VAN MORRISON - NO SURRENDER by JOHNNY ROGAN

This Book is the result of over twenty years of research , four years of writing.Lauded by many a mainstream media as "definitive" , for example.

"No biography is likely to tell you more about Morrison' - Adam Sweeting, Sunday Times"

"A compendium of detail, a neck-aching triumph of research" (Scotsman )

"Here is everything you wanted to know about Van Morrison... Rogan leaves no stone unturned" (Guardian )

"'Remarkably well-researched and deeply engrossing...Rogan's painstaking research yields an abundance of detail...Fascinating'" (Irish Times )

"'This characteristically accomplished biography shows the singer from every angle'" (Observer )

I , and many , if you read the customer reviews from Amazon would not be so lauding of a work in which there is more "payback" from the various inputs from Vans early career , and the authors on musical prejudices which are not of any artistic sympathy of the work Morrison produced , especially his most creatively innovative later albums prior to the Jazz age when he had to severely curtail his singing duties whilst on stage.

 No one will argue Van is the nice person , he is not.But the Art world is littered with flawed , outright nasty individual who still produced works that encourage the Human to foster and inculcate the very best of themselves.Robert Frost the poet , Wagner the music-dramatist are examples of Persons whose personal treatment of those around them was considerably worse than the beauty of art they made , often inspiring the height of Human Appreciation and ethical aesthetics.

In the end we get an overly bitter biography that focuses on the man , not the artist and the art.

Even among the many hatchet-job biographies that have crossed lines to condemn the subject , rather than analyse the achievement , Rogan takes things into a territory never before witnesses- an asymmetrical hatchet-job that defies time and place in a manner that would have impressed Einstein himself.Rogan comes up with the barley credible thesis that the fact Rev. Iain Paisley preached about a mile and half or so from where Van Morrison lived should have a significance on his character , outlook  and world view.The thing is in a city centre urban environment a mile and a half could be a universe away in attitudes and connectivity with others of similar or dissimilar views.Also the fact the age difference between them is almost two decadesalos makes a chronologically massive difference in shaping histories and attitudes.If this Rogan Doctrine was applied to me then there is a sound case that i am more in harmony ( if that word could ever be used) to Pastor Jack Glass than Van is to Paisley.

Van Morrison will always score 1 or, on the odd occasion , 2 out of 10 for being a Good Human Being.But the criterion we look to him is The Music ,sadly  it is a much neglected aspect of this Biography.

To balance things up the video below has Van Morrison discuss the only thing , to his credit , he wants to share with us , and the only thing we really want to hear him lecture us about , The Music.