Born George Ivan Morrison into the terraced streets of working-class Protestant Belfast in 1945, Van Morrison went on to write some of the most beautiful popular music of the rock era. With albums like Astral Weeks and Moondance , as well as songs like Gloria , Brown-Eyed Girl and Have I Told You Lately , he holds an assured place in the pantheon of rock musicians, both as a songwriter and a musician. Yet side by side with this extraordinary achievement stands a reputation for deeply paranoid behaviour, periods of hard drinking and chronic inability to relate to others. In this biography, Clinton Heylin explores the paradox that is Van Morrison. Based on over 100 interviews conducted in England, Ireland and the United States, as well as a detailed knowledge of the music, Heylin explores Morrison's musical and social roots in Belfast, and the hard times that awaited him in London, New York and Boston. He describes the making of Astral Weeks , one of the truly seminal rock albums, and the role of his early mentor Lewis Merenstein, as well as the catastrophic business arrangements that brought Morrison few rewards for his creative efforts. Heylin details the breakdown of Morrison's marriage, the long creative drought that followed, and then his triumphant re-emergence with albums like Into the Music , No Guru and Avalon Sunset .