Brown-eyed girl’s legacy lives

Shana Morrison’s music education began early, as might be expected of the daughter of rock icon Van Morrison.

But it didn’t all come from the obvious source.

“Both of my grandmothers taught me songs when I was very little,” she said.

“My father’s mother taught me all of the Irish folk songs, and my mother’s mother taught me all the American folk songs.”

Morrison will perform Sunday at Muldoon’s Dublin Pub in Newport Beach with her band, Caledonia. Before the show, Muldoon’s will honor the U.S. men’s volleyball team, fresh from its Olympic gold medal win.

Morrison has performed at Muldoon’s for the past several years; she was introduced to the venue by friends in another Celtic-inspired band, the Young Dubliners.

“It’s just a really nice gig,” she said. “It’s a very family-style atmosphere, and has a great vibe and great food.”

Morrison didn’t intend on going into the family business.

“I’ve always written songs, and when I performed them for my friends or my mom, they always acted impressed,” she said.

But the daughter of Janet “Planet” Rigsbee Minto chose to study business at Pepperdine University, much to her father’s chagrin.

“I didn’t start singing professionally until after I was out of college, and I didn’t really plan to sing professionally,” Morrison said. “I always thought of it as a hobby. I had seen every angle of the business growing up, and it just didn’t look like that attractive of a job to me.

“After college, my dad was doing a three-hour show, and he invited me to sing a couple of duets with him. I went on tour with them, then I got the performance bug. Once I started performing, I liked that aspect of the music business, so I thought I would maybe get a band together and play my own music.”

She saw it as a pre-career, short-term lark — a last hurrah before adulthood.

“And now it’s still going,” she said.

Although she has built up a strong following of her own, Morrison said she still has people who show up to her shows to reminisce about “Van the Man.”

“The comparison is always going to be made, and it’s been difficult for me because I’m not ever going to be a rock icon, or a living legend, or any of that kind of stuff,” she said.

“It gets kind of tedious when a lot of people want to talk about him with me; it makes me feel like people feel that I’m still a child. I’ve had a long life since I was a child. I’ve developed my own personality and mind.”

Morrison said she has known many very talented people in her life, but only a few of them have made millions at their craft.

“I think I do have an advantage over people, where I don’t have any false hopes about things,” she said. “I have no desire to become famous, or to be a star; I never thought I was going to make millions of dollars doing this.”

Morrison plans to release a new CD around the new year, and plans to tour in Scandinavia next year. Each of her CDs to date has branched out into another genre of music.

“My latest CD is more blues and R&B; oriented, but I try to stay within a theme,” Morrison said.

“The first CD I did was more folksy-country, and the second was more pop and rock. I always wanted to do some blues stuff, but I felt it was kind of good not to do that first, and then get pigeonholed there.”

Morrison said her crossing genres hasn’t alienated her fans, who buy each CD as a way to try to learn more about different types of music.

Outside the stage and the recording studio, she avidly practices Pilates, and has been involved for many years with Camp Arroyo, a summer camp for kids with special needs run by the Taylor Family Foundation.

“It’s so amazing to me that kids who have to go through a whole lifetime of going back and forth to the hospital can have one week in the summer to be around kids just like them. The camp’s like a four-star hotel, with organic food and cabins that are like little apartments,” she said.

As to stories that her mother is the fabled “Brown Eyed Girl?”

“That’s what I hear,” she said.

IF YOU GO

WHO: Shana Morrison and Caledonia

WHEN: 2 p.m. Sunday

WHERE: Muldoon’s Dublin Pub, 202 Newport Center Drive

HOW MUCH: Free admission

INFORMATION: (949) 640-4110 or muldoonspub.com

CANDICE BAKER can be reached at (949) 494-5480 or at candice.baker@latimes.com.