A RECORD company boss has told how he paid $20,000 to the New York Mafia to get Van Morrison out of his contract with a small label.

RTE1’s Documentary On One, The Summer of Astral Weeks, has revealed the remarkable story of what is considered by many to be one of the greatest albums of all time.

Van Morrison in action in 2014

In one of her first interviews in decades, Van’s former wife Janet Planet tells how the Belfast singer was virtually penniless and about to be deported from the US in 1968 — the year after his hit Brown Eyed Girl.

He was living under the threat of mob violence in New York and fled to Boston. There he started work on the album with the aid of student musicians.

While playing with the band in a Boston club he was spotted by Warner Brother exec Joe Smith, who told RTE the remarkable lengths he went to in order to release Van from his contract.

He said: “The deal was we had to deliver $20,000 to them in the ninth floor of a warehouse at night when it was dark.

Van Morrison in studio in New York in the 60s

“I took a taxi over there and I’m walking up the stairs certain that somebody is going to hit me on the head. I gave the guys 20,000 cash to sign Van Morrison to a contract.”

Van returned to New York and recorded Astral Weeks in autumn of 1968.

The RTE Radio One documentary also revealed how the pair fled to Boston after the Irish singer had a guitar smashed over his head and he found a bullet hole in his hotel room door.