Latest Release

- NOV 15, 2023
- 28 Songs
- The Essential Van Morrison · 1967
- Blowin' Your Mind! · 1967
- Moondance (Expanded Edition) · 1970
- The Essential Van Morrison · 1971
- The Essential Van Morrison · 1971
- Moondance · 1970
- Moondance (Expanded Edition) · 1970
- Moondance (Expanded Edition) · 1970
- Moondance · 1970
- Days Like This · 1995
Essential Albums
- At just seven songs, Saint Dominic’s Preview still manages to cover tremendous ground. The New Orleans R&B swagger of “Jackie Wilson Said (I’m In Heaven When You Smile),” the double-to-triple-time rhythmic mastery of “Gypsy,” and the bucolic complexity of “Redwood Tree” lead to two album-side-closing spiritual epics: “Listen to the Lion” and “Almost Independence Day.” Yet all is topped by the title track, which concentrates Morrison’s many vocal talents into one solitary stroke of genius.
- Few albums define an era like Moondance, a 1970 release that brings together several of our all-time favorite Van Morrison tracks. The opener, “And It Stoned Me,” simmers with the swaggering soul inflection that runs through most of the album. But the fusion of jazz, folk, R&B, and Irish mysticism is a stylistic playground for the volcanic vocalist. He’s clearly having a blast—whether he's gliding through the Sinatra-esque title track or belting out a full-throated command to “turn it up…the radio” on “Caravan.”
- There’s never been anything like Astral Weeks—not before or since. Parting with the straightforward, R&B-based rock of his past, a young Van Morrison embraced his love of jazz, blues, folk, and poetry all at once. The thrillingly transcendent journey finds him mixing bittersweet childhood memories and in-the-moment reveries like a folk-rock James Joyce. His soulful voice soars over a constantly shifting, almost impressionistic landscape of fluid, jazzy lines, gentle strumming, and shimmering orchestrations. The magic Morrison created here is as otherworldly as the title suggests.
- 2021
Artist Playlists
- Let this mystical singer captivate you with his haunting folk and jazzy pop.
- His career traces the path of the human heart in all its mercurial wanderings.
- His influence spreads across genres, continents, and generations.
- Lean back and relax with some of their mellowest cuts.
- A soul steeped in exultant blues, raw gospel and the crafty improvisation of jazz.
- He's one intense dude and these underappreciated tunes prove it.
Compilations
Appears On
- Eric Clapton
- Them
More To Hear
- Honoring Van Morrison's Astral Weeks.
About Van Morrison
One of the most expressive, instantly recognizable voices ever to emerge from Ireland, Van Morrison has spent over half a century internalizing his deep ardor for and understanding of American soul and R&B, jazz, and country, to say nothing of his Irish folk roots, forming a hybrid popularized as “Celtic soul.” He was born in Belfast in 1945; by age 12 he was playing in a skiffle band. He first tasted success fronting the short-lived Irish R&B-driven garage-rock band Them, scoring a minor hit with “Here Comes the Night” and recording the future rock anthem “Gloria.” But Morrison established his voice as a solo artist in 1967, cutting one of his most indelible songs, “Brown Eyed Girl.” Following a contract dispute with Bang Records that silenced him for a year, he launched a relationship with Warner Bros., which released the 1968 album Astral Weeks. This emotionally dark, paradigm-setting collection, made with jazz veterans such as Richard Davis and Connie Kay, introduced the sort of elastic arrangements that would allow the singer to use his full-bodied voice to alter the rhythms of his phrasing, stretching syllables like putty and rendering every performance unique. He made another six albums from 1970 to 1974, balancing punchy, horn-spiked soul with expansive post-folk ruminations, while drawing upon many stripes of American music, his lyrics becoming increasingly spiritual. After a three-year break from recording, he picked up with Period of Transition in 1977, co-produced by Dr. John. By the 1980s, Morrison was exploring the constituent ingredients of his sound, devoting albums to jazz, country, soul, and Irish folk, including a collaboration with The Chieftains on 1988’s Irish Heartbeat. With more than 40 studio albums to his name, he stands as a peerless model for reinvention and stylistic fusion.
- HOMETOWN
- Belfast, Northern Ireland
- BORN
- August 31, 1945