Van Morrison's Astral Weeks: Classic or Dud

Great article! So much more revealed in 2 pages than the entire Boston section of the Clinton Heylin Van bio. I hope Foyle's working on a book - seems like he's got tons more.

I mean Walsh

yeah seems like he wants to expand it -- for a guy as famous as van morrison, a lot of his life is pretty murky.
also important- janet planet's etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/lovebeadsbyjp

^^Ha! I dug out Tupelo Honey last night and got to thinking about what happened to her after seeing all those photos of she & Van together in the artwork.

can't say "selling love beads on etsy" is a huge surprise twist ending to the janet planet story. it's not exactly m night shyamalan territory.

i've been listening to the duets record a lot for... reasons. anyway it's pretty all right overall but still feels kind of unnecessary, as i'd say the original production and instrumentation of the '80s and '90s songs he revisits is part of their appeal. low point is joss stone kinda just dully bleating over "wild honey," one of my favorite van songs.

Not looking forward to hearing Buble with him.

That Walsh article is a great read.

Not looking forward to hearing Buble with him.

that's one of the better ones tbh, but it's because "real real gone" is a great enough song to withstand buble

Buble's "Moondance," which my sister used to blast 10 years ago, is not terrible.

trying to think of any really outstanding van covers (that aren't "gloria") ... i guess bowie's here comes the night qualifies, though van didn't write it.

huh, that's interesting - he writes one song that everyone in the world covered, then nobody ever covers him again.

i mean - that's pretty common for one-hit wonders I guess but odd for a guy held up as a great songwriter with dozens of albums in the same league as often-covered dudes like Neil Young and Leonard Cohen

i guess i'm ok w/ the mellencamp/ndegoecello wild nights... robyn hitchcock does a couple of nice veedon fleece covers

Sandy Dirt (an Al Larsen spinoff band iirc) does a very nice version of "Slim Slow Slider", not on Youtube though

I also see that Peter Laughner covered that on his "last tape"

that article is fascinating btw

I've probably listened to Veedon Fleece and the Bang sessions records more than anything at this point. I overdosed on Astral Weeks at one point and don't pull it out much any more - though I did a late night long drive at Xmas with Astral Weeks blasting as my family somehow slept and it was fantastic. TB Sheets and the O.G. Madame George on Bang still kill me every time.

I put Astral Weeks on last night and read parts of that (un-fucking-believably great) Bangs essay to my wife, we got choked up

bangs also did notes for the 2-record reissue of Them albums, but even better (cos more music) is the 2-CD The Story of Them Featuring Van Morrison, which about spoiled me; couldn't go back to his solo career for a while. Nevertheless, besides the ones already mentioned here recently, his '74 double-live with the Caledonia Soul Orchestra, Too Late To Stop Now is a must; ditto St. Dominic's Preview, Into The Music, and, while it isn't quite up to those standards, Wavelength is good too.

here's that bangs essay... http://zito.biz/memorial/lb/bylesterbangs/onThem.htm

re: Covers--Are we forgetting Rod's version of "Have I Told You Lately?"

A bunch of people have done "Crazy Love", including Bryan Ferry(!) on the soundtrack to She's Having A Baby(!!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvbspVa2ZIY

welllllll i was trying to think of "really outstanding" van covers.

dexys.

lol at paste magazine picking glen hansard's astral weeks as the best one here -- yeccch, not even gonna listen: http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/lists/2012/08/10-best-van-morrison-covers.html
this is kinda happening though:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DxrEt3MtLk

Oh, come to think of it, Maria McKee did a really good version of "The Way Young Lovers Do."

That Ferry cover isn't that bad.

The Dexys' "Jackie Wilson" is aces.

McKee also did a pretty great version of "My Lonely Sad Eyes."

does art garfunkel's "i shall sing" count, being the first-released/definitive version? such a banger:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoktzdzCwMg

more like asstral squeaks (farts)

lock thread

Astral Weeks (1968)
- With the chance to make his own record, Morrison came up with this, basically soft rock recorded with jazz musicians (including the Modern Jazz Quartet's Connie Kay on drums). Which might sound not too different from what Simon & Garfunkel were doing at the time, but where Simon's work is carefully composed, arranged and produced, Morrison relies on sponaneity. The liner notes brag that Morrison cut the album in two days, and you know, it sounds like it: the lyrics are stream of consciousness, and usually the tunes seesaw endlessly between two or three chords. The musicians sound like they don't know what he's getting at, and the fact that most of the songs have no clear melody doesn't help. Morrison's fans often cite this as their favorite album, because there aren't a lot of distractions from his distinctive, half-spoken vocals. But if you're just getting into him, you're probably better off with Moondance -- unless you're a fan of New Age music. (DBW)
http://www.warr.org/vanmorrison.html#AstralWeeks

― Jazzbo, Thursday, November 6, 2008 5:01 PM (6 years ago)

lol, i remember reading this review at that site back when i was in high school. didn't quite appreciate its tone-deafness back then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be3OkvBZaIY

xp driving at night to Astral Weeks while family sleeps = sorta perverse, but I can see the appeal

btw has anyone mentioned the Dexy's "Jackie Wilson Said" as a great VM cover??

.... I see now that they have #playingcatchup

I guess reading the Greil Marcus book on Van Morrison depends on how much you like or can deal with Marcus's methods

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/books/review/Gerstenzang-t.html?_r=0

“When That Rough God Goes Riding” is more a series of nonfiction short stories than a straightforward analysis. Marcus devotes virtually every chapter to a wide-ranging discussion of a Morrison album, song or live performance. Fittingly, just as the singer peppers his songs with eclectic allusions to Muddy Waters and William Blake, Marcus, too, brings in endless cultural signifiers, the better for us to understand the music. This means comparing Morrison’s version of Bob Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” to Raymond Chandler’s writing: “It begins like the first page of a detective novel, with three clipped, odd bass patterns, like a knock on the door, but with an odd fatalism.” Throughout the book, Marcus also makes reference to artists as disparate as the comic Robert Klein, the director Neil Jordan and the novelist Jonathan Lethem, so that we might get a sense of Morrison’s complex appeal. Mostly, these comparisons feel strangely accurate. Sometimes, as when Marcus compares the music to Bob Beamon’s astonishing long jump, he’s, uh, stretching things a bit.

This is a pretty nice one. Not as great as a '67 soul cover of a Van tune might have been, but I'll take it. Oddly drops the "jellyroll" line. Too dirty?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQbc_f8ACc4

That's one of my favorite Van songs -- for me, it's up there with most of Astral Weeks -- and I've always loved Scott's "Are You Lonely For Me Baby?"

This is tremendous. Thank you for posting.

Yeah, I actually stumbled on this cover trying to track down a 45 of "Are You Lonely For Me Baby" - such a great tune.

The Van cover is on the b-side of Scott's "Run Joe" 45 on Shout.

Another good early solo Van I should have mentioned: His Band and Street Choir, though he's already working toward a relatively more mainstream approach, more like what he was going for on the Bang Masters sessions, and more like what we now know will coalesce into Moondance and Tupelo Honey.
But if you're looking for more of something like the Astral Weeks vibe, especially "Madame George," I'd suggest Kevin Coyne. His mutant folk-blues-rock isn't all that jazzy, but some say he improvised all or much of his outsider verses on the spot in the studio, and certainly they can have that effect, the most unsettling aspect of such encounters being that you (or I) actually get what he's talking about (a former circuit-riding social worker with his own problems, who took good notes).
His Case History and Peel Sessions are good places to start; ditto Marjory Razor Blade, Matching Head and Feet, In Living Black and White, The Adventures of Crazy Frank, Sugar Candy Taxi, and maybe the set with Jon Langford, One Day In Chicago, though I haven't heard it. Of course he's got his own thread.
The cryptic contemplations and sunny Gothic landscapes of John Cale's Vintage Violence seem not too far fromAstral Weeks, as the crow flies, anyway.

vintage violence and astral weeks do share a producer - lewis merenstein

The new Uncut has him on the cover and a run through of some of his best lps. Snippets on them by various people who played on them.

& had me wondering what the story was on the disappearance of the reissues from around 2005/6. Was there any reason for them only being around for a short while since they don't seem to be around any more.

Would love that series's St Dominic's Preview. Not sure why I didn't get it at the time

Kevin Coyne can sound like Van occasionally (intentionally I would guess), but not that often really, and I'm amazed you didn't mention the album, Blame It On the Night! (xxp)

Not as much the sound as the effect, thinking most specifically of the "Madame George" experience, but that midnight mynd, muttering-forward vibe of other songs too (some Roy Harper, Richard Dawson as well). Not familiar with Blame It On The Night!

ha, yes. was never sure if this was a van homage or piss-take (maybe both)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnIcTvJplts

Man, that is the entry album for Kevin Coyne, not that it's his best, just that it has more or less his entire spectrum from avant-garde stream of consciousness blah to bluesy 70s rock to almost nearly pop.(xp)

Looked up BIOTN, thanks Tom D. Also found this conversation with xpost AW/VV producer Merenstein:

http://darkforcesswing.blogspot.com/2009/03/in-full-lewis-merenstein-producer-of.html

The duet with Bobby Womack (RIP) on Some Peace of Mind is strong. The others I've listened to haven't come up to that level.

Speaking of Van reissues, it'd be nice if the powers that be would get around to reissuing Irish Heartbeat. That was a great one.

had me wondering what the story was on the disappearance of the reissues from around 2005/6. Was there any reason for them only being around for a short while since they don't seem to be around any more.

Also: What's the deal with the rights to his albums anyway? Polydor reissued a number of his albums on CD in the 90s, and then again in the series you mention, but there were odd gaps in what they had; like, iirc Polydor had Tupelo Honey through Veedon Fleece (I have their 90s editions of both), and then they skipped to the last 70s albums, hopping again to the mid '80s, where they finally encompass the whole of the period onward catalogue. Some--but not all--of the missing albums where kept in print by original label Warner Brothers, whom I think issued their holdings on CD back in the late '80s/early '90s CD boom (my copy of St. Dominic's Preview is on WB, and I've seen used copies of a WB Tupelo Honey from time to time).

PS: I was just looking at how ridiculously expensive his old albums are on Amazon--I really should have stocked up for eventual resale when I saw them all for like $10 a disc at Borders in the early 2000s.

Speaking of covers, who's heard this tribute album:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41BBAEC6Z3L.jpg

1. You Make Me Feel So Free - Sinéad O'Connor 2. Queen of the Slipstream - Brian Kennedy 3. Coney Island - Liam Neeson 4. Crazy Love - Cassandra Wilson 5. Bright Side of the Road - Hothouse Flowers 6. Irish Heartbeat - Brian Kennedy/Shana Morrison 7. Full Force Gale - Elvis Costello 8. Tupelo Honey - Phil Coulter Orchestra 9. Madame George - Marianne Faithfull 10. Friday's Child - Lisa Stansfield.