Van Morrison At Glastonbury Festival.

Van Morrison has appeared on the famous Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury more times than any other artist. Seven times in total and I have seen every one of them. The first time was in 1982. It was only the second time I had ever seen Van, so it was exciting for me. He played in the afternoon after Roy Harper. It had been raining but a breeze began to blow and eventually the sun came out. The Tor emerged from the mist and the scene was set. There are power cables that run right across Worthy farm held up by a line of pylons stretching away into the distance towards the Tor. I remembered Van’s words which now seemed prophetic, 'Meet me down by the pylons'. The crowd in front of the stage got bigger and bigger as the afternoon wore on. As it approached 4 o'clock rivers of people could be seen walking down towards the stage through the tents. Eventually there must have been 20,000 people in front of the stage, and I elbowed my way right to the front. Van shuffled on stage and picked up a guitar. 

A huge cheer greeted him, but he did not seem aware that there was an audience there at all. He was totally focused on the music. He mainly did material from Beautiful Vision, but the highlight was Summertime In England. He seemed to be singing about the very ground we were standing on. It was a truly mystical experience to be there. Pee Wee Ellis was on great form. I later found a photo of Pee Wee backstage chatting to Jackson Browne. Years later I met Pee Wee in Bradford On Avon and gave him a copy of the photo. He had never seen it before and was really pleased and signed another copy for me which was nice of him. After 80 minutes Van was gone after a rousing version of Gloria followed by Scandinavia which I have never heard performed live since. It was to be five long years before I saw Van at Glastonbury again.

Musically the highlight for me of 1987 was Van on the Sunday evening. It was only the third time I had seen him perform and the first time since 1982. To say his performance was a bit special is a huge understatement. I would put it in the top five performances by anybody in all the 41 years I have been going to Glastonbury. 

Luckily for all the Van Morrison fans around the world it was recorded by the BBC and broadcast on the Johnnie Walker Show. This has become a must have bootleg for the hardcore Van fans and most agree that it is one of his finest shows ever. Van was certainly on the top of his game back in 1987. Shortly afterwards I managed to get my first ever Van bootleg recording which was this show and I must have listened to it hundreds of times. It is impossible to pick a highlight because every song was a highlight. Just look, Northern Muse, Vanlose Stairway, It's All in the Game, Foreign Window, Dweller on the Threshold, Cleaning Windows, A Sense of Wonder, And the Healing Has Begun, Celtic Ray, In the Garden, Summertime in England, Full Force Gale / Bright Side of the Road, Rave On, John Donne / Rave On Part Two / Did Ye Get Healed?                                                                                             

There was no festival in 88, but we were back there In 89 and saw Van for the third time in seven years at Glastonbury when he played on the Saturday afternoon. It was a really hot day and Van played a superb set.  I think Van liked playing at Glastonbury because it is in the Vale Of Avalon which was his spiritual home during the 80's & 90’s and an inspiration for his work. Van lived in the area and recorded 14 albums at his nearby Wool Hall studio. Although It was hot Van kept his jacket on throughout his performance, he must have been sweating buckets. In a review in the music papers it was described as ‘The day the music fried’. During Van’s set an air-ambulance helicopter landed to the left of the stage to take someone to hospital. It kicked up a huge cloud of dust, but Van did not appear to notice. He just played on regardless. One thing I remember was he finished with a novelty song called Max Wall which I have not heard of since. I think it was also the first time I saw Georgie Fame play with Van.

Van returned in 1992 and it was another hot year.  By Sunday afternoon there is always a chilled-out atmosphere at Glasto which is just perfect for Van. Kim and I got right to the front. The security on the other side of the barrier were spraying the crowd with water to cool them down and handing out cups of water. A lot of those got thrown up in the air which was quite amusing. Teena Lyle was in the band and Kate St John. It was another great performance. Highlights included Inarticulate Speech of the Heart, On Hyndford Street / Baby, Please Don't Go, I'm Not Feeling It Anymore, Why Must I Always Explain?, Haunts of Ancient Peace, Cleaning Windows / Be-Bop-A-Lula, It's All Over Now, Baby Blue, Help Me, Enlightenment, See Me Through / Soldier of Fortune, It's All in the Game / Make It Real One More Time & In the Garden / Daring Night. Tom Jones was on after Van, but we did not bother watching Tom.

In 1993 my memory of it all is very hazy. Van Morrison did his usual Sunday afternoon slot and one thing I do remember about that was Kate St John doing the G-L-O-R-I-A elocution lessons during Gloria. I think Van finished his usual brilliant set with All In The Game, In The Garden and Daring Night. I always had the feeling that musically the festival was over for me once I had seen  Van. I wasn't bothered who I saw after that. Nothing could top Van.

Van returned in 1997, but the weather was not kind this year. It was a mudfest. Van was on great form though and in a good mood. The Healing Game album came out that year and the first song was Rough God Goes Riding. The lyrics refer to ‘mud splattered victims’ which seemed quite apt for the occasion. 

He also performed It’s A Man’s Man’s World and asked the audience, “Who is the godfather of soul?”. Me and about 1,000 others shouted out, “James Brown!” He changed the words of one song to Whenever Sir Cliff Shines His Light On Me and in his song Summertime In England he referenced the surrounding towns such as Shepton Mallet. At the end of his last song which was a slowed down version of Burning Ground Van walked around the stage holding the microphone stand above his head before slamming it down on the stage and walking off in triumph. What a great performance.

In 2005 Van came on stage at 3.45 to a huge Glastonbury welcome. This was easily the biggest audience he has played to in Britain. The festival had changed a lot in the 8 years since his previous appearance. There must have been 100,000 people in front of the stage. The audience were in party mood and most were waiting for Brian Wilson who played later. Van looked quite relaxed and dapper in a new suit and seemed to be enjoying himself. The audience seemed to enjoy what was served up, a gang of mud people near us danced in a big circle. I must say though that I was personally disappointed with Van's choice of songs. 

There was only one song from the new album Magic Time and the rest were greatest hits type fare. He gave this audience what they wanted which was upbeat songs which they knew. It was filmed because we were watching the big screens as well as the stage and the mud men from Monaghan told me they had seen us on the screens. I found out later that Van refused to allow his performance on the television. I did not understand it. With a huge television audience, he could have sold thousands of albums. I estimate his performance lasted 75 minutes or so and he left the stage to huge applause, but it could have been so much better. 

He didn't do Summertime In England or any other reference to Avalon. For me personally it was the least enjoyable of all his performances at Glastonbury and I did not think the Pyramid Stage suited him anymore. If he ever does Glasto again I think one of the smaller stages might suit him better. Van has not appeared at Glastonbury Festival since 2005 but he has played at Glastonbury Abbey four times since. Michael Eavis has said that Van told him he prefers the Abbey to the festival. Perhaps he cannot stand all the flag waving and singing along. Anyway, some of my best memories of Glastonbury Festival will always be seeing Van the man on a Sunday afternoon down by Avalon. It ain’t why, it just is.

The Ballad Of Greystone Chapel.

I was watching a documentary series recently about American Country Music. One episode featured Johnny Cash. In the late 1960’s Johnny Cash was rebuilding his life and career after years of drug abuse. June Carter refused to marry him unless he got clean. When he had sorted himself out Johnny wanted to give something back and began playing concerts in prisons because he felt lucky not to have been jailed himself. On January 13^th, 1968 he was due to play in Folsom Prison. Johnny was visited the night before the concert by Floyd Gressett, a clergyman who had been visiting Folsom to see one of his former parishioners called Earl Green who was serving a life sentence for killing someone with a baseball bat. Green had given Gressett a tape recording of a song by an inmate friend called Glen Sherley who was serving five to life for armed robbery. The song was called Greystone Chapel. It is the name of the chapel within the walls of Folsom Prison.

Johnny Cash listened to the song and instantly loved it and spent the entire evening learning and rehearsing it. The following night he closed the show with Greystone Chapel and arranged for Glen Sherley to be sitting in the front row. After the show Glen was taken backstage to meet Johnny who promised to send him a royalties contract to sign. The song appeared on the album Johnny Cash, Live At Folsom Prison which was a huge success. Johnny also began petitioning the Governor of California Ronald Reagan to release Glen Sherley.

Watching the documentary made me curious about Glen Sherley. I wanted to find out more about him and what became of him. I looked on eBay and found he had made an album in 1971 Live At Vacaville, California. He had been transferred there from Folsom and performed to 800 of his fellow inmates. I ordered the CD album which arrived a few days ago. It contains a nice booklet with a biography of Glen Sherley. He was born in 1936 and drifted into petty crime from a young age. He had arrived at Folsom after robbing an ice cream company of $28 using a toy gun. In prison his mentor was a former Western Swing star by the name of Spade Cooley. He was a nasty piece of work from all accounts. Cooley had battered his wife to death in front of his daughter, but apparently Cooley was known to be a positive influence on Sherley and helped him develop his music. Glen wrote a song called Portrait Of My Woman which became the title song of an album by Eddy Arnold. Glen’s record company wanted him released at the same time as his album. With the help of Billy Graham and Johnny & June he was finally paroled on March 7^th, 1971 and flew to Nashville with the Cash family.

Things went well at first. Glen played support slots with Cash and even did another prison date with Linda Ronstadt. However, members of Johnny Cash’s band and entourage soon began to be concerned about Glen’s pathological behaviour and casual threats of violence. He could not handle life outside prison and did not know how to behave after being institutionalised. Johnny regretfully had to dismiss him from the tour. Unable to handle fame, Glen quickly faded into obscurity. His drinking and drug abuse got out of hand and he was estranged from his wife and children. In May 1978 while high on drugs he shot a man and went into hiding. Unable to face going back to prison Glen Sherley took his own life at the young age of 42. Johnny Cash paid for the funeral.

I enjoyed listening to his album. Greystone Chapel is my favourite track. I looked on YouTube to see if there was any footage of Glen singing the song, and there was. I was shocked at his appearance though. He was only 33 but looked decades older. The years of prison were written all over his face. You can see that video on this blog page if you want. Other songs I liked are Looking Back In Anger, If This Prison Yard Could Talk and Measure Of A Man. There is humour as well in Pick A Bouquet. It is a shame he had such a tragic life and could not adjust to freedom. I remember when Johnny Cash played the part of a murderer in the TV show Colombo. When Colombo finally arrested him, he said to Johnny Cash, “Anyone who can sing like you can’t be all bad”. I think the same thing applies to Glen Sherley.