Oscar 2022: the story of Van Morrison, nominated for the Academy Awards for music from Belfast

They had already passed through the Trobadour and Fillmore as part of their tour of the United States. Although their first two albums hadn’t been top-selling, their live performances aroused enthusiasm, as they have since their early days in Belfastwhere they represented the “angry youngs”, the “angry youngsters” of the mid-60s, the post-war fifteen-year-olds. Their vocalist’s immense ability to turn their performances into ceremonies of fire and sacrifice had taken them from the small nightclubs of their hometown to the hottest venues on the other side of the Atlantic. It was a time for the Rolling Stones, a time for The Who, The Kinks, The Animals, but it would also have to be a time for Them. Or at least for one of them.

After the Trobadour and Fillmore they had one more place left on the route, the Whiskey a Go Go in Los Angeles, where they would share the bill with an emerging house band. Legend has it that, at the height of that night in 1966, the two vocalists went head-to-head performing In the Midnight Hour, a Wilson Pickett classic: “I’m gonna wait till the stars come out/ And see them twinkle in your eyes/ I’m gonna wait ’till the midnight hour/ That’s when my love begins to shine/ In the midnight hour” (“I’ll wait ’till the stars come out/ And I see them shine in your eyes/ I’ll wait ’till the midnight hour/ That’s when my love begins to shine.). They both turned that topic into a jammed spectacular, almost 20 minutes, thanks to their voices and their unbridled talents. They were Van Morrison and Jim Morrison, front man of The Doors, sharing the only kinship that united them, between beers, fleeces and whiskeys, beyond the coincidence of their surnames: music.

Although the second was a shooting star who left at the age of 27, he has managed to perpetuate more themes than the man who is still alive. It is easy for any rock lover to list several songs by The Doors, but not everyone is capable of doing the same with the repertoire of the Irish singer who, moreover, has known how to transcend the borders of rock to dress up his sound of rhythm & blues, jazz , blues and Celtic music. Although it could be said that one of the great injustices in the history of music is that he sometimes seems not to occupy the Parnassus of the great rock stars, it is possible that he himself has asked for it. An example? Many believe that Jim Morrison and The Doors are the authors of the classic “Gloria”, with which they got a brutal live version, but the song was written by Van Morrison in 1964 for Them. Legends say that they also sang it together on that night of jamming´. “Inside the heart of the beast… Here is something so good, so pure, that if there were no trace of the existence of the record, there shouldn’t be such a thing as rock and roll… Van Morrison’s voice is a fierce beacon in the dark, the beacon at the end of the world. It turns out to be one of the most perfect rock anthems known to mankind”, Paul Williams wrote about “Gloria”, in his book “Rock and Roll: The 100 Best Singles”.

During his more than 50 years on stage, the man also known as “The Belfast Cowboy” has built a reputation for being moody, impatient, elusive and hostile to the press and has given very few interviews. That even happened to him when he arrived in the United States, before those nights of madness and rock and roll. “A crew from the coast-to-coast TV show “Shindig” went to meet Them at the airport. The tribulets on duty pounced on that short, chubby Irishman while the cameras focused on him in the foreground. Morrison was stunned, began to babble confusedly and tried to answer those stupid questions. The only thing he managed to do was put on his typical face of contempt, in which there was no lack of grimaces of terror, and remain completely silent, ”said the journalist and writer Eduardo Jordá in his book“ Van Morrison ”.

The Legend of the Flying Irishman

Them’s first performance had been one night in April 1964 at The Maritime Hotel, in Belfast, considered to this day to be the cradle of Rhythm & Blues in Northern Ireland. Van Morrison said, some time later, that Them had been born and died there, because for him, the band was unable to rescue the mystique and the feedback that the public gave them there on other tours and concerts. Including that legendary night at the Whiskey a Go Go where he sang alongside the Lizard King. Today, that composer of love and heartbreak songs, memories of the streets of Belfast or hard stories of loneliness, at 76 years old, has been nominated for an Oscar for “Down to Joy”, the song he composed for “Belfast”, which adds another six nominations in a night that could have a Northern Irish flavor.

Kenneth Branagh decided to stop in a city, in a certain time and space. His childhood in the streets of the Northern Irish capital not only saw the birth of the conflict between Protestants and Catholics, with political connotations, which came to have serious episodes of violence, but also musical movements, eminently influenced by rock and blues, both shores of the Irish Sea. However, for the now acclaimed director and screenwriter, there was no music or voice that sounded more Belfast than Belfast itself, like that of Van Morrison, one of the definitive singers in rock history, who went from a wild youth to a mature calm, with the sober image of a crooner who not only sings, but consecrates the songs as if each one of them were a religious ceremony, words that intoxicate and lead to epiphany with the elegant influence of jazz and blues. Seen in this way, there was no other voice like his capable of cinematically elevating Belfast, the city where Morrison and Branagh were born.

“I wrote to him, and then he called me on the phone and auditioned me,” Kenneth Branagh said in a recent interview about how Van Morrison’s collaboration in Belfast came to fruition, which is also the first time he has composed music for a film. . “I think he wanted to know that my intentions were honorable and that we wouldn’t mess with his sound. But, in the end, he let us do soundtrack remixes of some of the master recordings. He also wrote us a new song, ‘Down To Joy’, which opens the film: it’s magical. He came to see cuts of the film and offered more input. Van was an excellent collaborator, and many, many people who had warned me that he would be a very grumpy soul, turned out to be wrong on this one!” “So,” added Branagh, “although there is beautiful music everywhere on the island, contemporary and many other classics, it was hard to think of making a film about Belfast without recognizing that particular voice.”

Leaving his proverbial bad temper aside, Van Morrison brought to Belfast other old tracks from his discography, including “Caledonia Swing” (from 2016’s Keep Me Singing album), “Bright Side of the Road” and “And the Healing Has Begun”. (Into the Music, 1979) –which one biographer called “the central song of Morrison’s career”-, “Warm Love” (Hard Nose the Highway, 1973), “Jackie Wilson Said” (Saint Dominic’s Preview, 1972), “Days Like This” (Days Like This, 1995) –which became a pacifist anthem for Northern Ireland-, “Stranded” (Magic Time, 2005) or “Carrickfergus” (Irish Heartbeat, 1988), which is a wonderful way to take a tour of jewels from his discography, while reliving a difficult period in the history of his country. Music proves to be as immortal as history itself.

The man inside the voice

Some say that Van Morrison looks like the poet Dylan Thomas has come his age. That is, if his age were measured in liters of whiskey or in sleepless nights being a fire by himself. To sing the music of “Belfast” it was also necessary to have suffered it, to have had anguish in its streets or pain in the pillow, before and after each dawn, with or without concerts and beyond music. Because you can’t sing with the texture that Morrison has in his throat if he hasn’t lived –or drunk- long enough.

In April 1966, the temporary seams that had held the band together on their American tour broke and various members of Them sought a new destiny. By the middle of that year, Van Morrison was living alone in a middling London hotel, surrounded by liquor bottles. He was just about to turn 21, but he considered that his career was over. He started as a saxophonist, a few years before, in a band called The Monarchs, without much ambition, but the time with Them had shown him what he could have achieved. The Californian scene had fascinated him, but he had been left without a soul… and almost without a liver, distanced from his colleagues and fed up with the managers and producers. The only good thing he did during this time was keep writing songs. He left behind the garage inspiration of his old band and chose more intimate paths. Although he debuted as a solo artist in 1967 with the LP “Blowin’ Your Mind!” -which includes his classic “Brown Eyed Girl”-, his true debut is considered the fabulous “Astral Weeks” (1968), which was followed by “Moondance” (1970), two full-fledged masterpieces that appear in the main selections of best albums in the history of rock, despite not only interpreting that genre.

Tupelo Honey (1971), Saint Dominic’s Preview (1972), Wavelength (1978) or Into the Music (1979) continued along the same lines during the 70s. Irish Heartbeat (1988) crowned the 80s just like Back on Top (1999) he did it in the 90s. From the latter “Precious Time” is extracted, one of the classic songs of his concert repertoire. “Back on Top is solid, brilliant. But it is also one Monet and nine Norman Rockwells”, Rolling Stone magazine wrote about this album.

Along the way, Morrison left sweat, blood and tears, but also the consecration that his talent deserved. He has received 6 Grammys (Between 1996 and 2007), a Brit Award (1994), as well as being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2003) and the Irish Music Hall of Fame (1999). . Later, he received the Order of the British Empire -for his service to music- and France awarded him the Order of Arts and Letters (both in 1996). He also received two honorary doctorates from Queen’s University Belfast (2001) and the University of Ulster (1992).

These merits, however, do not add up when it comes to increasing their chances of obtaining the Oscar for Best Song, a category in which “Dos oruguitas” (composition by Lin-Manuel Miranda and interpretation by Sebastián Yatra for the film “Encanto”) , part as a clear favorite. Regardless, such an award would crown the career of one of the most powerful voices rock and roll has ever had, even if Van Morrison never had an interest in being the nicest guy on the block. In fact, he already announced that he will not go to the Oscar ceremony, since he is in full tour. This year, he will perform in cities like Vienna, Stockholm, Gent, Stuttgart, Baarn, Madrid, Hollywood or Las Vegas.

However, there are rumors about another reason for his absence: the vaccination requirement. As is known, the Oscar ceremony requires that nominees, guests and media personnel be vaccinated before attending. Morrison, in recent times, undertook a “crusade” together with another legend, Eric Clapton, against quarantine and the Covid-19 vaccine that brought him, once again, to the center of controversy. “Stop and Deliver” and “This has Gotta Stop”, two songs they did together, express these ideas. In a song of his own, No More Lockdown, Morrison sings: “No more lockdowns / no more government excesses / no more fascist thugs / disturbing our peace.”

However, as in his own career, not everything is as bad as it seems: some of these latest recordings have served to raise funds that subsidize unemployed musicians in Northern Ireland due to pandemic restrictions.

For better or for worse, the Wandering Irishman, also known as “The Lion of Belfast”, follows his route, faithful to his convictions. And, happily, faithful to the music that made it eternal.