LISTENING IN: Hey, where did he go?

By MICHAEL BAGINSKI/ With St. Patrick’s Day past, and the appreciation of Irish culture having hit its zenith in mid March, it behooves us to remember that the Emerald’s isle’s musical contributions to the world can’t simply be pigeonholed into ethereal folk songs or and lively jigs and reels (“trad” – traditional – music as it is called).

With this in mind, we offer this week Northern Ireland’s most famous musician ever, Van Morrison, who also qualifies as the first in what has become a lengthy list of Irish musical (pop-rock) stars – among them U2, Sinead O’Connor, The Cranberries, Enya, Chris de Burgh, The Pogues, and Hozier.

Described as a “much-loved, albeit cantankerous, national treasure,” Morrison came to prominence in the 1960s with the band Them as part of the British invasion, before spinning off into a decades-long successful solo career that produced such classic songs as “Moondance,” “Into the Mystic,” and undoubtedly his most famous song, “Brown-Eyed Girl” (video below).

(Note: Also be sure to check out John Mellencamp’s amazing cover of this one).

Now 81, Morrison’s reputation took a significant hit for his vocal (and musical) opposition to COVID restrictions, with the Los Angeles Times further noting that his “unpredictability, temper and bitterness have become the stuff of legend.”

However, like Eric Clapton, we’ll choose to look the other way and remember the soulful poet who has produced close to 50 studio albums during his career, spanning a range of styles from pop to R&B, blues, and gospel. Still prolific, Morrison has recorded seven albums in the 2020s, the most recent coming out in January.