Melanie Ward pays tribute to the ‘Bard of Belfast’ on his 80th birthday

 

August 31, 2025 marks the 80th birthday of one of the greatest singer songwriters the island of Ireland has ever produced.

George Ivan Morrison was born at 125 Hyndford Street Belfast in 1945, the only child of shipyard electrician George Morrison and his wife, Violet.

It was a musical household. Violet had been a singer and tap dancer in her youth, while husband George had one of the largest record collections in Northern Ireland, acquired while he was working in Detroit in the early 1950s. Their son grew up listening to blues, gospel, jazz, folk and country.

He attended Elm Grove primary School, where he began to be known as Van Morrison. When he was 11, his father bought him his first guitar and he learned to play using the ‘The Carter Family Style Songbook’, forming his first band, a skiffle group called The Sputniks, a year later.

At 14, Van convinced his father to buy him a tenor saxophone, taking lessons from jazz musician George Cassidy, who also taught him how to read music. Morrison attended Orangefield boys secondary School, leaving in July, 1960, with no qualifications. Taking a job as a window cleaner, he joined The Monarchs Showband, playing saxophone, guitar and harmonica.

By the time he was 17, Van Morrison was a professional musician, touring the UK, Ireland and Germany with the Monarchs. The band returned to Belfast at the end of 1963 and then split up.

In April the following year, Morrison responded to a ‘Musicians Wanted’ ad for the Maritime Hotel, recruiting four other musicians to form the band ‘Them’. They became the resident band at the Maritime, quickly building a following due to their energetic performances, and soon attracted the attention of record companies.

When the band secured a two-year contract with Decker records, George Morrison signed for his son, who was still only 18.
‘Them’ found chart success with the singles Baby Please Don’t Go, Here Comes the Night and Gloria. America beckoned and in 1966 they began a US tour including a residency at the whiskey Gogo club where, in their final week, they were supported by The Doors. But after performing in San Francisco and Hawaii, the band fell out and went their separate ways.

 

Van Morrison began his solo career in 1967, working with producer Bert Berns in New York and recording the classic Brown Eyed Girl. In 1968, he recruited a group of Jazz musicians and recorded Astral Weeks.

Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own