the Lion EMI Manhattan RCA BMG Sony Legacy
Formerly of	Them
Website	vanmorrison.com

Sir George Ivan "Van" Morrison (born 31 August 1945) 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 Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

He has scored top ten albums in the UK in four consecutive decades, following the success of 2021's Latest Record Project, Volume 1.^[1] Eighteen of his albums have reached the top 40 in the United States, twelve of them between 1997 and 2017.^[2] Since turning 70 in 2015, he has released – on average – more than an album a year. His accolades include two Grammy Awards,^[3] the 1994 Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music, the 2017 Americana Music Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting, and inductions into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2016 he was knighted for services to the music industry and to tourism in Northern Ireland.^[4][5]

Morrison began performing as a teenager in the late 1950s, playing a variety of instruments including guitar, harmonica, keyboards and saxophone for various Irish showbands, covering the popular hits of that time. Known as "Van the Man" to his fans,^[6] Morrison rose to prominence in the mid-1960s as the lead singer of the Belfast R&B band Them, with whom he wrote and recorded "Gloria", which became a garage band staple. His solo career started under the pop-hit-oriented guidance of Bert Berns with the release of the hit single "Brown Eyed Girl" in 1967.

After Berns's death, Warner Bros. Records bought Morrison's contract and allowed him three sessions to record Astral Weeks (1968).^[7] While initially a poor seller, the album has come to be regarded as a classic.^[8] Moondance (1970) established Morrison as a major artist,^[9] and he built on his reputation throughout the 1970s with a series of acclaimed albums and live performances.

Much of Morrison's music is structured around the conventions of soul music and early rhythm and blues. An equal part of his catalogue consists of lengthy, spiritually inspired musical journeys that show the influence of Celtic tradition, jazz and stream of consciousness narrative, of which Astral Weeks is a prime example.^[10][11] The two strains together are sometimes referred to as "Celtic soul",^[12] and his music has been described as attaining "a kind of violent transcendence".^[13]