News October 27, 2015

Sony Music acquires Van Morrisson catalogue

PRESS RELEASE:

Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment, has acquired the rights to the most complete discography of contemporary music legend Van Morrison ever assembled under one label imprint. As a result, 33 Van Morrison album titles will be made available as digital releases and through all streaming services beginning Friday, August 28th 2015.

The Van Morrison musical acquisition spans more than 50 years of music, encompassing some 50 album, video and compilation titles from 1964 to the present. The new Legacy Van Morrison archive includes all of Morrison's solo works from 1971 to the present as well as the recordings made with the groundbreaking rock band Them from 1964 through 1966.

That same day, Friday, August 28, Legacy Recordings will release the ESSENTIAL VAN MORRISON, a 37-track career-spanning anthology, available digitally and as a 2CD physical album.

Later this year, Van Morrison's early recordings as the singer, frontman and principal songwriter for the seminal band Them will be available on Legacy Recordings.

None of the titles in the Van Morrison catalog have ever been available for streaming and the catalog has been long unavailable online through iTunes or other ISPs. The Morrison catalog has been long out-of-print, with some titles being unavailable for as long as 15 years.

Forthcoming new Van Morrison releases on the Legacy label will include a new career-spanning single CD compilation and deluxe Legacy Editions of classic Van Morrison solo albums: SAINT DOMINIC'S PREVIEW, IT'S TOO LATE TO STOP NOW, HARD NOSE THE HIGHWAY and ENLIGHTENMENT.

A half century's worth of recordings, endlessly innovative and unique in the annals of rock and pop music, Van Morrison's discography incorporates elements of blues, jazz, folk, gospel, skiffle, pop, soul and R&B to create a sound and sensibility immediately identifiable as Van the Man's. One of the most fascinating and uncompromising artists of the rock and roll era, Van Morrison brought Northern Irish soul to the world as one of the most transcendent singers, writers and performers to ever grace a stage or recording studio.

Van began his solo career with a Top 10 pop smash, the radio perennial ‘Brown Eyed Girl’, but soon moved in compelling new directions. He boldly crossed numerous musical genres in the decades that followed, investigating country music (PAY THE DEVIL, 2006), jazz (WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?, 2003), New Orleans R&B (Into The Music, 1979), traditional Celtic folk (Irish Heartbeat, with The Chieftains, 1988) and straight-ahead rock (Days Like This, 1995), among many others.

Van Morrison has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1993) and the Songwriters Hall of Fame (2003) and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2010. Winner of a BRIT Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music (1994), Van Morrison holds six Grammy Awards (1996-2007) and an Ivor Novello Award for Lifetime Achievement (1995).

Van was named one of Rolling Stone's Greatest Artists of All Time (2004, #42) and Greatest Singers of All Time (2008, #24). Van the Man has two albums on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and four songs on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, including ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ (#109) and ‘Gloria’ (with Them) (#208).

Van Morrison Material included under Legacy Recordings Auspices

Them
The Angry Young Them / Them (1965)

Them Again (1966)

Them featuring Van Morrison (compilation, 1972)

The Story of Them featuring Van Morrison (compilation, 1997)

Van Morrison

Available Digitally and Streaming on Friday, August 28

St. Dominic's Preview (1972)

Hard Nose the Highway (1973)

It's Too Late to Stop Now (Live) (1974)

Veedon Fleece (1974)

A Period of Transition (1977)