I’ve fantasised about writing a gritty memoir where I negotiate Van Morrison’s first gig in Dublin when his hit single “Baby Please Don’t Go” is in Britain’s Top Ten best-selling record chart.

The working title might be Juvenile Rock Star Meets Teenage Tycoon – and the story is true: I did book Van Morrison into the Stella ballroom in Dublin’s Mount Merrion in 1964.

I was a precocious teenager managing a group and running gigs in Belfast after leaving school where two of my classmates played in a band with Van Morrison.

On the cusp of fame, Van admitted to me that he was broke and asked if I could get his group, called Them, a date in Dublin. I called David Whittren, the owner of the Stella ballroom and asked for £150, he offered me £50; after a lot of haggling we agreed a fee of £75 and I wrote a letter to him confirming the terms of our deal.

A week before we were due to appear in Dublin, Them’s record of “Baby Please Don’t Go” entered the British Top Ten. Van called me and said he would not be travelling to Dublin for £75 when his record was in the British charts. I called David Whittren and told him that in light of the new circumstances we deserved more money.

He reminded me that the letter of confirmation I had sent to him was a signed contract. I told him both Van Morrison and myself were still a couple of summers short of 21-years-old and speculated whether or not a letter signed by a minor was enforceable as a contract in the civil courts.

We reopened negotiations, he offered an extra tenner and I wanted the £75 fee doubled. We compromised and agreed on a fee of £100. The extra £25 – worth £487.26 now, according to the CPI inflation calculator – persuaded Van to travel to Dublin and play in the Stella.

We hired a car for the trip and I sat in the back with Van; he was surly. He was also surly on stage and surly with the musicians in the band – and in turn, the musicians were surly to me and to each other. At the end of the sold-out gig, the audience was enraptured and the promoter was euphoric. And I took my £10 commission (worth some €216 today) in cash, went to the dressing room and pressed the £90 balance into Van’s hand.

Van barely tolerated managers and they couldn’t comprehend him

We had met earlier that year in a recording studio in Belfast where my band was doing an audition for Dick Rowe, a producer for Decca records then infamous for turning down the Beatles. Mr Rowe turned down my band, too, but signed up Van and Them with Phil Solomon, a Belfast-born showbiz impresario based in London.

Van barely tolerated managers and they couldn’t comprehend him. Phil Solomon’s staff dressed Van and the band in suits with neat white shirts and slim-jim ties for a television programme – but the group had changed into camouflage military fatigues before appearing on camera.

Them went to London, then New York, Boston and California but never found musical or any other contentment there. Van clung to Belfast. As a multi-millionaire septuagenarian in 2020, he still lives just a 20-minute drive from Hyndford Street where he was raised in east Belfast.

He was very close to Donall Corvin, a journalist, who was also my best friend in Belfast. In the early 1970s,  when The Troubles made our home city unliveable in, we both moved to Dublin and worked for New Spotlight, a music magazine.

Van Morrison moved to America and invited Donall Corvin to join him near San Francisco, to explore writing a book together. They didn’t speak for the first three days after he arrived and eventually, Donall borrowed money and came back to Dublin.

When Van Morrison released Astral Weeks in 1968  – a masterpiece of wondrous compositions and spellbinding virtuosity – his reputation moved from idiosyncratic prodigy to potential genius.

Delivering a significant milestone in contemporary music meant little when he was exploited by dodgy contracts with a series of opportunist managers and agents.

Few knew then or now understand the grim poverty and humiliations suffered by Van Morrison and the exploitation of him by ruthless and greedy charlatans posing as managers.

He wrote some of the most memorable songs and produced unforgettable albums after Astral Weeks: Moondance, His Band And The Street Choir, Tupelo Honey and in 1974 It’s too late To Stop Now, perhaps the best live album ever.

He had always refused to follow any cause and remained resolutely apolitical. Yet both sides of the religious and political divide accepted him as their poet laureate and musical director.

Back in October 1973, Van returned to Dublin, hooked up with Donall Corvin and agreed to do a television show on RTÉ – but only if they agreed to his demands. The presenter, Tony Johnston, had to ask Donall Corvin the questions and he would repeat them to Van who whispered the answers to Donall who replied to the presenter. It was such a televisual mess that the producer was forced to issue a public apology.

But his reputation as a composer and performer soared in the United States and Europe after his appearance in The Last Waltz, a documentary directed by Martin Scorsese. Morrison stole the thunder from some of the biggest names in modern music and his songs were on the soundtrack of nearly every Scorsese film over the next 40 years.

Classics songs such as “Days Like This’ and “Have I Told You Lately” secured his reputation for writing beautiful poems with classic melodies. It has been fascinating to watch the perception of Van Morrison in Belfast. He had always refused to follow any cause and remained resolutely apolitical. Yet both sides of the religious and political divide accepted him as their poet laureate and musical director.

He sang on stage outside Belfast City hall when US President Bill Clinton, a fellow saxophonist, visited the city in December 1995. He was a very wealthy and enormously successful artist by then, beholden to nobody and deeply suspicious of geeks bearing gifts.

The only child of an electrician dad in the city’s shipyard and a mother who tap-danced and sang, he was baptised into the Church of Ireland but didn’t bother a lot with churches as he grew up.

Few have managed to straddle the peace line successfully in Belfast and command the respect and admiration of the other side. Van Morrison stood at the apex of a triumvirate of Belfast Prods who made everyone, from all religious and political traditions and none in their native city, proud. Alongside Van Morrison stood footballer George Best and snooker star Alex “Hurricane” Higgins. Three working-class heroes whose formidable talents and street cred made them beloved to their neighbours.

While his reputation continued to soar and his business affairs ran smoothly, Van’s private life was more chaotic. Between spells of professional success and spurts of personal happiness, there was sadness and tragedies too – some life-changing.

Groundhog Day conversations

I don’t see Van often now but when I do, the same exchange takes place, like a Groundhog Day conversation. He remembers me from way back in the 1960s and a family who lived near me.  He asks if I ever see Jane Adams, the beautiful red-headed sister of my pal Harry. Ms Adams looked very like Jane Asher, the actress girlfriend of Paul McCartney in the 1960s. When I say I haven’t seen her since then, Van asks how he might get in touch with her. I tell him I heard she married a Church of Ireland clergyman and that if he got someone to check with the Church of Ireland Gazette, he might be lucky. He always nods approval and asks about Jane Adams again the next time I see him.

Looking back on his inventory of work – 41 studio albums, six live albums, six compilations and 71 singles – shows a showbiz catalogue of the Protestant work ethic. His latest album, Three Chords And The Truth was very favourably reviewed when it was released last October.

Many are disappointed at Van Morrison’s lack of social graces. Truth is, he doesn’t live by the same social etiquette as most of us. Sometimes he makes an effort and goes through the motions of good manners and even cracks a joke; sometimes he is ominously silent. He can also be very hurtful and dismissive of people who clearly adore his music and admire him. He has been very crude to women, rude to men and frequently disparaging to journalists asking him questions.

I also know that he has been very generous to others and helpful to worthwhile causes. He is a complicated man with an exceptional talent for music that other experts say is “genius”.

I assume that Van doesn’t analyse his compositions nor does he appreciate others asking him why he does this or doesn’t do that. I have seen him remarkably affable and but also know that he does not suffer fools, particularly musical fools, gladly.

When he was dirt poor, Van Morrison never tolerated any intrusion on his privacy – personal or professional. And as a very wealthy man – he is worth €63 million, according to the latest Rich List – he has never hid away behind high walls and moats or bought big yachts or private jets. He lives relatively modestly near Belfast and, I’m told, his only indulgence is chartering planes to avoid the hassle of airline travel. He has also assembled a praetorian guard of lawyers, accountants, personal investigators and other professionals to secure his privacy.

No Surrender, a meticulously detailed and authoritative biography of Van Morrison written by British author Johnny Rogan and running to more than 600 pages, was published in 2005. It answered many of the questions asked by Morrison’s cryptic comments and long silences.

It took 18 years longer for him to get a gong from Buckingham Palace than for the people of Northern Ireland to be rewarded with a permanent ceasefire.

Official recognition of Van Morrison’s genius came dropping even more slowly than the peace process. A chiselled jawline, a posh accent and an enduring talent used to be a fast-track to fame and a knighthood for British men in showbusiness. And maybe it was how he looked and sounded that delayed his ennoblement. But it took 18 years longer for him to get a gong from Buckingham Palace than for the people of Northern Ireland to be rewarded with a permanent ceasefire.

Prince Charles did the honours at Buckingham Palace on February 4, 2016 and Sir Ivan Morrison, accompanied by his daughter Shana, described the ceremony as “amazing” and “exhilarating”. Then he added: “For 53 years I’ve been in the business – that’s not bad for a blue-eyed soul singer from east Belfast.”

Knighthoods are usually only given to British people who have performed extraordinary feats, heroic deeds or made a significant contribution to public life. Contemporary composers and musicians with a reputation for volatility are rarely ennobled.

The ceremony in Buckingham Palace came less than six months after an astonishing outdoor concert on Cypress Avenue (a street in Belfast and the title of one of his most famous songs released in 1968) celebrating his 70^th birthday. The leafy avenue is a short walk from the two-up, two-down terrace house in Hyndford Street in east Belfast where he was raised as an only child.

The concert was another tour de force, by one of the world’s most accomplished contemporary composers and performers. It was bringing it all back home moment: those people who have loyally supported his work and made Belfast a comfortable home for him through his 75 years. He stayed in London, New York, Boston, California, Dublin and Bath but I have no doubt that he always considered Belfast his home. And he still does…

This weekend the supremely talented composer and performer Sir Van Morrison celebrates his 75^th birthday amid a blizzard of praise and congratulation from around the world.

Over a lifetime the enormous talent he gifted to Ireland, and more particularly to his beloved Belfast, is immeasurable. The least we owe him is “Thank you for the music and the memories, Van”.