Van Morrison & The City of Bath.

I haven’t done anything worth telling you about recently because the weather has been so dull and miserable, so to pass the time on yet another rainy dark January day I thought I’d update a story I wrote a few years ago about Van Morrison and the city of Bath because Van is returning to Bath Forum for two nights in April and maybe some of the fans who are coming to Bath might like to read about Van’s links to this wonderful city.  Van lived and worked around Bath for nearly 20 years and as a Van fan who lives 12 miles from Bath, I am very proud of Van’s connection with this area. Wherever Van has lived has been a source of inspiration to him. Belfast obviously, New York, Woodstock, California, Copenhagen, London and Ireland, but I feel that one of his most sustained periods of creativity was when Van lived right here in the West Country of England. When Van moved back to England after many years in the states he lived in Notting Hill London, an area he knew from the 60's, but Van had changed since then. I think he was tired of the hustle of life in London and wished to be far from the madding crowd.  Inspired by the likes of William Blake Van had become a nature poet inspired by the countryside as shown in such songs as Summertime In England and he was exploring the healing power of music. 

Wool Hall

Van set up offices in Bath which became Exile Productions. Thus began a golden age in his career. The first album he recorded in this area was Poetic Champions Compose which was recorded at Wool Hall Studios in the village of Beckington only five miles from where I am sitting at this very moment. The studio was owned at the time by the famous Bath band Tears For Fears and Van became one of its most regular clients. In 1994 after recording five albums at Wool Hall Van bought the studio. All Van's studio albums between 1987 and 2006 were recorded at the Wool Hall as far as I know. About 14 albums, a very impressive body of work indeed. 

You can see the influence the area had on Van’s work immediately. Avalon Sunset from 89 with its pastoral imagery was partly inspired by the Vale Of Avalon and nearby Glastonbury. In the song Pagan Streams on Hymns To The Silence Van says, 'And we walked the pagan streams and searched for white horses on surrounding hills, We lived where dusk had meaning, And repaired to quiet sleep, where noise abated, In touch with the silence On honey street, on honey street’. At nearby Westbury a famous White Horse is carved into the hillside. It commemorates the Battle Of Edington against the Danes where King Alfred dumped the Jutes on the burning ground. I wonder if this is the white horse that Van is referring to? It is quite visible from Beckington.  Honey Street is a small village on the Kennett And Avon Canal near Devizes. 

Van became a well-known figure around the quiet streets, cafe's, bookshops and record shops of Bath and beyond. A friend of mine spotted him in a shop in nearby Frome called Raves From The Grave where Van was mooching through the blues albums. Another day, I was in a now defunct record shop in Trowbridge called The Record Collector and I asked the man if he had any Van Morrison and he said that Van had been in only the day before, buying records for his jukebox. I think that is great that someone like Van with all his fame and fortune still enjoys looking in second-hand shops for rare records. In the late 90's we used to go into a tiny wine bar just around the corner from the Theatre Royal in Bath. It was called Raincheck after a song on Van's Days Like This album.  Van was a silent partner in the place. I think he probably just lent a friend the money to open it. I never saw Van in there, but he used to frequent it regularly according to people I spoke to. One man in there told me that he had been chatting to Van about the two 1965 Them gigs at Bath Pavilion (see picture) and he said Van had told him that the supporting band on the first occasion were The Four Specs who had that name because all the band wore glasses. I looked them up and they really existed.

My partner Kim used to have her hair done in a place called Mahogany in the Corridor in Bath. The staff told Kim that Van also had his hair cut there, but he never had much to say for himself. Kim was a care worker for people with learning difficulties. One day she was taking some of them out shopping in Bath. She stopped at the pedestrian crossing near Queens Square and this familiar figure walked across, “It’s Van the Man", exclaimed Kim, Van turned round and gave her one of those looks that only he can do. A friend called Jean was in Sally Lunn’s tea shop in Bath one day with her son Ben and spotted Van who was enjoying a pot of tea and some scones in the corner. As she was leaving, she went over and said,” This is my son Ben and he would like to shake hands with you". Van wiped his hands on his napkin and shook hands with Ben aged 11 and said, "How do you do”.  

Sally Lunn's

We saw him at Lydiard Park near Swindon which is only a stone’s throw from Van’s house in Little Somerford. I think that was the first or second time Brian Kennedy appeared with him. Also, at Frome Festival at Marston House just about 3 miles from Beckington. That was the last time I saw the great Pee Wee Ellis play with Van. We saw Pee Wee play in Bradford On Avon one Sunday afternoon and met Pee Wee and his wife Charlotte and also a lady called Nicky who was Van’s PA during his time in Bath. She recognised me from the TV. I had achieved some local short-lived fame after winning on a quiz show called Fifteen To One and she said that they had all been rooting for me because on the show I said I was a Van Morrison fan. I wonder if Van watched it. After Van left the area Pee Wee continued to live here for the rest of his life in Beckington. He gave local children music lessons and was honoured with a doctorate by Bath Spa University.  He continued to support local music as patron of the Bristol International Blues and Jazz Festival until he sadly died on September 23, 2021 at the age of 80.

I saw Van seven times at Glastonbury Festival and four times at Glastonbury Abbey only 26 miles from here. Plus, Van’s almost annual concerts down by Bristol. I think of the seventy or so times I have seen Van half of the gigs have been in a thirty-mile radius of Bath, so Van has saved me a lot of money by playing locally. In 2002 Van released Down The Road and for the cover he used Nasher’s Record Shop in Walcot Street, Bath. It was a great cover because the window of the shop was filled with albums of Van's influences. Maybe it was inspired by Dylan’s Bringing It All Back Home album. I know Nasher’s well because I used to have a browse in there on my way to the Hat And Feather pub or The Bell. Twenty years ago I decided to sell all my vinyl albums because I had nothing to play them on. Because of the Van connection I thought I would get a good price for my Van vinyl in Nasher’s, but they only paid me about £1.25 for each. I bitterly regret selling them now. 

Eventually Van moved away. I think these days he spends most of his time back in Belfast. Although he has recorded some wonderful music since, I don’t think he has quite reached the sustained brilliance of those albums he made at the Wool Hall. The studio was sold and became a private house for many years, but I think it has reopened as a studio recently. Nasher’s record shop is long gone, and Raincheck. Van returns to Bath quite regularly. He often records at Pete Gabriel’s Real World Studio in the village of Box only seven miles from Bath and has recorded several recent songs at the Bath Spa Hotel. He played the Forum in 2012 and an outdoor concert at the Recreation Ground in 2019, so it will be a very welcome return when he performs in the art-deco splendour of The Forum in April. See you in Bath!