Van Morrison Fans

Nowhere Man

Any Van Morrison fans out there? I've always enjoyed his music but recently been loving him, started to get into his catalog a little deeper. Really love his earlier work, T.B. Sheets has become a favorite, but I've been listening to Astral Weeks lately. It all kinda start with seeing him in The Last Waltz.
Anyone has some recommendations or favorite Van Morrison tunes?

FenwayFaithful

Love Van. Astral Weeks is the gold standard of VM records for me I think. Tupelo Honey and Moondance are amazing as well. Check out "It's Too Late To Stop Now" his double live album from 1974.

Nowhere Man

Sounds good, I will check it out, Thanks

tremors

Van Morrison is my favourite singer alongside Vedder - I really really rate him - his best stuff turns me inside out. He really is a 'singer' I think - how he uses his voice so differently across different albums - even the ones close together - like he is trying to explore something new all the time with his voice. I have seen him live a number of times, and some times it was so-so, and other times, getting into religious experience territory.

I think Astral Weeks is amongst the greatest pieces of music ever recorded. It is deep, innovative, so evocative - the words and voice are just pushing into these areas..... so hard to explain!

Apart from Astral Weeks I think the absolute essentials are:

Moondance
St Dominic's Preview
Veedon Fleece
It's Too Late to Stop Now

I like his voice in his later work, but the songwriting is more patchy than his heyday. A very strong collection of his later years work (chosen by the man himself) is Best of Van Morrison Volume 2. That really is a brilliant album. Also, The Healing Game is probably my favourite single album of his later work. Astral Weeks Live (2009) is a really good reinterpretation of Astral Weeks from the distance of time. Well worth trying, but not until you've really absorbed Astral Weeks.

Great great artist - one of the best!

He has done so much though - I am still working through it all myself!

pjchickie

Into the Mystic.

tremors

pjchickie wrote:

Into the Mystic.

:thumbup:

helplessdancer

Van Morrison In The Garden
Derek Bells on piano
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTev6X5dajY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BteIwbKU_iQ
Van Morrison - Days Like This

Have I Told You Lately - The Chieftains And Van Morrison
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4vAsdBHu3k

Van Morrison & Santana Moondance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsWpQzfG ... re=related

Roger Waters & Van Morrison - Comfortably Numb (Berlin 1990)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTHoxegKsBM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_iVxiBNGFM
Van Morrison - And It Stoned Me (live @ Montreux 1980)

Van Morrison - Someone Like You
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFcF4B3AFFI

but there's so much more...

pinkbutterfly

My favorite Van Morrison songs ~

Moondance ~ no Santana

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lFxGBB4UGU

Have I Told You Lately

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6k9zzhav90

frazba

'Veedon Fleece' is a classic, easily my favourite Van album.

pandora

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vS8GKcl ... ure=fvwrel

Crazy Love

frazba

From 'Common One', another brilliant but underrated album, well worth checking out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COp1B8mFrQw

dcfaithful

Holy shit, I love Van Morrison

Astral Weeks, Moondance, and Tupelo Honey are all unbelievably good records.

His performance of "Caravan" on The Last Waltz is exceptional. For me, it is one of those tracks that I can never get sick of listening to.

dcfaithful

tremors wrote:

Van Morrison is my favourite singer alongside Vedder - I really really rate him - his best stuff turns me inside out. He really is a 'singer' I think - how he uses his voice so differently across different albums - even the ones close together - like he is trying to explore something new all the time with his voice. I have seen him live a number of times, and some times it was so-so, and other times, getting into religious experience territory.

I think Astral Weeks is amongst the greatest pieces of music ever recorded. It is deep, innovative, so evocative - the words and voice are just pushing into these areas..... so hard to explain!

Apart from Astral Weeks I think the absolute essentials are:

Moondance
St Dominic's Preview
Veedon Fleece
It's Too Late to Stop Now

I like his voice in his later work, but the songwriting is more patchy than his heyday. A very strong collection of his later years work (chosen by the man himself) is Best of Van Morrison Volume 2. That really is a brilliant album. Also, The Healing Game is probably my favourite single album of his later work. Astral Weeks Live (2009) is a really good reinterpretation of Astral Weeks from the distance of time. Well worth trying, but not until you've really absorbed Astral Weeks.

Great great artist - one of the best!

He has done so much though - I am still working through it all myself!

Excellent post. I agree with your description of Astral Weeks.

Question for you though, have you experienced during your live shows of Van, any of his disgruntled performer moments that are so rumored to happen?

tremors

dcfaithful wrote:

Question for you though, have you experienced during your live shows of Van, any of his disgruntled performer moments that are so rumored to happen?

Haha, yes, I have seen a few of those - like him walking off-stage mid song because he's clearly not really 'feeling it' or the audience are pissing him off or something - and a band member has had to go out after him, and try and persuade him to come back on. He's generally come back when I've seen him, apart from one memorable show where he had played no more than 40 minutes of music, and then just fucked off towards the end of a song, leaving the band there playing and playing, and never came back on. When the band realised he wasn't coming back they eventually wound it up, and the show finished. A 40 minute concert - no encore, no finale, no words to the audience - he just had enough and went to the bar! I find it amusing actually. This was in England, and there were some Americans sitting near us who had flown in especially for the show. They were really angry.

I think every show I've been to there has been a moody incident - at one show Van took the mic and told an audience member to "sit down and shut the fuck up". Hehehe - I like it. A moody artist. His nickname in Ireland and elsewhere is 'Grumpy'

dcfaithful

tremors wrote:

dcfaithful wrote:

Question for you though, have you experienced during your live shows of Van, any of his disgruntled performer moments that are so rumored to happen?

Haha, yes, I have seen a few of those - like him walking off-stage mid song because he's clearly not really 'feeling it' or the audience are pissing him off or something - and a band member has had to go out after him, and try and persuade him to come back on. He's generally come back when I've seen him, apart from one memorable show where he had played no more than 40 minutes of music, and then just fucked off towards the end of a song, leaving the band there playing and playing, and never came back on. When the band realised he wasn't coming back they eventually wound it up, and the show finished. A 40 minute concert - no encore, no finale, no words to the audience - he just had enough and went to the bar! I find it amusing actually. This was in England, and there were some Americans sitting near us who had flown in especially for the show. They were really angry.

I think every show I've been to there has been a moody incident - at one show Van took the mic and told an audience member to "sit down and shut the fuck up". Hehehe - I like it. A moody artist. His nickname in Ireland and elsewhere is 'Grumpy'

Wow, I'd be pissed if I had flown all that way for a 40 minute concert with absolutely no interaction to top it.

bennett13

St. Dominic's Preview rocks my soul like Jelly Roll.

Also great are Tupelo Honey, His Band and Street Choir, Hard Nose the Highway, Veedon Fleece & It's Too Late to Stop Now.

And while the album overall is hit and miss, Too Long in Exile has some GREAT stuff on it, like a duet with John Lee Hooker on "Gloria" & a great tune called "Till We Get the Healing Done."

I'd also recommend his version of the "Bootleg Series"...called "The Philosopher's Stone"

dcfaithful

I can't get enough of "TB Sheets"

FenwayFaithful

One of Jim Morrison's major influences

dcfaithful

FenwayFaithful wrote:

One of Jim Morrison's major influences

Ya know who else I think it's obvious Van had a large influence on? Adam Duritz.

Just imagine Counting Crows covering "Tupelo Honey" or "Old Woodstock"

Plus, they've done a great cover of "Caravan", and songs like "Up All Night (Frankie Miller Goes To Hollywood)" and "If I Could Give All My Love" have a Van feel, or at least to my ears they do. The latter having a strong feel of The Band, as well.

FenwayFaithful

dcfaithful wrote:

FenwayFaithful wrote:

One of Jim Morrison's major influences

Ya know who else I think it's obvious Van had a large influence on? Adam Duritz.

Just imagine Counting Crows covering "Tupelo Honey" or "Old Woodstock"

Plus, they've done a great cover of "Caravan", and songs like "Up All Night (Frankie Miller Goes To Hollywood)" and "If I Could Give All My Love" have a Van feel, or at least to my ears they do. The latter having a strong feel of The Band, as well.

Good call dc. Never put that connection together. Not a huge Counting Crows fan. More of a Black Crowes. Haha

dcfaithful

FenwayFaithful wrote:

dcfaithful wrote:

FenwayFaithful wrote:

One of Jim Morrison's major influences

Ya know who else I think it's obvious Van had a large influence on? Adam Duritz.

Just imagine Counting Crows covering "Tupelo Honey" or "Old Woodstock"

Plus, they've done a great cover of "Caravan", and songs like "Up All Night (Frankie Miller Goes To Hollywood)" and "If I Could Give All My Love" have a Van feel, or at least to my ears they do. The latter having a strong feel of The Band, as well.

Good call dc. Never put that connection together. Not a huge Counting Crows fan. More of a Black Crowes. Haha

I am definitely a bigger Black Crowes fan, but "August And Everything After" is a must have album.

FenwayFaithful

Oh yeah. No doubt. One of the biggest album of the 90s. Getting back to Van, I didn't know he lived for years in the Boston area.

tremors

A few people have mentioned Tupelo Honey. I picked this record up from a second hand store when I was in Seattle over the summer, and listened to it when I got home, but it didn't totally grab me. I will definitely give it another try I think. One of my troubles with listening to other Van albums is I often end up just going back to Moondance and Astral Weeks. I read a review once which called these like his 'yin and yang' albums - and I would kinda agree with that. I never get tired of playing those albums - they've been on regular rotation for about 20 years


Edit - playing Tupelo Honey now, sounds great! Think I might have been jetlagged when listening before!

LloydXmas

We were born before the wind.

DewieCox

BabaBooey1979 wrote:

We were born before the wind.

Prolly my favorite of his. Love when the "fog horn" comes in. The vinyl reissue I have of this is jaw droppingly good.

mikalina

DewieCox wrote:

BabaBooey1979 wrote:

We were born before the wind.

Prolly my favorite of his. Love when the "fog horn" comes in. The vinyl reissue I have of this is jaw droppingly good.

I'm now listening to - Into the Mystic....


And I want to rock your gypsy soul ...
Just like way back in the days of old
And magnificently we will fold into the mystic

Citizen Zack

I absolutely love Van Morrison. I spin the Moondance vinyl regularly, as it is one of my favorite records ever.

Interesting little story - I was in a bookstore in Providence, RI back in December 2007. This guy was flipping through a picture book of 1970s punk rock and we struck up a conversation. He flipped to a pic of the Psychadelic Furs and pointed at himself - I think he was the drummer? Name was Vince, can't recall the last name at the moment. We talked music for a while and when I asked if he was still active in the music community, he said he was Van Morrison's tour manager. Van was to play the Providence Performing Arts Center the following night and I was bummed because tickets were about $300 for a pair and I couldn't get them. Anyway, after about a 30 minute conversation he said he might be able to get me a pair of 'friends and family tickets' if they weren't all used up. He took my number and left. A big part of me thought he was full of it and never expected to hear from him. But the next day I'm sitting in my cubicle and he calls and says to show up at will call and they'll take care of me. I remained skeptical all the way to the show, but I gave my name at will call and they handed me an envelope. I showed the tickets to the usher and he walked us to the 6th row, almost dead center. Van came out and put on a hell of a show - without saying more than 3 words to the audience, but the music was incredible. An amazing night that I'll always remember.

dasvidana

Citizen Zack wrote:

I absolutely love Van Morrison. I spin the Moondance vinyl regularly, as it is one of my favorite records ever.

Interesting little story - I was in a bookstore in Providence, RI back in December 2007. This guy was flipping through a picture book of 1970s punk rock and we struck up a conversation. He flipped to a pic of the Psychadelic Furs and pointed at himself - I think he was the drummer? Name was Vince, can't recall the last name at the moment. We talked music for a while and when I asked if he was still active in the music community, he said he was Van Morrison's tour manager. Van was to play the Providence Performing Arts Center the following night and I was bummed because tickets were about $300 for a pair and I couldn't get them. Anyway, after about a 30 minute conversation he said he might be able to get me a pair of 'friends and family tickets' if they weren't all used up. He took my number and left. A big part of me thought he was full of it and never expected to hear from him. But the next day I'm sitting in my cubicle and he calls and says to show up at will call and they'll take care of me. I remained skeptical all the way to the show, but I gave my name at will call and they handed me an envelope. I showed the tickets to the usher and he walked us to the 6th row, almost dead center. Van came out and put on a hell of a show - without saying more than 3 words to the audience, but the music was incredible. An amazing night that I'll always remember.

What an awesome story! God, I'm jealous.

dasvidana

Van Morrison is my all time favorite artist and Astral Weeks is as close to musical perfection as anything I've ever heard. Another great album is Enlightenment. Doesn't get the airplay that Moondance and Tupelo Honey get, but should. "What's the sound of one hand clapping...." Also love St. Dominic's Preview. Redwood Tree can bring me to tears every time I hear it.

bennett13

Ever since my first child was born 2 months ago, I've been listening to Astral Weeks a lot, specifically the song "Sweet Thing." I've always loved that song, but recently it's taken on a whole new meaning to me. Such a powerful expression of love, and how that love made me see the world in a whole new uncynical light ("And I will never grow so old again"), forgetting all of the hard times that led to this point ("And I would not remember that I ever felt the pain") and rejecting the cold, overly analytical method of viewing this life that had become so prevalent before ("And just to dig it all and not to wonder, that's just fine. And I'll be satisfied not to read in between the lines.").
Most firsthand accounts of Van the Man indicate he's a pretty big asshole. It's hard to argue with the immense talent behind songs such as these, though.

dcfaithful

Listened to "Old, Old Woodstock" this morning. A great song to go with some morning coffee.