Van Morrison – china Precision Fasteners – Construction Fabrication
Early life and musical roots: 194564
George Ivan (Van) Morrison was born on 31 August 1945, in Bloomfield, Belfast, Northern Ireland as the only child of George Morrison, a shipyard worker, and Violet Stitt Morrison, a singer and tap dancer in her youth. Van Morrison’s family roots descend from the Ulster Scots population that settled in Belfast. From 1950 to 1956, Morrison, who began to be known as “Van” during this time, attended Elmgrove Primary School. Morrison’s father had what was at the time one of the largest record collections in Ulster (acquired during his sojourn in Detroit, Michigan in the early 1950s), and the young Morrison grew up listening to artists such as Jelly Roll Morton, Ray Charles, Lead Belly, and Solomon Burke; of whom Morrison later said, “If it weren’t for guys like Ray and Solomon, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Those guys were the inspiration that got me going. If it wasn’t for that kind of music, I couldn’t do what I’m doing now.” His father’s record collection exposed him to various musical genres, such as the blues of Muddy Waters; the gospel of Mahalia Jackson; the jazz of Charlie Parker; the folk music of Woody Guthrie; and country music from Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers, while the first record he ever bought was by blues musician Sonny Terry. When Lonnie Donegan had a hit with “Rock Island Line”, written by Huddie Ledbetter (Lead Belly), Morrison felt he was familiar with and able to connect with skiffle music as he had been hearing Lead Belly before that.
Morrison’s father bought him his first acoustic guitar when he was eleven, and he learned to play rudimentary chords from the song book, The Carter Family Style, edited by Alan Lomax. A year later, when he was twelve years old, Morrison
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