Van Morrison

By Peter Wolf

Back in 1968, the Boston Tea Party was the premier club for rock bands. My band, the Hallucinations, composed of art-school dropouts heavily drenched in R&B and Chicago blues, used the club as a rehearsal hall whenever it was available. The music we played could be described as primal, raw and heavy on attitude. We were in the midst of rehearsing one day, getting ready to open for the great bluesman Howlin’ Wolf, when something caught my eye, and I looked over to see a stranger looming in the doorway. I had no idea who he was or what he was doing there, so I went over to find out what he wanted. In a thick brogue, he asked about places to play in Boston.

Once I figured out who it was, I was both excited and perplexed. Excited because I’d known and admired Van Morrison’s work from his debut on the charts with his group, Them. Perplexed because he seemed so lost and adrift. Despite the recent Top 40 success of his song “Brown Eyed Girl,” he’d been having difficulty establishing his identity as a solo artist, but that couldn’t account for the bleakness of his mood.

As we talked, it became clear that we shared a passion for the same kind of music. Van gradually loosened up, and we made plans to get together again. He started dropping by the FM station where I used to do an all-night radio show. Soon we began to hang together, going out carousing in the night…