I was a teenager when rock’n’roll was coming through. It was a very inspiring time.
With 45th studio album Accentuate The Positive, Van Morrison returns to his roots, covering everyone from Chuck Berry to Fats Domino. Can Vintage Rock get the famously defensive icon to open up?
Van the Unknowable. One of the greatest singer-songwriters of all time, Van Morrison, is running almost four hours late for his audience with Vintage Rock. The musical enigma behind countless stone-cold classics – not least 60s beat stomp perennial Gloria – is on tour in Providence, Rhode Island, and was due to call us about Accentuate The Positive, his new collection of rock’n’roll covers from the movement’s golden era.
But today fate has intervened. Something’s come up. He can’t pick up the phone immediately… and so the waiting game begins.
This is particularly agonising because, if you believe what you read, now that Chuck Berry’s gone, the 78-year-old enjoys a reputation as the most fearsome interviewee in music.
The singer – whose seven-decade career encompasses everything from jazz to free-folk, blue-eyed soul and gritty garage rock with Them, the R&B band he formed in 1964 – clearly has little truck with this whole thing.
Any interviewer who comes to encounter Morrison must do so armed with the knowledge that, above all else, he hates being asked about his best-known work. Yet I would love to ask about Gloria , the aforementioned Them anthem covered by everyone from Patti Smith to Jimi Hendrix, so add a question to a reserves bank of queries I’ll pose if we happen to be getting on famously.
Be it 1968 masterwork Astral Weeks or 2019’s elegiac Three Chords & The Truth,
Van Morrison’s music is often exactly as beautiful as his persona can be brusque. 2022’s What’s It Gonna Take?, his last album of original material, crossed the streams in unpredictable fashion, as he combined aching melodies with protests about Covid-19, but Van the Man is back on wholly upbeat form with Accentuate
The Positive.
The 19-track record is a celebration of the music that he fell in love with as a teenager including the likes of Johnny Kidd & The Pirates’ Shakin’ All Over, Chuck Willis’ anthemic Hang Up My Rock’n’Roll Shoes and Little Richard’s unstoppable Lucille.
The album is absolutely joyful and,
“Rock’n’roll is about simplicity, sincerity and expressive power and there’s no way you can get away
from that. It’s spirit music.” – Van Morrison
given its sunny title, you’d hope it finds Van in a good mood.
After my phone eventually buzzes ominously with a call from a US number, this seems to be the case. There’s even a little small talk.
In his sandpapery Northern Irish burr, Morrison chats amiably about the gig he played the previous night and the one that he’ll play the next day, which will conclude the band’s current tour. Emboldened, I ask him to describe what he can see, so that I can build up a mental picture of where he’s at. The temperature drops. “It doesn’t really matter where I am,” he growls. “This is about the rock’n’roll album, right? It’s not relevant, mate.”
The sound that follows is perhaps best described as ‘indistinct grumbling’.
THE ROCK’N’ROLL PANTHEON
So the flight has hit turbulence before we’ve even left the runway, but luckily our vessel soon stabilises. If you want to get Van Morrison talking, it turns out, all you need to do is ask him about rock’n’roll. He reveals that Johnny Kidd was an early love: “When I started out, I used to do some of his songs – Shakin’ All Over, and Please Don’t Touch was another one – I saw him live, I think it was 1963. He was pretty good.”
This is fairly verbose when it comes to Van. He’s similarly forthcoming about Chuck Willis, whose track What Am I Living For he also covered on 2006’s acclaimed Pay The Devil: “I’ve been doing that in my set on and o for a long, long time and I recorded it on my country album, so I’ve been into Chuck Willis [for a long time].”
Van is actively effusive at the mention of Little Richard – well, who wouldn’t be? – and purrs that the Georgia Peach represents a place in the “rock’n’roll pantheon”, which leads him to reflect on the genre in general: “It’s what inspired me along with other music like rhythm and blues and skiffe, folk music, gospel, jazz. You know, it’s just part of the whole picture…
“I was a teenager when rock’n’roll was coming through, so it was a very inspiring time. And anyone my age was influenced by Little Richard, Fats Domino. Carl Perkins I was into. Gene Vincent was a big thing at the time – of course, he wasn’t as popular, but I didn’t mind. You know, a lot of people were into this music that I grew up with. My friends were into it, so it was normal to be into rock’n’roll.
“It was the most normal thing when I was a teenager. All these people played a role… Some people were into Elvis. The Everly Brothers were good. You name it, most of this stu coming out was really good.”
Morrison is a connoisseur of music history and, to name just a few of his genre workouts, has released Celtic rock, country and traditional Irish folk albums.
On 2017’s bluesy Roll With The Punches, he worked a line of Little Richard’s 60s soul deep cut I Don’t Know What You’ve Got (But It’s Got Me) into Sam Cooke’s Bring It On Home To Me. Do those songs just share a bit of musical DNA?
“Yeah, well, you know – that’s kind of it,” he says amenably, sounding pleased at the recognition. “I don’t know why I put it in. I’ve been putting it in that song for a long time. In fact, I have another version that I recorded in the 70s, an unreleased version, where I put that in as well.
“This is kind of what happens when you do this kind of music: a lot of verses are interchangeable. It’s basically like Joe Turner or all these people like Lightnin’ Hopkins, John Lee Hooker – it’s part of your tradition that these songs have hundreds of versions.
“So I guess that verse has stuck in my head. I had the Little Richard 45 and it’s very similar to Bring It On Home, so I just stuck it in there.”
His obvious love of music has been on wax for nearly 60 years now. Three Chords & The Truth featured Early Days, a boogie-woogie toe-tapper on which he beams: “Those early daysin so many ways/ Brings a joyous feeling to my soul… I hear those early days of rock’n’roll.”
What images do those lyrics bring to mind? “Well, it’s not images,” he explains, “it’s the music itself and the sound. It doesn’t really bring
“A lot of people were into this music that I grew up with. It was normal to be into rock’n’roll. You name it, most of this stuff was really good.”
up images. It’s [that] the music is infectious. It’s not images per se.”
Curiously, Van then segues into a lament about the commercialisation of rock’n’roll: “I think it was taken over by the media… It became about images later on. But when I started it was about… I wasn’t into the images; I was into music and that’s kind of what I’m still into. The whole image thing – that’s a whole other story.”
Can Morrison pinpoint a reason why he might have returned to those early days at this stage in his career? “Because I like it,” he says simply, before citing his age. “I guess what happens is – well, with me; I can’t speak for everyone, by the way – but I think at a certain point, I just wanna do what I like.
“I’m not interested in what other people want me to do or what they expect. I think if you’re successful, then you should be able to do what you want. So I enjoy doing this music. I have always enjoyed it… I just do what I like with music that inspires me and has always inspired me. So there’s no particular reason. It’s just what I want to do. I can do it, you know?”
THOSE EARLY DAYS
Accentuate The Positive follows Moving On Ski e, released earlier this year, another genre exercise comprising cover songs from the pre-rock’n’roll revolution that saw kids up and down the UK batter out ski e tunes on washboards, cigar-boxes and other homemade instruments.
The albums were recorded simultaneously in Belfast, Bath and Cardiff over “the last couple of years”. Asked if they could be considered companion records, Van concedes: “Yeah, probably… You could spin it that way, yeah.”
Ski e marked Van Morrison’s entry into the music scene when he formed his first band, The Sputniks, at the age of 12. They played cinemas around Belfast:
“That was, like, a weekly thing. It was on a weekend. On a Saturday afternoon. If you passed an audition then you got a Saturday afternoon before the matinee. Sometimes after the matinees. Once a week, basically. For a bit – but these things weren’t permanent. They were fleeting, you know? We were very young and I hadn’t become professional at that point.”
Although he seems to be trying, at least, to accommodate me, Morrison is also reluctant to reflect on that formative scene. He begins to mutter that, instead of asking him about it, I could just read the Moving On Ski e interviews from last year. The cracks are beginning to show.
We hit turbulence again when I mention that, by all accounts, he fell in love with
American music when his electrician father brought records home after working for a stint in Detroit. “No, no, no, no! No, no!”
Van rails, almost out of nowhere. “That’s totally wrong. I’ve gone over this hundreds of times, probably, in my interviews. I’ve been doing interviews a long time. I don’t really like doing them.”
Morrison explains that his father “got the records from a record shop in Belfast called Atlantic Records.”
Did the young Van pick up rock’n’roll music from Atlantic Records? “No, no, no, no – those were jazz records! The rock’n’roll records were later on. With my friends. My father was into jazz and blues. You know? So it’s a di erent thing.”
Well, I say, that’s how it should be – for rock’n’roll to be your own discovery, away from your parents.
He softens. “Yeah, yeah. And my friends had records. We shared records round
“I’m not interested in what other people want me to do or what they expect. I just do what I like with music that inspires me.”
each other’s houses, that kind of thing.
It was all going on then. It was all happening. We thought that was normal.”
THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO
After The Sputniks, Morrison formed a rock’n’roll band named The Thunderbirds (who later became The Monarchs), playing those aforementioned Johnny Kidd tunes as well as tracks by The Ventures, The
Shadows and Buddy Holly. The group performed at clubs and dances around Belfast, honing their craft in the years before he found fame. “And, of course, I did some Gene Vincent,” Van o ers. “I was really into Gene Vincent at that point as well.”
Was there anything that drew him to Gene Vincent in particular? Morrison sighs: “I just liked him. I’m not really good at this. I don’t have any stories. It’s just what I like. I mean, if I like something, I like it. And that’s it. I just liked the music, liked his voice.”
I’m genuinely touched when, despite this not being in his nature, he tries to spin a yarn about seeing Gene Vincent on a TV show that also featured Little Richard, but appears unable to shade in any further detail. Van Morrison’s music is among the most beautiful, articulate and romantic ever recorded, yet the man himself seemingly struggles to express himself even in simple terms – and therein lies the magic of his work. Given that this is the case, it must be frustrating when you’re expected to tell strangers about your innermost emotions. That knowledge, though, doesn’t make it any easier to be on the receiving end of his frustration.
I note that, for the most part, he’s covered lesser-known rock’n’roll tunes on
Accentuate The Positive.
“Of course I didn’t go for the obvious stu Why would I? It’s whatever you like!”
Van answers. “I mean, it’s not really hard to figure out. You don’t have to be Albert Einstein to work it out. I mean, what do
!
you like? You probably write about what you like. I listen to what I like. Simple as that. There’s no big mystery.”
The interview continues in this vein – I ask a question, he testily explains why he can’t answer it – for a few more minutes. “I don’t need to dissect this music,” Van insists. “It takes away from it, dissecting and trying to put it in a box.”
Ultimately, Morrison says: “I don’t like to talk about my work. That’s not something I like to do.”
OK, fair enough. What would he like to talk about? A pause. “I think you probably have enough if you wanna write an article or something.”
We’re now 25 minutes in. With plenty more questions before me, I suggest we spin the wheel at random, pick one and see if it lands. Van Morrison agrees to play the game. I take a spin – ring-ding-dingding-ding! – and, flipping through my notebook, hit upon a quote that Van gave to the BBC back in 2001: “I’m more like Bobby Darin than Bob Dylan.” What did he mean by that?
“Well, I don’t know who asked the question,” he replies evenly, engaging with the topic as though he hadn’t just tried to end the interview, “but some people write up a piece and they mention Bob Dylan.
Well, I’m just nothing like Bob Dylan, so I guess what I was trying to say was, like, I’m coming from the place that I’m a singer first. I’m a singer. Right? And I write songs. So Bob Dylan and I are, like, worlds apart. What he does and what I do, you know, it’s nowhere near.”
The question has, surprisingly, landed. The Bobby Darin reference, though, is so interesting and unexpected that I begin to wonder how Morrison arrived at that specific comparison.
“I don’t need to figure it out,” he cuts in. “I am a singer who writes songs, so I was comparing myself more to the singer who writes songs , rather than a songwriter who sings.”
We take another spin of the wheel Running down my list of questions, I spy
“I don’t need to dissect the music. It takes away from it, dissecting and trying to put it in a box. I don’t like to talk about my work.”
the one about Gloria. It’s now or never. Taking a deep breath, I explain that, this summer, one-time rock’n’roll revivalist Ezra Furman played the End of the Road festival in Dorset, where she tore into a glorious, life-affirming cover of the song, with which she closed her set – as she often still does – in Providence last night. So how does it feel to have written a bona fide rock’n’roll standard?
“It feels good, but that was then. I’ve written hundreds of songs. I’ve probably written close to 500 songs at this point!”
Van Morrison is one of the last of a dying breed of musicians who do what they want, say what they want, and expectations be damned. In an age of media-trained pop stars, he remains steadfastly unvarnished. Which, you must admit, is in keeping with the rebellious spirit of the era that his new album evokes. Perhaps we could suggest another nickname: Van The Rocker. ✶
• Accentuate The Positive is out now on Exile Productions/Virgin and reviewed on page 85