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so much into him. A friend's brother was really into Johnny Ray and he was always being played on the radio. Some people say that Johnny Ray invented rock 'n' roll but the main ones for me were Gene Vincent and Jerry Lee."
But Morrison was still a blues singer at heart and he loved a music that appeared to be past and gone except in the hearts of its devotees. Showbands now reigned supreme and perfected Shadows numbers and routines. But something was bubbling under nevertheless. In the late 1950s Chris Barber had begun bringing bluesmen like Muddy Waters and Big Bill Broonzy across the Atlantic. Barber had also invited Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies to play a blues set during his shows and although the trad jazzers didn't always like it, the result was an outfit called Blues Incorporated.
Many famous names later passed through or skimmed the edges of Blues Incorporated - people such as Mick Jagger, Paul Jones, John Mayall, Eric Burdon, Robert Plant, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker. The direct result was the blues boom of the 1960s and the emergence of the Rolling Stones, the Animals, Long John Baldry and so on - all of them playing what was basically heavily amplified blues.
When the craze hit Belfast, Van Morrison was perfectly placed. He already knew this music intimately. It was the music he had been listening to as a child. No surprise then that a Belfast group called Them would appear on the scene and show everybody else how it really should be done. Morrison was not only off the blocks - he had a head start.
"I started out long before Alexis Korner and that movement. It came from the same source but I was already doing it. The first time I ever heard an electric band it was actually Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. That was way back. It was called Back Country Blues then but in fact it was urban blues and that was the first Chicago style thing I ever heard. The first thing I ever rehearsed with Them was one of their songs called Custard Pie.
"Muddy Waters and Little Walter were on the Pye R'n' B series but it was only the singles. The woman in the shop would tell you what had come in - things like Harmonica Fats. But it was Little Walter who was the master. He was electric but very controlled electric.
"I didn't take up the harp until '62 in Germany when we did Elevate Me Mama by Sonny Boy No 1. I was heavily influenced by Sonny Terry but then I met Little Walter in London in 1965 and he asked me to play harp. He laughed and said that he wasn't doing that John Henry shit any more. Little Walter was the master."
Even before the Them days - pre-Gloria and pre-Here Comes The Night - Morrison was already a veteran of gigs and the hard slog tour. His time in Germany with The Monarchs had been tough but, most importantly, Morrison had got to meet some genuine Americans with whom he shared an understanding of the music. Such encounters were hugely significant and encouraging to a young performer with definite ideas of his own.
"I remember when I was in Germany with the Monarchs meeting this GI called Lee. He played guitar and sang with us one night. He did Stormy Monday. And he had this record player in the hotel and he played all this Bobby Bland stuff. I don't like talking in biblical terms but it was like the road to Damascus. It was a real eye-opener. I really wanted to do songs like these and later I kept trying to sneak them into the set with Them.
`Songs like Another Saturday Night and Let The Good Times Roll but they weren't really into it. They just wanted to jam it. I don't think they wanted a singer. But I was a singer and I needed to rehearse. There were never any rehearsals - just jams and they turned up the amps when I sang. "When Ray Elliot and Jim Armstrong came in things were better - they knew how to do songs. Armstrong was playing nice stuff - jazz chords. Then they changed back into a guitar group. Buddy Guy said once that what happened to the blues was that everybody thought it was just a jam and they just ignored arrangements."
There were many great bands at the Maritime but none of them ever managed to repeat the success of Them. And with Morrison off the local scene, it was never quite the same again. Then apparently out of the blue in 1968 an album appeared called Astral Weeks which to this day it considered one of the most extraordinary albums ever released.
It all seemed a long, long way from Them but in fact there had been signs of a unique lyrical and musical ability even then. Philosophy had been written at the Maritime and Could You Would You? had actually been written in The Manhattan Showband in 1962. There had also been earlier versions of some of the songs which eventually appeared fully formed on Astral Weeks. Even so, something had evidently happened to release these astonishing sounds. It was something altogether different, entirely new and it mentioned places in Belfast! Van is still not sure how it happened.
"I had been picking up the odd poetry book - Ginsberg and of course Kerouac. I had already read that. You see it was all actually unconscious - they call it stream of consciousness. After that, things became more conscious. Later I read philosophy and Steiner says that you change - up until 28 you are unconscious - after that it's conscious. But I'm not sure if I buy that now.
"Also, I had heard Dylan's first or second record and I saw it was possible to write any kind of words. They could be about anything and Dylan made that possible. It meant that you wouldn't have to suppress an idea - if it came and if it was completely off-the-wall it didn't matter. So Dylan is the key. But I'm not sure about that unconscious before 28 thing any more. I mean, I still write stuff and I don't know where it comes from. It's not about me or about anybody I know. It just comes out of nowhere and I haven't a clue what it's about."
And so the source continues to flow. And it all began in a small house in a city that can often seem anything but inspirational. It began in the days before rock 'n' roll, before the music business existed as we know it now, and in a very different Belfast. All the precious things that George and Violet Morrison cherished about music - all the Leadbelly and the Lonnie Johnson and the Mahalia Jackson - entered their only child Van from the minute he could hear and emerged again years later in new and different strands of genius like light through a prism. Not that the BBC spotted it.
"I auditioned for the BBC when I was 14. There was an ad for a television programme and they were looking for talent. I wrote a letter and they asked me to audition. I sang a folk song and because I didn't know all the words I rewrote it and added my own lyrics. It was about a bird. The BBC never wrote back!"