Van Morrison Discography

Van Morrison Discography

George Ivan Morrison OBE (generally known as Van Morrison) (born 31 August 1945) is a Northern Irish Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, who has been a professional musician since the late 1950s. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993 and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2003. The R&R HOF biography for Morrison describes his music:

His travels have led him down pathways where he's explored soul, jazz, blues, rhythm & blues, rock and roll, Celtic folk, pop balladry, and more, forging a distinctive amalgam that has Morrison's passionate self-expression at its core. With a minimum of hype or fanfare, working with a craftsman's discipline and an artist-mystic's creativity, Morrison has steadily amassed one of the great bodies of recorded work in the 20th century.

Morrison made his first recording playing saxophone on "Boozoo Hully Gully" with the International Monarchs in 1962. His first recording session as lead singer/songwriter with Them was produced by Dick Rowe at Decca's studio. "Don't Start Crying Now" was the first single released and the garage rock classic, "Gloria" was also recorded at this session. "Baby, Please Don't Go" (recorded October 1964) was released November 1964 with "Gloria" as the B-side and was a Top Ten hit in the U.K.. "Here Comes the Night" was Them's second hit in 1965, charting at #2 in the UK and #24 in the US.

Morrison had his first recording session as a solo artist for Bang Records in New York City for Bert Berns on 28 March 1966. One of the songs was "Brown Eyed Girl" which charted at #10 on the Billboard Hot 100. Since then he has been on the Billboard album charts a total of 787 weeks by April 2008 (including the Them albums) a total of almost 43 years when his 33rd solo studio album Keep It Simple debuted at #10 on the Billboard 200 charts.