Singer, songwriter, poet and inspirational artist Van Morrison will bring his “Caravan” of hits to Hard Rock Live at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino on May 5 at 8 p.m. Tickets are on sale, now.
Northern Irishman Van Morrison (born George Ivan Morrison), began his professional career as a young teenager in the late 1950s, playing a variety of instruments including guitar, harmonica, keyboards and saxophone in a range of Irish show bands. He rose to prominence in the mid-1960s as the lead singer of the gritty Northern Irish R&B band Them with whom he recorded the garage band classic, “Gloria.”
His solo career took off in 1967 with the release of the Top Ten hit single “Brown Eyed Girl.” Astral Weeks (1968), remains not only Morrison’s masterpiece, but is regarded as one of the greatest records ever made. His next hit, “Moondance” firmly established Morrison as a major artist. It cracked the Top 40, generating the perennials “Caravan” and “Into the Mystic.”
After his band and the Street Choir yielded his biggest chart hit, “Domino,” Morrison released 1971’s Tupelo Honey, a pastoral meditation on wedded bliss highlighted by the single “Wild Night.” In the wake of the following year’s stirring Saint Dominic’s Preview, he formed the Caledonia Soul Orchestra, featured both on the studio effort Hard Nose the Highway and on the live set It’s Too Late to Stop Now.
Throughout the ‘70s he built on his reputation with a series of critically acclaimed albums and live performances including Veedon Fleece (1974), A Period of Transition (1977) and Wavelength (1978). The 1980s brought Inarticulate Speech of the Heart (1983), A Sense of Wonder (1985), No Guru, No Method, No Teacher (1986) and Irish Heartbeat (1988), a collection of traditional folk songs with whom he teamed with another of his homeland’s musical institutions – the famed Chieftains.
The 1990s also saw an upsurge in collaborations by Morrison with other artists, a trend continuing into the new millennium. He recorded with The Chieftains, again, on their 1995 album, The Long Black Veil. He also produced and was featured on several tracks with blues legend John Lee Hooker on the Grammy-winning 1997 album, Don’t Look Back. Morrison additionally collaborated with Tom Jones for Reload (1999), with Mark Knopfler for Sailing to Philadelphia (2000) and with Ray Charles on Genius Loves Company (2004).
Other more recent Van Morrison releases include Magic Time (2005), Pay the Devil (2006), a country-tinged set and Keep It Simple (2008), his first album of all-original material since 1999’s Back on Top.
Morrison’s acclaim includes six Grammy Awards, induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the appearance on several “Greatest Artists” lists.
Tickets cost $350, $250, $200, $150, $100 & $60.* All seats are reserved and available at the Hard Rock Live Box Office, open Tuesday – Saturday from noon to 7pm and on Sunday & Monday – only open on event days at noon. Tickets also are available at all Ticketmaster outlets online at Ticketmaster.com or charge by phone: Miami-Dade (305) 358-5885, Broward (954) 523-3309, and Palm Beach (561) 966-3309. Doors open one-hour prior to show start time. *Additional fees may apply.