Although Van Morrison has never slowed down his editorial pace throughout his fifty-year career, lately we’ve been seeing him more active, if possible. Emphasize the positive, this year is their second album of new material, their third if you count the collection of unreleased tracks from Beyondwords: instrumental. And if Moving on skiffle, released in March, focuses on the mixed-race Americana genre popular in the UK in the 1950s, the new work broadens the framework while also pointing to the transatlantic music that evokes his childhood and youth. .
party and romance
Highlighting the positive is an alert and fiery cover album like this one, with the most dynamic version of the character’s entire crafting. The title says it all: it takes us back to a distant and incipient time, to 1944, when Arlen and Mercer signed, among others, this track recorded by Bing Crosby with The Andrew Sisters, and also offers a grateful acknowledgment. message of good hope. Van the Man is toning down his eternally grumpy image, which was further aggravated by his pandemic production in which he chided his followers for having a Facebook account or not agreeing with his conspiracy thesis. There is a desire here to emphasize the rules of entertainment and the validity of these baptismal resources.
Swing, rhythm and blues, and early rock and roll are very common, and there’s good food. Morrison is cheerful, playful and romantic on the opening track, Jimmie Davies’ “You are my sunshine.” In Flip, Flop and Fly, with the urge to impose party and good humor and invite ballroom dancing I want a roof over my head, the rescue of Louis Jordan wrapped in elegant metals. And he’s ready to switch accents: Johnny Kidd & The Pirates’ Shakin’ all over is reborn with a twistier, darker take than on the 1994 recording One Night in San Francisco.
George Ivan Morrison’s voice also wanders through remarkable territory, rock and roll classics, with its aridity and distinctiveness. There’s the stylish Two Hound Dogs, originally by Bill Haley (1955), and the tight-lipped Bye bye with Taj Mahal’s guitar, the harsh attacks on Johnny (Chuck Berry) and Lucille (Little Richard). That’s not the only guest: Legendary vocalist Chris Farlowe shares the mic on the Lonesome train; The guitar solo on this track is graced by the now deceased Jeff Beck.
To emphasize the positive, it will not go down in the annals as an essential work of Van Morrison: to abandon its golden pages, it would be better to turn, for example, to last week’s expanded reprint of the classic Moondance. But it is an album that refreshes the perception of the artist and can serve to trace the historical songbook that brought us here.