Whenever the conversation arises about which singers can still sing like they used to, Cliff and Macca are often cited as those who can’t whilst Tom Jones and Roger Daltrey can, but one name that rarely crops on this topic is Van Morrison. Friends who I spoke to last year after they saw him live said, he sounds no different from how he did when he first came to prominence as the lead singer with Them in the mid-sixties.
Them were formed in Belfast in the Spring of 1964 after lead singer and saxophonist Van Morrison answered an advert for musicians to play at a new R&B club that was once frequented by sailors. They needed a band for the opening night and Van called in the troops and did the job. The main line up stabled by the time the hits came the following year and they featured guitarist and occasional singer Billy Harrison, bass player Alan Henderson and five different keyboard players and drummers.
They signed a deal with Decca records and released their first single Baby Please Don’t Go which had originally been recorded by Big Joe Williams in 1935. They went into Decca’s studios in West Hampstead and recorded seven songs in one session and one of them was Gloria which was relegated to the B-side of Baby Please Don’t Go. Van wrote the song when he’d just turned 18 and was still performing with his previous band, The Monarchs.
He had written about his latest infatuation as he growls and yells her name throughout a seemingly innocent song about his relationship, but to find out more you’ll need to witness the performance live as Van turns it into and epic with his trademark ad-libs. The single version features a young session guitarist called Jimmy Page and has a fairly repetitive three-chord riff. It provides the perfect backing for Van to half speak and half sing, sometimes in an explicit way, the ins and outs of night-time visits by this teenage lust called Gloria.
In an interview with Niall Stokes, the editor at Hot Press, Van gave a further insight, “I remember I wrote it in Hyndford Street. It was pretty simple, because the idea came from two places – two sources. The chords came from the Everly Brothers. The words came from listening to Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley’s song I’m A Man – spelled M-A-N, so that was the idea of G-L-O-R-I-A. Also it was the same name as my cousin, who was thirteen years older than me. It wasn’t about her, but it was her name. The third musical idea, in the solo, was a riff that was inspired Little Walter instrumental. So those three components were how I wrote that song. I wrote it in one sitting. It was pretty simple.”
In 1966, Them had a residency at the Whiskey A-Go Go and one night towards the end of their tenure, the lead singer of their support band, The Doors, saw the Morrison’s – Van and Jim – launching into a call and response version of the song. Thereafter, it became a staple favourite of The Doors at their live shows. Fans who went to see similar garages bands in the States like The Kingsmen, The Beau Brummels and the Castaways often requested Gloria, and it became so popular that the record label began promoting Gloria the following year and it went to number 71 on Billboard. In 1974, Morrison released a solo version of the song to little interest. Fans still preferred the Them version.
Gloria had been covered by numerous acts including Jimi Hendrix, Patti Smith, Johnny Thunders, David Bowie, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers and Simple Minds, but it has been a UK hit once – in 1993, when Van re-recorded it with the blues giant, John Lee Hooker in a five and quarter minute version which reached number 31.
When asked his opinion of it in a Rolling Stone interview, Van said, “I was just being me, a street cat from Belfast. Probably like thousands of kids from Belfast who were in bands.” In the States, the biggest hit version was by Shadows of Knight who covered it just one year after Them and that went top 10. The same year, Morrison decided to go solo and left the band. Without his distinct tones, further success was not forthcoming and so the band split…..into two new bands, one called Them which featured Alan Henderson and the other, formed by former (original) Them members Pat and Jackie McAuley, called the Belfast Gypsies. The latter’s debut singles was called Gloria’s Dream (‘Round and ‘Round) presumably to cash in on the success of Gloria, but it never happened. They tried one further single without success and gave up.
In 1967, Van released, his debut album, Blowin’ Your Mind! and, arguably his most famous song, Brown Eyed Girl – neither which troubled the UK chart. He followed it with Astral Weeks which many cite as his best album. Brown Eyed Girl has become a party favourite at every wedding and disco and eventually landed in the UK chart in 2013 where is stalled at number 60.
Bob Dylan has been a massive Van Morrison fan and at the 1994 Brits, Van was awarded for his Outstanding Contribution to Music and during the ceremony, Bob Dylan performing live in the States, stopped his own show to send congratulations to Van and whilst the pair were conversing, Dylan’s band began playing Gloria.