Van Morrison
The quiet radicalism of the Chieftains
Pop quiz time: which act was named Melody MakerGroup of the Year in 1975? The answer is not, as you…
The death of the live album
Next week The The release The Comeback Special, a 24-track live album documenting the band’s concert at the Royal Albert…
The sermons poked out of the songs like busted bed springs: Van Morrison livestream reviewed
Over the decades, Van Morrison’s role within the tower of song has shifted from chief visionary officer to head of…
Spiky, sticky, silly: interviewing Van Morrison
Q: ‘How would you define transcendence?’ A: ‘Well, how would you define it?’ I interviewed Van Morrison last year. (I’m…
Dion, one of the last living links to the earliest days of rock ’n’ roll
He toured with Little Richard, sang with Van Morrison, inspired the Beatles and Paul Simon. Graeme Thomson talks to Dion, one of the last living links to the early days of street-corner rock ’n’ roll
In 1968, even supercilious Boston was ankle-deep in LSD
‘And this is good old Boston/, The home of the bean and the cod,’ John Collins Bossidy quipped in 1910,…
BBC4’s Bob Geldof on WB Yeats was one of the best literary documentaries I’ve seen
In recent years there’s been a fashion for arts documentaries presented by celebs rather than boring old experts — presumably…
Was 1971 really the best ever year for music?
According to David Hepworth, the year he turned 21 was also the year when ‘a huge proportion of the most…
David Bowie once praised Hitler… but he was always changing his tune
I was desperately worried that you hadn’t read or heard enough platitudinous drivel about David Bowie — and therefore felt…
Rory McEwen: man of many talents — and among the greatest of all flower painters
It seems odd that a singer, musician, television performer and sculptor who typified the 1960s as vividly as Rory McEwen…
