Van Morrison and Michelle Rocca	Van Morrison live in Memphis 1996

They look just like two gurus in drag.

Dressed in dark clothes, shades, hats, they're propelled by some invisible force through the crowd.

We're in New Orleans at JazzFest, this billowing mass of people milling around from one music to another, from strident gospel and sexy rhythm'n'blues to funky old jazz that rattles along... In the Rhodes Gospel Tent, which we've just passed on our right, the glorious massed voices of the Kennedy High School Choir hug the heavens. There's the Information Tent... look, a couple of wild nippled t-shirts. Beautiful... there's a gentle volcano of people everywhere, t-shirts, shorts, lots of skin, white skin, pink skin, brown skin, black skin. Beautiful... everyone's doing the happiness hustle, slow'n'easy in the Big Easy, hot and humid and...cool.

And our two figures, surrounded by Fred Dryer The Security Man and headed by Willie Richardson The Manager and flanked by BP Fallon... they're still push, push, pushing determinedly, pushing determinedly through the throng. They're aimed for the food tent.

We've arrived, wherever we are. A bewilderment of signs announces Lousiana Fillet Catfish and Natchitoceches Meat Pie and Gumbo Pheasant and Crab and Crawfish stuffed mushrooms and Cochon De Lait Po-Boy and Alligator Sauce Piquante and, natch, Jambalaya.

Panic.

It's all to much.

Van Morrison is well agitated by now, very uncomfortable. There's a lot of twiching going on from Van. Michelle Rocca is gentling her man. Fred Dryer awaits instructions. Willie Richardson waits to see what Van wants to do. You, you're loose as a goose and just having a laugh as usual. Why doesn't everyone, huh, y'know, chill out?
Van Morrison is in hell. It seemed so simple: pop down to JazzFest from the hotel, get something to eat there, check out the vibe, especially the gospel tent, meet up with Van's old sparring-partner pal the brilliant Dr. John. And, of course, watch Dr. John do his set on the Ray-Ban stage.

But now... now Van Morrison is out in the open. People are pointing at him, nudging their partners, going for bits of paper and pens. It's getting... tight.
"You go back. I'll get the food", says Willie. Oh God. Thank God. Yes.
And Van and Michelle are hurried back by Fred to backstage where the blues guitarist Buddy Guy is doing his string-bending thing. Van and Michelle, they sit in the van. Van's nearly trembling. He's very shook. Michelle calms, soothes. They sit in the van. Van sits in the van.

Seafood pasta arives in the styrofoam dishes. Van and Michelle sit in the van and eat it. Outside Buddy Guy twangs and the JazzFest roars and Willie and Fred talk by the side of the van.
Inside the van, Van and Michelle sit. "I was like this even before I was Van Morrison," says Van Morrison. Then he announces "I want to go now" and they do, Van and Michelle and The Manager and The Security Man.
You, you stay at JazzFest. You're rockin', havin' a gas. But then. . . you're not Van Morrison. But then. . . even Van Morrison isn't Van Morrison.

Van's on stage now in his stylish, long John Rocha jacket, the one with the velvet lapels, and he's got on his pork-pie hat and his groovy, groovy shades from Optica in Dublin, and heck, yes, he is The Blues Brother. Yes, sir. And Van, as the band bubble, he's giving it some lip: "How many people are here to hear the artist formerly know as Van Morrison? Well you're not going to hear Mystic Eyes or Gloria or Domino. I've been Van Morrison for about 20 years and it's a publicity stunt."

And then, of course,the bastard tears into Gloria and everyone goes completely ape.

BP: "How did it feel being screamed at by the girls when you were in Them? Did you like it?"
VAN: "It felt very strange." (Laughs)
BP: "Weren't you doing stuff like doing the splits and leaping up and down?"
VAN: "I did it pre-Them, in the early days. We had loads of different names, silly names like The Thunderbirds. I did do some leaping about, yeah." (More laughter).

Van Morrison and his 10-piece band are playing in The Supper Club, a 600-seater off Times Square. It's the hottest ticket here in New York City, the $75 seats being snatched off the touts for $300 each. The venue - it's a cabaret joint with a bit of velvet, tables and, upstairs, a balcony for more punters. It's jammers.
Van's doing four nights. The first nIght, Van sings for four hours and It's A Man's, Man's, Man's World - his mesmerising, weaving homage to James Brown that takes in everything from Be Bop A Lulu to quotes from Van's own songs - lasts an hour.
Robert De Niro drops by. The next night, Van and Michelle and, uh, Robert have dinner together at one of Robert's own restaurants in Chelsea.
Richard Gere shows up, takes the stage with guitar and voice to give a fairly credible reading of Van's Gloria. Mad, really . . .

VAN: "I think I'm a loner. I think I'm an outsider not because I want to be but I found I had to be because I was in a situation that if I didn't play along with the music business bullshit then I became an outsider. I don't believe in the propaganda and I don't jump through their hoops."

BP: "Are you shy?"
VAN: "I don't think I'm shy but I think I'm an introvert."
BP: "And does that not cause great convolutions when you go on stage?"
VAN: "No, because I've learned to manage it. The job doesn't bother me. It's a great job, it's the bullshit that's got nothing to do with it."
BP: "What about this ethereal thing called fame?"
VAN: "It fucks up a lot of people and it's probably fucked me up too."
BP: "In what way?"
VAN: "Because people relate to me as the person who's done Brown Eyed Girl or Astral Weeks and I'm not that person any more. Communication is a two-way street and if people are communicating with an image which is not you anymore, how the hell can you communicate with them?"
BP: "And did you ever think of abandoning ship and becoming a gardener or something?"
VAN: "I tried . . . but people still say 'You're the guy who did this, did that'. Like, I went to AA meetings where that's happened to me and I though: 'Fuck off! I'm here because I think I've got an alcohol problem and this is supposed to be anonymous?'''
BP: "Do you wish you could walk around unrecognised?"
VAN: "Yeah"
BP: "Always?"
VAN: "Always."
BP: "But having said that it is the work you choose to do, isn't it?"
VAN: "I didn't know when I got into it that I was going to be famous. I didn't know I was going to be written about, I didn't know I was going to be watched. All of a sudden I'm in the bloody circus."

Van and his band are in full flow now, the horns riffing, the drummer and percussionist pushing, the acoustic and electronic basses holding it down, George Fame's organ swirling like an octopus stirring a swimming pool, and Van, he's hypnotised by the music and the muses and the madness of magic and he's exclaiming: "Pay the piper, Lucifer . . . tell me why must I always explain . . . I've got a job . . . fuck Rolling Stone Magazine . . . for some fucking reason we're supposed to pay lip service to them . . . not me!" And whoosh! the audience explodes and now it's softer and Van's singing Have I Told You Lately I Love You and his fiancee Michelle Rocca, she's waltzing
with her man, and the stage lights, they catch the ring in her finger that sparkles like the royalties from three Van Morrison albums, and Van, he's clumsily dancing with his woman and there's a look on his face that's half embarrased and half like the cat who got the cream and was allowed to keep it and Van . . . you just have to love him.

VAN: "I don't believe that anyone knows what a star is. I'm certainlty not one. A star is anyone from Cliff Richard to Rod Stewart to Mick Jagger. A star is an image."

IT seems strangely strange but oddly normal that the last book Van read was about . . . shadows. They're not there all the time, oh no, of course not, but when they do arrive, demons fleck his aura of unease, dark daggers of discomfort as sharp even as the beams of light from the heavenly clouds when Van's mystic music is carried by the metaphysical magic and his voice is French-kissing the angels.

BP: "Would you describe yourself as a seeker?"
VAN: "Yeah. I find things but they don't necessarily give you satisfaction. It's usually the opposite. At one point I took a courses in Scientology over a period of 18 months but I'm not a joiner, I don't join things. I've done rolfing, it's a bit like shiatsu. I've also investigated Buddhism, Hinduism . . . various forms of Christianity, mystical Christianity, esoteric Christianity . . . I don't believe in myths anymore. If I could find a religion that worked . . ."
BP: "And what about when people treat you as this deity, almost, that you have a hot line to God and magic and genius?"
VAN: "I can't deal with that. To me it's completely unreal."
BP: "It does go on. And some people would regard you as an icon."
VAN: "That's popaganda. There's all this talk about so and so's a genius in rock music, but that's completely ridiculous. The only geniuses are people like Bach, Beethoven or Wagner or Mozart. They're geniuses. There hasn't been anybody in a hell of a long time that you can consider a genius, musically."
BP: "John Lennon or someone? Chuck Berry?
VAN: "No, no, come on! You're talking about a different thing. That's propaganda. I'm not denying the fact that they are great at what they do but they're not in the same league as Mozart. Neither am I."

WILLIE: "He's recording. He's recording now."
BP: "I'm recording now."
VAN: "I never said I was a nice guy. Okay? Never."
BP: "D'you think you are?"
VAN: "No."
MICHELLE: "Can I interrupt you..?"
VAN: "I'm not a nice guy. I never said I was."
MICHELLE: "But I think you are..."
BP: "I think you are too. Maybe that's stupid."
VAN: "That's brilliant..."
MICHELLE: "...and it's not because I'm in love with you, it's because I like you as a person."
VAN: "...and I respect that."
MICHELLE: "You don't have to respect it. I think you're a nice person.''
VAN: "I never said I was and I never said I'm not a nice person, okay? So I don't expect anyone to say I'm a nice guy."
MICHELLE: "Well, I just said it. Sorry."
VAN: "But that's different, 'cause we're here."
MICHELLE: "No, I mean it, regardless of if I ever see you again."
VAN: "Well, it's different. So if anyone ever says..."
BP: "So if anyone ever says you're grumpy or..."
VAN: "Yeah, if somebody says I'm grumpy..."
BP: "...or you're a cunt..."
VAN: " ... or I'm a cunt or whatever, that's okay 'cause I don't profess to be an angel..."
MICHELLE: "Well, you don't have wings!"
VAN: "...or a nice guy, whatever. I never said I was a nice guy in the first place, so what's the problem? I can be grumpy for five minutes. And so can you."
MICHELLE: "But everyone can be grumpy."
VAN: "Exactly. Everybody can be grumpy."

In Memphis we stay at The Peabody Hotel where ducks ride up and down in the elevators between their home in the lobby fountain and their little hut on the roof. VAN, Michelle and BP are delivered to the Memphis In May Beale Street Music Festival from the womb of a long, long white limo, a leather-upholstered beast that's a cross between a coffin and a juke box.

The air conditioning in the limo is just so.

The luxurious Portacabin affair that's to play host to the star of the two-day proceedings is labelled 'Van'.
Inside, it's a cornucopia of goodies: cardboard cutout Elvises with Elvis leering in his gold suit, Sun Records mugs, Graceland ballpoints - a tiny pink Cadillac moves slowly along inside it - and on the wall posters of The Million Dollar Quartet: Elvis, Jerry Lee, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, wild young rockabillies like innocent jackals tearing the stomach out of old crooners like Perry Como and laughing as they did it.

There's t-shirts, including one labelled 'Memphis Recording Service' on 706 Union - the home of Sun Records where Elvis, Jerry Lee, Carl Perkins et al first recorded, and just down the road from our ducked-up Peabody.
More stuff in Van's dressing room - Sun Records keyrings, Elvis pens, a scented candle, Elvis playing cards, a pair of Elvis nail clippers. Wonderful presents and toys left out for The Star. It's like being let loose in a chemist's.
"Grab everything!" says Van chortling as he, Michelle and BP fall upon the gifts like scavengers,
stuffing the trophies into plastic bags, fans laughing like drains, Van, Michelle and BP, the three Virgo clowns more cracked than the Elgin Marbles.

Van is in Suite 2104 at the Windsor Court Hotel in New Orleans, Van and his Fawlty Towers videos. He's watching the one about the German visitors - "Don't mention the war!" - and he's watching the one about the rat. In Suite 2104, there's the three Ms - Morrison, Michelle and Moet. Van's laughing fit to burst and he's happier than a pig in shite.

BP: "I want to ask you a question on the record.
WILLIE: "On the record..."
BP: "If you don't want me to..."
WILLIE: "Turn it off..."
BP: "No, on the record."
MICHELLE: "I think... let him."
BP: "The question is this: you said earlier this evening, like och, twenty minutes ago, ten minutes ago, that you do your work..."
VAN: "Yeah."
BP: "You do your songwriting, you do your..."
VAN: "It's my contribution to this game..."
BP: "...and you do your... the third one was performing. If you could swap that for peace of mind,this job you have, you wouldn't do it, you wouldn't swap it?"
VAN: (Sounding defeated) "Yes I would."
BP: "Oh, you would swap it?"
VAN: "Yes I would."
BP: "Swap it for peace of mind?"
VAN: "Yes. Yes. Definitely."
BP: "And do you think that that's obtainable? Attainable?"
VAN: "Not for me, no, I've tried it."
MICHELLE: "Why?"
VAN: "I can't get that far."
WILLIE: (gently) "Turn the tape recorder off now."
CLICK.

On the plane from Memphis to New York, Van is asleep. Beside him, Michelle is asleep too. Van, his hat is jammed over his eyes and he's gone. Somehow he looks just like a little boy.

Van's sitting in the limo in New Orleans. There's a plastic cup in his hand and in his head there's a mindset that's a mindfield of possibilities.

"Roh-oh-oh-ock, roh-oh-oh-oll,'' goes the deep dark voice on the limo radio as it blasts out that classic 1961 declaration to rock'n'roll, The Showmen's It Will Stand.

"Roh-oh-oh-ock, roh-oh-oh-oll" it goes again.

The air conditioning in the limo is wrong. It's too hot or too cold. Something. "Try that button there" suggests Willie Richardson.

Van pokes at the limo ceiling. Michelle, all dressed in white with Santa Claus shades, she clambers into the limo. "I'm trying to fix the a.c." says Van. Michelle has a go and then gives up. Van pokes the limo ceiling.

"Roh-oh-oh-ock, roh-oh-oh-oll" goes the radio.

The Sunday Independent June 9 1996
Words and photography by and © BP Fallon

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