2003 "official" interview with Van Morrison
Van, when you were a kid growing up, there would have been a lot of Blue Note records in the house so I guess it's a label you always admired?
Yes, that's right, oh definitely. I mean he had the Bechet album was on Blue Note then, yeah. I think people forget that people like Bechet were on Blue Note. They associate the label with later artists like Horace Silver and... Yes, there was a programme on Blue Note, a documentary on the box a while back, and actually that's what enabled them to do the label was with Bechet. That was the first hit they had, Summertime with Bechet which enabled them to put the money into even more. When you were a kid growing up in Belfast, long before you got into the business as such, would it have been a kind of a dream or ambition to be on a big American jazz label like this?
Well, I never thought then that I would actually make a record, it never entered my head that I was ever going to be on any record. So I wouldn't. No, not then. So how do you feel about being on Blue Note?
It's much better than being on one of these pop labels. That's the whole point. I wanted to be on a more of an adult label. There's no point me being on a pop label because they don't know how to market the records, they don't know how to promote them. There's nobody to communicate with - there's no communication, they don't know anything about music anyway. So you're dealing with this corporation and all they want to do is sell pop records, they don't know what to do with me and it's been this way for a while so it's only a logical, rational conclusion to arrive at - I want to be on an adult label that deals with music, not pop stuff for kids, which is what I've never been into anyway. If that's what you want, there's plenty of that but that's not what we're doing so it didn't make sense for me to be on a pop label anymore. I should have been off those kind of labels a long time ago but I kind of got stuck with these designer pop labels that were going nowhere. They weren't interested in music or me and they just had me because of the name. You've never been one for defining what you do, but on this record you come as close as you ever have before about what your music is. You actually say very clearly "Jazz, blues and funk - that's not rock and roll, folk with a beat and a little bit of soul". That's it in a nutshell really isn't it?
Exactly, exactly. So you decided to spell it out it for once and for all?
Well that's just what came out in that song, you know. It was part of it and I was getting tired of the clichés and the mentality of the kind that think they know you and they write these little pieces about who they think you are. So that song came out of that. It's like well no, I'm not actually rock, that's not what I do, I do this. Does it still bother you when they get it wrong?
I just don't know why they bother. I don't know why they bother writing about me - I guess because I'm a name. I know you don't like going into songs and what they're about - why must I always explain etc - but there are some quite explicit songs here about fame and about myth, things which seem to have preoccupied you for a long, long time...
It's my freedom of speech. My only weapon is the songs because of the all powerful media and the people the control the all powerful media. That's my only kind of way to express where I'm at in this. It's not preoccupation at all. In fact I wish it wasn't in the frame at all. I think you've read books fame and about glamour and you've really looked into it. Does it get you anywhere?
Well you can't read about fame. You're either famous or you're not, that's the thing. It's not something you can read about. I've lived it since I was 18 on and off. It isn't something that we can read in a book - there's no books on it. It's not like you can study a subject like study mathematics or English literature or study the Web or something but it's not like that. It's suddenly 'knowable' that you're famous, you know it's not a theory. It's not you know third party but as far as what the projection of fame is - the public - that's why they think they know famous people because you need third party to actually project that fame on a larger scale. It needs to be third party and that's what the press do, that's what the media do, they project third party. A famous person to themselves, they don't get up in the morning and think 'I'm famous'. I'm not famous to me. Famous is a perception.. You can't read about it, you can't learn about it, you have to actually be it. Your influences are very evident on this album. You can hear Ray Charles, you can hear Louis Jordan, you can hear Lightnin' Hopkins, you can hear - I don't know if he's one of your favourites but - maybe Arthur Alexander, The Drifters and people like that. There's all sort of stuff here...
It's the old proverbial, philosophical saying - I know it's been worn out for quite a while now and has come and gone in various guises but - it's like the philosopher said 'Follow your heart'. I mean it's as simple as that - do what you like and this is what I like and that's what I'm doing. For a long time, it wasn't that simple but now I've kind of simplified it - just do what you like to do and you proceed from there. It's right in front of your nose. The first one has got a real Ray Charles thing about it and he seems to be...
Well it's the title track. 'What's wrong with this picture?'. It's got strings on it. Then you've got your 'Jump Blues' thing in there too...
Well, I have all those influences you know. The Ray Charles with strings, the R&B - it's all influenced me at one stage of the game, it's all inspired me to actually do what I'm doing. The good thing about a song like Whinin' Boy Moan, is that you'd swear it was an old song rather than an original. Is that a tricky thing to do?
No, it's just the way it comes out, you see. The songs just come out the way they come out. There's nothing thought out - you go in and you record on and off. I don't go in and study this thing and go 'Oh I'm going to make a record now'. We're recording on and off all year every year so I get an idea, I get a song together, go in, record it and then that's in the pool of material. So at the end of a year or a year and a half or whenever it's time to put the thing out, we get round to .... that came from probably 30 tracks - that was edited down from probably 30 tracks that were done over a period of over two and a half years. So then that becomes the record. It's not linear - well this is the album you know the way? They way they write about them too over the years as well is like you know anybody whether it's me or whoever it is, they seem to think an album is a statement of where you're at now you know. It may or may not be. Yeah and you're probably onto the next one by now.
Oh yeah - I'm onto to the next several. I often wonder about the songs, covers specifically, that you choose to perform or record. I know that you know literally thousands of songs by other people, I mean it must be thousands and you have this strange ability to know the words of all these songs. And here on the album you have a cover on here of Saint James Infirmary - a great song but why single that one when you could have picked any of thousands of songs to record...
Well, there's a reason, there's two reasons behind that. You know one is it's a song I've always liked that I grew up with and those are the types of songs that I used to hear when my father played those records when I was a kid so I've kind of got this stuff ingrained, you know it's ingrained in me and the other reason is that we'd been doing it live for actually several years live and it's actually a hit live without even being on a record so that's another reason. And plus the same thing, it's what do you like to do stuff like that you know? To get this music recorded properly, you really have to get the right musicians and you're lucky to know you get some great people. I mean Acker Bilk for instance?
Well Acker Bilk is like I've always liked the song being part and parcel of that because also the stuff I used to hear as well then when I heard Armstrong and Bechet I also heard Acker Bilk and Chris Barber Band and Ken Collier and all at the same time. Acker writes really strong melodies - actually I did lyrics to one of his other melodies 'Evening Shadows' on the previous record. He writes great melodies which most people aren't aware of. I always liked that melody for Somerset you know which is you know has got a kind of a pun as well 'cos he calls it Summer Set but actually you know it's about the county, Somerset. I know you're not a hero worshipper by nature but you have a great admiration for people like him don't you?
Absolutely, I mean he's a great musician. That's the thing I mean these people aren't really acknowledged like they should be in my view, in my book, you know what I mean. They're kind of neglected after a while or that was just a phase then but they're great musicians. Some of the great musicians are still working and there's still something to learn from them. A lot of the people that you admire are older than you...
Well of course, you need to learn something. A lot of them aren't around anymore either. Do you ever feel lonely, professionally or musically, now that a lot of people are gone?
Well I've felt that for a long time. It's a small percentage of people who'd be into what I'd be into - be a very small percentage at this point you know. Yes, there is that but that's also part of it, that's part of you know lineage of this type of situation - there's not that many people that are doing this and you know it's like the old thing about, you have to keep going back to get where's the missing link here because the music that is coming out today seems to have lost some kind of inherent kind of central kind of check in thing where, well I certainly can't relate so I have to keep going back, I listen, I always learn something 'cos there's so much to be studied really you know. And then when I was a kid I couldn't afford this, I mean even though my father had records, there was records I wanted to buy and at that point I couldn't afford them so I'd get like one 45 or one EP - an EP was a big... a lot of money - now all this stuff is available on CDs - you can get everything like everything on CD now so you can go and fill in the missing bits that you didn't hear then that you didn't get and then you can... there's still a learning process. I agree that learning is so important in music and you must be aware that there must be a lot of people Van, who are learning from you? Is it something you'd be interested in perhaps to actively teach, you know show people how to do things or to indicate in some way what sort of path they could follow musically?
I think, I don't know see to me, it's like it's all instinct. You know it's all complete instinct and intuition and that's you know extremely difficult to teach. If one wanted to teach it, it would be very difficult it's not you know it's not like teaching poetry or teaching a creative writing course - it's all instinct. You know it just comes out of ... well I don't really know what it comes out of I mean like Karl Jung said the collective unconscious you can buy that if you want. You know I don't know where it comes if I call it like automatic writing ... I call it... Jimmy Scott's got a definition of jazz that's very close. He said jazz is like the now ... it's being now present in the now moment that's what jazz is. So you know this kind of process I'm involved in. I don't think it's teachable, it's not teachable you know. But there are other aspects of it. I mean you have indirectly taught an awful lot of people, musicians and non-musicians about music, say about other musicians that they would never have heard of if it hadn't have been for you covering their songs.
Well you could probably teach that, you could probably teach the you know... that could be like a study. Yeah I could see where you could teach that kind of a study, yeah. But as far as work-shopping what I actually do, that's something else again - that can't be taught.
I know you well enough not to ask you about specific lines but there's two here I want to point out 'Samson went spare when Delilah cut his hair' is a great line.
Bit tongue in cheek. And there's another one - 'Rain in the forest just enough to magnetise the leaves' - I never heard that expression before 'Magnetise the leaves' ... Well that's what happens when there's rain on leaves, it magnetises it. Does it?
Course it does, yeah. How do you know that?
I don't know, I just know. Must have learned it in science class or something! I suppose, Van, expectations are neither here nor there but this isn't actually a jazz album - well not totally jazz.
No it's not totally jazz, it's you know it's blues jazz... it's approaching blues jazz and there's various forms of that but it's like without being a loaded word I mean it's the approach that's jazz you know. The approach is jazz and the approach has been jazz for a long time but this is just close to the kind of spelling it out because the musicians here are kind of more in that pocket. I used to work with musicians that were really great technically and they were good but there were really kind of what you would call rock musicians. With this kind of combo it's like really you know what I'm trying to achieve is get guys who are more into R&B. You know you can get like really good modern jazz players or you could get rock players. This seems to be what is kind of out there ... it's like you really get good modern jazz players or you get rock players you don't usually get anything in between. Whereas my stuff is more like mainstream, it's more like rhythm and blues so you have to know those genres to play this so this band is kind of closer to the kind of band like I've always wanted, from way back. So this is what makes more sense to be on Blue Note, to be doing this. 'Cos a lot of the other musicians I had were great but they didn't really understand where I was at I mean they didn't listen to the same kind of music as me for instance right. Whereas some of the guys in this band actually do and that's why I got them but that's a small percentage as well what we were talking about earlier. There's not that many people that go and they would be listening to this kind of music you know what I mean. They'd either be playing rock or they'd be playing Courtney Pine type jazz or whatever. So in a studio situation, the band is free to kind of improvise and do their own thing?
Within a structure, yeah. 'Cos a lot of band leaders are really tight. They get great musicians but don't let them play but this album sounds kind of free.
The whole thing about jazz is that, you have to let the musicians play I mean that's what the whole thing's all about. It's not like I'm a new kid on the block doing like you know using jazz as a first. I mean Astral Weeks was a jazz album I mean Moondance is a jazz standard by now it's been recorded by loads of jazz people. I performed it with Gill Evans at the Hammersmith Odeon. So I mean it's not like you know this is anything new. Oh Van Morrison is doing jazz now I mean it's been running through at various points in all my music and it's been my approach vocally. I mean I learnt like from Armstrong on the early recordings that you never sang a song the same way twice so my approach has always been that approach even though it might have come out sounding like rock or whatever, that's always been my approach as a singer. But also it's not like I'm just doing jazz for the first time and throughout 'What's Going On' with Georgie Fame and the Mose Allison project with Georgie Fame and Ben Sidran. On Poetic Champions Compose there's a few jazz compositions on there. I mean if you look through the whole catalogue I didn't suddenly have this idea now. It's always been this approach but now it's more defined because I have actually got players that understand actually what I'm doing and where I'm coming from, and really what I do best is blues that's what I do the best and that's what I'm most comfortable doing and that's what I'd like to try and do more of in my live show but as the punters, as we call 'em, they don't always know what to make of it and so you need to put some of the hits in and you need to kind of suit them you know 'cos the audience is a cross section and that's been a problem like with gigs for a long time. But also to understand where I'm at you really need to come to a lot of gigs. It's no good like if you just get a CD that's fine in itself but you really need to come to a see lot of gigs to understand what actually what I'm doing because I'm doing such a broad cross section of music. But predominantly what I like to do is sing Blues and that's what I do best. That's where I'm at, that's really where I'm at. And I think it comes back to, you know, follow your heart, do what you like to do you know and proceed from there. So it's like this is back to the front, I'm actually coming back full circle to the front you know where I started. The Maritime or whatever it was when I stopped playing show bands and decided I wanted to do an R&B group so I'm coming back to the beginning but in a different way and it's evolved since then, a bit more so. It's back to the beginning with the evolvement. You talk about myths here, and one of the big myths about you Van is that you're not happy and that you don't like to talk. But anybody who knows you knows that you love talking and that you've got a serious sense of humour. You do like what you're doing, don't you?
Absolutely. I wouldn't be doing it otherwise. When you finish an album you care that people to hear it?
Absolutely. That's why you put it out because it's no good like recording stuff and putting it in a drawer. What's the point in that? You've got to get it out there you know. Yeah, yeah communication at the end of the day, it's all about communication isn't it? Again, the myth would be that you just put out a record and you don't really care whether people like it or not?
I think that's a bit 70s clichéd. I mean it's like you know somebody saying 'Oh well that really means that you like really hate the road. Okay you know if it's a gloomy day in Cleveland or something, you look out the window and say 'What the hell am I doing here' you know. It doesn't mean that you hate it all the time. So you get all these clichés that become mythology in journalism over the years and anyone who promotes that will find all the negative things that you ever said and lump them altogether and go 'Oh that's what he is' you know, that's what he is saying. Never mind the rest of it, they just pick out those bits. On the first track you're actually laughing...
That's what I'm saying. That's what I said they need to come to some live gigs because actually the people that write about the records and that, that's great, that's great. But you really need to come to see a lot of live gigs to see what it's about. It's a whole cross section of stuff and yeah, there's comedy as well in there at times you know what I mean? How many people know that? They don't know that because they don't come to gigs. When is the last time they came to a gig? 'Oh I saw you like ten years ago'. I say 'What?'. So it's like always evolving and there's all this ... there's a lot of ... a broad range of stuff you know that happens on a gig that you don't get from CDs for instance. You mentioned Jimmy Scott's quote earlier on about jazz being now in the present tense. I think for a lot of people that's the attraction not only in playing jazz but in listening it. You do get to live in the moment. Is that when a musician is absolutely at their happiest, the moment, when its happening?
I think so, I think so yeah, yeah. And is that why musicians are often unhappy when the gig's over? You know when they're out of the present tense ?
Yeah, yeah yeah that's right. 'Cos then you get people you know talking about you know the thing as opposed to just talking about it and doing it. So yeah, the best time is when you're actually doing it. That's right, that's right. Van, thank you.
Part of the van-the-man.info unofficial website |