Van the Man wanted to be Van the Vet

It’s hard to believe, but moody musician Van Morrison wanted to be a vet before he was bitten by the music bug.

The Days Like These hitmaker had no idea as a young man that he was going to be a singer and musician.

In fact, it wasn’t until he saw the legendary American musician Humphrey Lyttleton playing on the back of a truck in Belfast that he realised his true calling.

He revealed: “One of my teachers said he knew I’d be a singer before I did, even though I was quite good at football.

“I was about 15 when he pointed at me and said: ‘This guy is gonna be a singer.’ I think he heard me in a skiffle group at a school concert and must have had some insight.”

After school, Morrison, who played guitar and sax, joined a showband — and even delighted in wearing their regulation uniforms onstage.

“The uniforms were good, I actually liked them. We had jackets with those lapels and maverick ties and white shirts. I liked those uniforms.

“My very first gigs were in showbands. I remember The Monarchs. I did it for a couple of years and it was a great training ground and good fun. We basically played the Top 20 hits for ballroom dancing.

“There were lots of gigs in Belfast, and Derry had an American base so they’d all come to see us. Then The Beatles killed all that. When they came along myself and a couple of guys in the band didn’t want to do it anymore.

Sure, The Beatles were fine, but why them? Pre-Beatles stuff meant much more to me. We wanted to do Ray Charles and Jerry Lee Lewis.

“A couple of guys in the band were from Glasgow so we played Scotland for a while. It was young guys having fun. None of us saw beyond that until we went to Germany.

“You had to go to London and audition in a theatre in Leicester Square. They held auditions all day, you’d play a few songs and the guy would say yes or no.”

After forming the beat group Them with which he had several hits, including Gloria and Here Comes The Night, Van later decided to head to America and establish himself as a solo artist.

In an interview in the new edition of Mojo magazine, he revealed: “I knew from the get-go that I could be a solo artist, but there were a lot of obstacles.

“It was a restrictive situation. People were telling me I could only do this gig or that gig, and if I didn’t like it than I could get on my bike!

“It took a while for me to develop as a songwriter. When I started recording people were pushing their own songs, which they wanted you to record. They didn’t want you to write your own songs back then because they wanted the publishing. So it felt like you were being blocked, which you were. The Tin Pan Alley guys and people like Tommy Scott, Bill Martin and Phil Coulter, these guys who were producers and writers.”

Morrison has just released his 34th solo studio album Born To Sing: No Plan B on the legendary jazz label Blue Note.