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Van Morrison:
No Surrender
450 pages
Publication date: May 2005
Publisher: Secker & Warburg (UK)
Publication date: June 2005
Publisher: Random House, Canada
ISBN: 0-436-20566-1
Review by Michael Hayward:
No Surrender, Johnny Rogan's new biography of Van Morrison, takes its
title from an Ulster Unionist slogan, and puts the reader on notice that (to use
Rogan's words from the book's introduction) "[Van Morrison's] whole life can be
seen as an extended metaphor of the psychological and political 'No Surrender'
seige mentality of Unionist Ulster". Now, I know next to nothing about the
intricacies of Irish politics, but I do know that I would not turn to an
Irish musician's biography to get a better understanding of such things. I can also
smell an overworked metaphor a mile away, and Rogan's metaphor for Van's life is
definitely that: overworked to the point where it has taken over what could
otherwise have been, at the very least, a very thorough (if strongly opinionated)
biography of The Man.
In many interviews over the years Van has famously objected to all attempts to interpret his lyrics, as strenuously as he has resisted efforts to be turned into a spokesman for any cause. "It's all about the music" would about sum up his attitude to such interpretation. "It's what I do for a living; its my job". Notoriously (and understandably) guarded about his private life and thoughts, there is no doubt that Van would not approve of this new biography. I suspect that he would disapprove of any unauthorized biography, but Rogan is perhaps more aware of Van's litigiousness than most other biographers, having written an earlier biography of Van in 1984. He hints at some of the obstacles facing any Van Morrison biographer:
an important caveat to any serious, well-researched biography or study of Morrison's life is that the reader should be aware that a number of allegations against the subject cannot be featured in pront for legal reasons. The lopsided effect of this is that the author may feel that the final portrait is far too flattering in certain places, while the reader who neglects to read between the lines may think the biographer could have been a little more sympathetic at times. Death alone will open this Pandora's box.
Rogan has extensive experience in the writing of musician biographies; the list of his previous publications includes books on The Byrds, Neil Young, Roxy Music, The Kinks and Wham! He certainly knows the milieu of popular music. And I suspect that he has also developed a keen sense of what will sell biographies such as these: an almost overwhelming accumulation of detail to assure readers that his research has been thorough and unrelenting (for example in No Surrender we learn that the first disc purchased by "young Ivan" was "'Hootin' Blues' by the Sonny Terry Trio on New York's Gramercy label - which was in the sale for 1/6d"). This detail must then be seasoned with a judicious assortment of anecdotes which feature the musician's less-than-sterling behaviour when under the influence of an assortment of behaviour-altering substances.
If all reports are true, Rogan's biography of Van is the most thoroughly researched one yet published. He has spoken to dozens of people about their time with Van over the many years, conducting what must amount to hundreds of interviews, and has delved into newspaper and other archives. His publisher granted him an unusual six years to complete the book, but the research for it extended much longer: a period in excess of 23 years.
As gauged by the opinions expressed on the various Van mailing lists, reaction to No Surrender will range from cautious enthusiasm to outrage (one poster stated that, having just finished reading it, "I must say that I have found it the most nasty, ridiculous, ill-informed, dangerous, mistake ridden piece of trash I have ever read about any musician"). In my opinion this last opinion takes things too far: any serious student of Van Morrison's music will want to own a copy of this biography, and will form their own opinion of it; a fact which will undoubtedly infuriate Van Morrison, and which will only add to Johnny Rogan's reputation as a pop-music biographer.
Promotional copy:
A definitive, provocative and revelatory portrait of an endlessly
complicated man and his music.
In this first full-scale biography of one of the most influential artists in the history of popular music, Johnny Rogan reveals the man, his music and his origins.
Van Morrison grew up in 1950s Belfast at a time of an explosion in youth culture and the emergence of a beat scene second only to Liverpool; a vibrant period before the descent into sectarian conflict. For Morrison, whose personality seemed to typify the "No Surrender" Unionist mentality, this was a time of inner discovery and musical experiment. He was an unlikely star and a publicist's nightmare; short, with plain looks, wavy red hair and a pot-belly, he gave fractious interviews, fell out regularly with friends and management, and behaved in a generally self-destructive fashion.
Following a period of local success in Belfast clubs, and chart success with his band, Them, his great solo break came when he moved to America and recorded Astral Weeks, an album which was the start of a period of huge musical and commercial achievement and secured him the status of modern music myth. Over five decades, Van Morrison's music has embraced rock, folk, blues, country and jazz. Today, he remains a hugely influential artist as well as a conundrum of a man.
Johnny Rogan has been called "Pop's most eccentric biographer, a fanatical searcher after truth." He is the author of books on the Byrds, Roxy Music, the Kinks, the Smiths, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, and John Lennon. His work has been acclaimed endlessly in print and on radio and television.
(Rogan has also written an earlier (1984) biography of Van Morrison)
Sunday Times review by Adam Sweeting:
The popular image of Van
Morrison is of a cantankerous, charmless man, prone to berating any journalist
within range and capable of treating friends and band members with horrifying
boorishness. This has become such a deeply entrenched cliché that it was
always tempting to speculate about a hidden, inner Van where the sun always
shone and spring lambs gambolled beside tinkling streams.
I'm not sure whether we should congratulate or pillory Johnny Rogan for proving conclusively that no such meta-Van exists. By his own account, Rogan has spent 20 years compiling interviews and research materials, and as he pins down relatives, old Belfast friends, former bandmates and former wives, shape and detail accrue steadily around the contours of Morrison's personality. Much of the time, it is not a pretty sight.
Being written about by Rogan, author of fiendishly detailed studies of Neil Young, the Byrds, the Smiths and others, must cause his subjects to consider changing their identities and retiring to the Yukon, since he pursues his quarry with the relentlessness of a marching army of termites. Morrison will no doubt greet this book apoplectically, perhaps even litigiously. Although Rogan gives due credit to the lasting quality of Morrison's best work, notably Astral Weeks, St Dominic's Preview and Veedon Fleece, virtually nobody is willing to offer a ringing endorsement of his personal qualities, and he is depicted as having been self-centred and unsociable virtually from birth.
An awareness that he was never going to be one of the Beautiful People may partly explain the Chernobyl-like desert where Morrison's social skills ought to be, as well as his apparent lack of desire to acquire any. Where most rock stars -- a term that he aggressively rejects for himself -- went into the business with at least one eye on meeting girls, poor old Van had to endure years of rejection and scorn. Like many arty or musical types in mid-1960s Belfast, he could often be found at a house in Fitzroy Avenue rented by a group of attractive girls, not least the up-market Ursula Graham-White, of whom Van became enamoured. But Ursula's housemate Gwen Carson recalls that "he was such a disliked character that we used to think he was a bloody nuisance", while another contends that "because he was so ugly he was always infatuated with beautiful women".
Here, as elsewhere, Morrison defied his critics, first by marrying glamorous Californian Janet Gauder, who adored him so much that she let him change her surname to Planet, and more recently by forming a liaison with the spectacular Irish beauty queen Michelle Rocca. Belfast entrepreneur Sam Smyth described the latter as "surely the most unlikely coupling in human history", but it has apparently survived infidelity and even Morrison's hiring private detectives to eavesdrop on Rocca.
One of Rogan's themes is the contrast between the sublimity of Morrison's finest music and the ugliness of his behaviour offstage. It's peppered with incidents in which Morrison abuses or physically attacks some of his closest friends (remarkably, he has some), as well as a couple of episodes apparently so grotesque that lawyers suppressed them. You don't have to be Dr Raj Persaud to surmise that Morrison has spent most of his 59 years battling against profound inner conflict, a theory which his restless pursuit of assorted "comparative religions" would support. At various times he has evinced interest in mysticism and astral projection, Scientology, astrology and assorted new-age esoterica, though apparently more in a spirit of research than out of deep conviction. Rogan has even unearthed a bizarre story about a German "Rosicrucian master" who believed Mor rison to be in the grip of an Angelic Knot, a legacy of occult dabblings, and the explanation of his alarming mood swings.
Rogan himself seems convinced that the root of Van's ills is an ultra-Protestant bloody-mindedness, and has developed a theory about his debt to the Rev Ian Paisley, although the more he writes about it the less persuasive it becomes. The book's title, No Surrender, is one of Paisley's Loyalist battle-cries, and the author frequently compares Morrison's vocal techniques to Paisley's thunderous, brimstone-dripping oratory. The book closes with the observation that Morrison was "always as hard as Ulster granite and as verbally vehement as his former near-neighbour Ian Paisley".
Likewise, Rogan's parallel history of the Irish Troubles is a useful guide for the uninitiated, but sheds less light than he seems to think on Morrison, since the singer was in America during the worst years of sectarian violence and has never expressed any coherent religious or political opinions. No biography is likely to tell you more about Morrison, but the "Ulster granite" is at least partially Rogan-proof.
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