The singer learned to love music while listening to his dad’s Lead Belly records. On the eve of an Albert Hall gig celebrating the blues genius, he talks about his musical childhood in Belfast and early ambition to be … a vet

On Monday 15 June, Van Morrison takes to the stage at the Royal Albert Hall, alongside Eric Burdon, Jools Holland, Billy Bragg, Eric Bibb and others, to pay tribute to Huddie Ledbetter, better known as the folk-blues legend Lead Belly. Lead Belly was one of the formative influences on Morrison, a constant in his life from the R&B of his days with Them, through his classic 60s and 70s albums, up to the present day. He sat down with us to talk about his childhood, his parents’ love of music, about hearing the blues in Belfast, and about his dream of becoming … a vet.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lead Belly in the mid-1930s, complete with 12-string guitar. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

When and where did you first hear Lead Belly?

In my father’s record collection. He had Lead Belly records when I was very young. It was maybe 1954 or 1955. He had been in the States before that, and he turned me on to the music with his record collection. And he used to take me to this record shop every Saturday when I was a kid. Atlantic Records, on the High Street in Belfast. Solly Lipsitz was the guy who ran it (1). His sister lived in New York and he was importing records from there. My dad was an electrician in the shipyards, and a big music fan. And so was my uncle. My mum wasn’t a professional singer, but she was singing around the house, and at parties.

So your dad had an amazing record collection?

To me this was normal, being around people who were listening to jazz and blues. I didn’t know until later on that that was fairly unique. Apparently. There wasn’t any name for these type of people. They weren’t hippies or bohemians. They were just … more like communists, is the only way I can describe it! They would be leftfield. These were all friends of my dad.

Do you remember the first Lead Belly songs you heard?

The first ones were Ella Speed, Goodnight Irene, On a Christmas Day, Take This Hammer, Sweet Mary, Rock Island Line … yeah, those were the first ones. They were on an album called Classics in Jazz on Capitol.

Do you still have that record?

Yeah, I have it …

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A Library of Congress film made in the 1930s of Lead Belly singing Goodnight Irene to his wife, Martha Promise Ledbetter.

So as a young guy in Belfast, how did you react to that music?

It was some sort of a spiritual experience. I just absorbed it. I reacted later, but I was absorbing it when I was first hearing it … there was some sort of energy. And then, when Lonnie Donegan came on, it was sort of activated. I could react then because it was available for people my age to get into it and play it and sing it.

So was it Lead Belly’s songs that attracted you, or the voice?

The whole thing. The voice, the 12-string guitar, the amazing sound. Also, I was hearing Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee at the same time, I was hearing Josh White, Louis Armstrong recordings and stuff like this, and Muddy Waters and gospel. It wasn’t just an isolated thing; it was part of a whole framework of this type of music – blues and gospel. So, to me, it was something spiritual. They were all in my dad’s collection.

And all that affected your style?

I absorbed that, and also John Lee Hooker, which I absorbed more than anybody. I absorbed John Lee and later Ray Charles and Sam Cooke. Lead Belly, Mahalia Jackson, gospel, Rosetta Tharpe, Muddy Waters, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, and then later Bobby Bland. I was absorbing all that stuff over a long period of time from the 50s to the 60s.

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And you started buying records yourself?

I started buying 45s of Ray Charles. You could do that then. There were shops that had the music. There was a place called McBurney’s in Smithfield, and there was a lady there – if she knew you liked R&B, she got that stuff in. She would get the stuff on Pye, Sonny Boy Williamson, Bo Diddley and that kind of stuff.

Were your own friends into this music, too?

Well, that’s the thing. In this area I was brought up in, there were people who had stuff – mainly country music. There was a guy down my street, Jim Tosh, was like a Hank Williams jukebox. We used to play all the Hank Williams songs and had jam sessions on a Sunday. He was a big Jimmie Rodgers fan. I’ve still got an LP – I forgot to give it him back, actually. It’s been all around the world.

What about the Celtic folk influences?

That goes back to Rory McEwen on TV, doing Scottish folk songs, and also Lead Belly. And Steve Benbow. And Robin Hall and Jimmie MacGregor as well. They were on the same programme, six o’clock every night, weeknights. In black and white. And then there was the local group, the McPeake Family – they influenced everybody around here, in folk music.

When did you realise you were going to be a musician?

Not until I left school. When I was in school I wanted to be a vet, and one of the teachers said he thought I was going to be a singer. I sang at the school concert, and we had a skiffle group at school. He was going around the class, saying, “What are you going to be?” and he pointed at me and said: “You’re going to be a singer, obviously.” And I said: “‘Me?” He knew more than I did.

You wanted to be a vet?

Yeah. Because I couldn’t think what sort of a job do I want. So I thought that might be what I could do.

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What about the school skiffle groups?

The main one at school was Sputniks. We were playing Lead Belly and Lonnie Donegan. The Donegan thing was the way in, because nobody had heard of Lead Belly. If you said you were doing Lead Belly songs you’d get “Who?”, but if you said you were doing Donegan songs people knew him, he was on the charts with umpteen hit records at the time.

What was your reaction when you heard Donegan doing these Lead Belly songs that you already knew?

I just took off. I couldn’t believe it. Again – some kind of experience that you click into. A light bulb goes off or something: “This is it!” I heard Rock Island Line and thought, “This is it!”

You wanted to become a musician after that?

Yeah! Because then it was doable. He was the role model not just for me, but for a lot of people. Guys like Jimmy Page – that’s where it started.

And these were three-chord songs anyone could sing?

No, not really. That was a misnomer, because Donegan was a good singer. Having heard Lead Belly, you could see that Donegan was also a good singer in his own right. A lot of the other skiffle groups weren’t really that good – there were some really bad ones. Donegan was using jazz players, and this is a big thing that is never mentioned. The musicians that Donegan was using were first-class musicians – he called it “folk music with a jazz beat”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lonnie Donegan performing Rock Island Line live on TV in 1961.

What did your parents think about you becoming a musician?

They encouraged me because there was always music around the house, and people singing. There was all this stuff going on, but at that point I was leaving school, getting jobs here and there. It didn’t become serious until I left home and went on the road. It was rock’n’roll then.

You started with the Monarchs – what were you playing with them?

The Monarchs started as a very good rock’n’roll band – not a rock band! They became a showband (2) because rock’n’roll was dying, and then went to Germany and became an R&B band, because we didn’t want to be a showband – well, I didn’t.

And then came Them (3) …

Yeah, I started Them [in April 1964], coming back from Germany. We tried to keep the Monarchs together but the guy playing bass had to leave, to go work in a coalmine or something. So after that I was trying to start an R&B club at the Maritime hotel, and I had to find a band to go into this club. My friend, the country and western singer Jim Tosh, he was rehearsing with a band and I met him in the street. I said: “I’ve got to go into this club and I have no band.” He said: “I have this band but I don’t really want them because they can’t play what I want, but they know Chuck Berry stuff.” So I go, “Chuck Berry? That’s close enough.” So I get three of those guys and another piano player that I met in Crimbles music shop, and that was the band I went into the club with, that became known as Them.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Them in 1965, with Van Morrison on vocals. Photograph: Dezo Hoffmann/Rex-Shutterstock

And it took off …

Well, the club took off. But then the situation became very complicated. There was a whole other thing – the involvement with the Solomon brothers and Decca Records (4), and I was underage, so my father had to sign a contract. It’s a whole, long involved story that would probably take a year to explain!

In 1998, you returned to the beginning, making a skiffle album [5] with Lonnie Donegan, recording Lead Belly songs.

I just wanted to go back to the roots, and remember that music used to be fun. And I found there was this expectation all the time that you have to reinvent the wheel, you have to come up with something that’s going to be a work of genius all the time, which is kind of impossible. I just wanted to get back to music being fun. Working with Donegan was fun and there was something in it for me. It was give and take – that’s why I like collaborations, because collaborations can be fun.

What was Donegan like to work with? Difficult?

Not at all. I didn’t find him difficult. People who say that other people are difficult are usually difficult. That’s what I find.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Van Morrison and Lonnie Donegan perform Lost John on Later With Jools Holland in 2000.

And the Albert Hall Show (6) – will that be straightforward Lead Belly?

There’s a house band and a specific set. I won’t know what I’m doing until the day, but I know I’m doing a couple of Lead Belly songs and a couple of mine that are relatable … but other than that, I have not rehearsed it yet … Don’t know if I’ll do those songs, or change it. Paul Jones is on it, Eric Burdon, Jools Holland …

George Harrison once said that without Lead Belly, there would be no Donegan, and without Donegan, no Beatles – so without Lead Belly, no Beatles?

That’s it – without Donegan, I don’t know how I would have started. It would have been extremely difficult, I think, to even think about approaching the thing unless Donegan was there, in the beginning.

Footnotes



1) Solly Lipsitz, who died in 2013, aged 92, was Northern Ireland’s Mr Jazz – as well as running a record shop, he owned a club, lectured at Belfast College of Art and Design and made music in his own right.

2) Showbands were a distinctly Irish phenomenon, popular from the 50s to the 80s, playing covers of contemporary hits in a variety of styles in ballrooms and dancehalls. By the mid-60s there were estimated to be around 700 showbands at work.

3) Them were one of the groups that kickstarted the garage rock boom across the Atlantic in the US. Their song Gloria became a garage punk standard (and was later covered by Patti Smith) as did I Can Only Give You Everything.

4) Mervyn and Phil Solomon got the band signed to Decca on a two-year deal, but by summer 1966 Morrison had left – and became involved in a series of contractual disputes that would last until he was able to sign to Warner Brothers and release Astral Weeks in 1968.

5) The Skiffle Sessions – Live in Belfast 1998 was actually released in 2000.

6) Lead Belly Fest with Van Morrison, Eric Burdon and Jools Holland, is at Royal Albert Hall, London on Monday 15 June.