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Thread: Ok, what's so great about... Van Morrison?

  1. #76
    Quote Originally Posted by mozo-pg View Post
    Thanks John.
    Always a pleasure
    John Kelman
    Senior Contributor, All About Jazz since 2004
    Freelance writer/photographer

  2. #77
    Member Vic2012's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Vic2012 View Post
    Eesh, I didn't realize that Gov't Mule's Ballerina from the EP Mo Voodoo was a Van cover song.
    What?

  3. #78
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    I've been binging on Van The Man. I only have 3 albums (Astral, Moondance, His Band and The Street Choir).

    My favorite is Street Choir. I've heard Tupelo Honey and St. Dominic's. Great albums. I need to buy 'em. I liked Van in the early 70s but never bought the albums. What a voice. What soul.

  4. #79
    Quote Originally Posted by Vic2012 View Post
    I've been binging on Van The Man. I only have 3 albums (Astral, Moondance, His Band and The Street Choir).

    My favorite is Street Choir. I've heard Tupelo Honey and St. Dominic's. Great albums. I need to buy 'em. I liked Van in the early 70s but never bought the albums. What a voice. What soul.
    You hit on nearly every great Van album from the late 60s/early 70s. If you can find it, the album Irish Heartbeat with Van and The Chieftains is stellar (if you're into Celtic, of course). Absolutely heartbreaking renditions of Irish classics.

    "And your little sister's immaculate virginity wings away on the bony shoulders of a young horse named George who stole surreptitiously into her geography revision."

    Occasional musical musings on https://darkelffile.blogspot.com/

  5. #80
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    I think I'm gonna listen to Veedon Fleece on YT this week. It's apparently not a huge fave but some people worship it (people named Elvis Costello).

  6. #81
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    ^Maybe his best album IMHO even though there are no obvious hits on it. 1980's Common One was the logical conclusion of this approach...an unheralded masterpiece, I'd say.

  7. #82
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    I was watching a Van documentary on YT. Apparently Martha Reeves, of And The Vandellas did a cover of Wild Night. I heard it, didn't care for it. But, is it me, or does Jackie Wilson Says remind you of Heatwave, by Martha and her Vandellas?

  8. #83
    Member Jerjo's Avatar
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    Vic, for the love of god, get the live album!

    I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart

  9. #84
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    I've heard about half of Veedon. Gorgeous. Just great. I need to purchase it.

  10. #85
    That's Mr. to you, Sir!! Trane's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Vic2012 View Post
    I've been binging on Van The Man. I only have 3 albums (Astral, Moondance, His Band and The Street Choir).

    My favorite is Street Choir. I've heard Tupelo Honey and St. Dominic's. Great albums. I need to buy 'em. I liked Van in the early 70s but never bought the albums. What a voice. What soul.
    You've already got his two best (though AW is miles better than MD), so you're doing fine.
    From his early 70's, Choir was my least fave (actually I hated it)

    Quote Originally Posted by Vic2012 View Post
    I've heard about half of Veedon. Gorgeous. Just great. I need to purchase it.
    Well I suppose that most of his mid-70's albums are fine pieces standing by themselves, but since they're all +/- samey-sounding, they're interchangeable (except his first few).
    But I was never a major fan, as my first exposition to his music were the crummy Period of Transition & Wavelength, so it took me to the mid-90's to start digging any of his stuff (coupled to the fact that he's a notorious arsehole on stage), but I guess I wasn't ready for his music as a teenager.



    I recently relistened (over three days) to my two full albums (AW and SDP) and the CD-r compilation I made from the other albums and if I still took off on AW, I yawned excessively on SDP first time it does that to me, but the extended jams on the long tracks didn't strike my target this time. As for my CD-r (sampling from Tupelo until ITTM), I couldn't go to the end of it: even San Anselmo and Autumn song (both from Hard Nose) didn't strike a chord with me - this time.
    I never tried a live album, though, but with my recent fiasco, it looks like it'll be some time before I do.
    my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.

  11. #86
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    I'd say It's Too Late To Stop Now was more focussed on his R&B side. Lots of great covers he never did in the studio. The remaster of this added 'Brown Eyed Girl'. There was also a 4 disc set which contained more material from these concerts.

    Quote Originally Posted by Vic2012 View Post
    I've heard about half of Veedon. Gorgeous. Just great. I need to purchase it.
    It got me from 'Fair Play', just a lovely sounding track. This album picked up where Astral Weeks left off, back in that jazz/folk zone.

    Alas most of his catalogue is out of print on CD. Sony now have the distribution rights and that relationship still seems alive...just, given that there was a recent 3cd release of 90s album The Healing Game. That was long delayed. I quite like most of that album but a 3cd reissue doesn't seem the type of thing which would fly off the shelves. It's not regarded as a 'classic' or anything.

    I should say I've quite enjoyed listening to the 90s/00s albums I have by him (bought them all for peanuts years ago, many were out of print even then!) over the past year or so. But he's settled into a groove and has stayed there, they are quite similar. Back On Top strikes me as the best, a couple of dud songs towards the end aside, I think that one is something of an underrated late-career classic.
    Last edited by JJ88; 07-01-2019 at 08:59 AM.

  12. #87
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    It took a while but i have really come to appreciate Van Morrison a lot. If i never heard Brown Eyed Girl ever again it would be alright with me. Lately i've been really enjoying his later period stuff, the record he did with Joey DeFrancesco is pretty damn fine.


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    Hard to find and expensive but A Night in San Francisco is my favorite Van live disc. Great blues contributors, his daughter Shanna singing Beautiful Vision, great great band with Candy Dulfer on sax, and more. I've seen him live many times, never to equal this set, and he has always been good live.

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    ^2008 saw the start of a new reissue campaign with extra tracks added to the albums. (Including Tupelo Honey which apparently Morrison does not want available anymore.) But then the plug was pulled halfway through, and those CDs disappeared from the marketplace, never to be replaced. Pretty sure A Night In San Francisco was amongst the ones which did not come out. The 2008 releases here are what did, if anyone cares.

    https://www.discogs.com/label/269900...ison-Remasters

    A new deal with Sony was announced a few years ago but very, very little has come out on CD. One of the releases they've done was a 3cd set of his Bang Records' work, material I think they have always had the rights to anyway, but this was an 'authorised' collection.

  15. #90
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    "2008 saw the start of a new reissue campaign with extra tracks added to the albums. (Including Tupelo Honey which apparently Morrison does not want available anymore.) But then the plug was pulled halfway through, and those CDs disappeared from the marketplace, never to be replaced. Pretty sure A Night In San Francisco was amongst the ones which did not come out. The 2008 releases here are what did, if anyone cares."

    Can't get enough Honey myself, but I guess Van has had more than enough! Thanks for info.

  16. #91
    One of the things to appear out of the Sony deal was a reissue of the Them material which is quite excellent. Don't expect Moondance type stuff but more of a British Invasion sound. Really good, though.

    Bill
    She'll be standing on the bar soon
    With a fish head and a harpoon
    and a fake beard plastered on her brow.

  17. #92
    I was listening to St. Dominic’s Preview a lot recently. Obviously, given the time of year, I have to post this:

    Confirmed Bachelors: the dramedy hit of 1883...

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    ...Great bands. Check out this configuration in 1980 (live in Montreux):


  19. #94
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    About a decade ago, me and my wife and our two best friends stumbled into an Irish bar on St Valentine's Day in St Paul. It was about twenty below and downtown was dead. But not that place. It was packed to the rafters. The band was a local act called the Belfast Cowboys and were known for playing LOTS of Van Morrison covers. As we came into the bar they just roared into "Jackie Wilson Said" which is my wife's favorite Morrison song. So she danced all the way to the one open table we saw. I saw a couple of wedding parties, St Paul cops in full uniform sitting at the bar, waitresses dancing while carrying trays of stout pints (a local brewery had just introduced an oatmeal stout and people were POUNDING it down). It was joyous chaos with every uptempo song in Van's catalog. Van would have hated it.
    I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart

  20. #95
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    ^ Sounds like a lot o' fun. Happy 4th.

  21. #96
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    [Quote.....Trane]Choir was my least fave (actually I hated it)[/quote].

    That's too bad. I Love it. I've Been Working sent me on a James Brown binge. I worship James Brown.

  22. #97
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    Quote Originally Posted by pulse View Post
    ...Great bands. Check out this configuration in 1980 (live in Montreux):
    Van Morrison - vocals, electric guitar
    Pee Wee Ellis - soprano, tenor, alto and baritone saxophones, background vocals
    Mark Isham - trumpet, flugelhorn, piccolo trumpet, bass trumpet, soprano saxophone, background vocals
    John Allair - Hammond organ, synthesizer, background vocals
    Jef Labes - piano, fender rhodes
    John Platania - electric guitar
    David Hayes - bass, background vocals
    Dahaud Shaar - drums, percussion
    Peter Van Hooke - drums

  23. #98
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jerjo View Post
    It was joyous chaos with every uptempo song in Van's catalog. Van would have hated it.
    He probably would have hated being there, but do you think he would have hated that those people enjoyed his music so much? Maybe he would have - that they danced to his music rather than sitting rapt, immersed in a deep, spiritual, life-changing experience. They weren't getting what it really meant, and that would be infuriating.

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