I write this to express what I think about Van Morrison – and to provoke some response. At my friend Brian’s on Saturday night we stumbled across TOP2 and watched Van Morrisson perform the most dreadful piece of guff with Cliff Richard. Something about God. It instantly took me back to 1989 (when this song was a hit) when an old girlfriend took me to see him live. It was the worst concert I have ever seen saved only by the excellent Georgia Fame trying to breathe some life into the show. And when Lonnie Donegan came on to perform a couple of dire skiffle numbers I broke. I actually found it offensive because he made no attempt to hide his contempt for the audience. He came across as an extremely arrogant man. I accept however, that some people, including my partner for that evening think he is great live. To me it was like watching someone who got bored 20 years ago and hasn’t had anything else to do since. My snapping point was when I bought his Avalon Sunset album at that time. A shocker because of its banality.
To balance that I have enjoyed some of his albums – Moondance, Astral Weeks, Tupelo Honey and previous readers of this blog will know that I have a very soft spot for his song Natalia but I just find him extremely bland. I suppose I never really felt I was listening to a front rank performer. I think ‘Them’ and particularly his baby blue track are great and they demonstrate what he is capable of. As I get older my listening becomes more varied and inventive and I just find myself unstimulated by his offerings. I think he appeals to the part of Ireland that looks to middle America for its musical inspiration. And I think he appeals to that part of America which sees Ireland as a glossy holiday brochure. I do like Ireland myself but I find the sentimentalist view of it nauseating and I am glad to see it fast disappearing. A standing joke among musicians is Van’s inability to choose top ranking musicians (with a few exceptions such as GF) because of his fiscal tightness and I wonder, if he had done so, if his music would sound more vigorous. It needs it.
I remember going to a Danny Thompson (Pentangle, John Martyn, David Sylvian) gig once and his repartee extended to a few VM digs along the way which got me thinking about the lack of credit say John Martyn gets compared with Van Morrison. To my mind JM is in a different class – nothing Van Morrison has done gets near to Grace and Danger which I am delighted to see has just been re-released and has been given 5 stars in Mojo, Sunday Times and others. I reviewed this album on Amazon a while back.
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6 comments:
You don't know what you are talking about.You should also check your spelling before posting this nonsense.Avalon Sunset is a great album.Nobody in the history of popular music has a greater body of work than Van Morrison.
Pat.
Looks like you got your response. I reckon you just caught a bad night. Van live is about transcendency - that's what he's striving for on stage, that magic moment when the music takes him, the band and ideally us somewhere higher. It doesn't happen every time of course.
Have much more to say about this but no time right now - will come back.
In the meantime would welcome your thoughts on 'Reflections on the Fundamentals of Life' over on Simple Pleasures part 3 (part-inspired by Joe Strummer).
Pat - opinion is never nonsense - although you reserve your right to have the opinion that what I wrote is nonsense! At the time I went to see him I had just been living in Portrush NI for 3 years and had probably heard too much Van. I just remember being appalled by the concert. It really was like cabaret night. I sense, and he is like John Martyn in this respect, that he is better doing one off shows than long tours.
I do seem to have a number of VM albums in my collection but I rarely reach for them. There always seems to be something I would rather listen to.
I do think you need to qualify what you see as 'popular music' before I pile in with my amygdala hijack response. I read your blog and would be amazed if Mick Ronson had performed with him. I certainly had never heard this before and I guess that might be one of your arguments against my claim that Van employs too many cheap session musicians - although many do say this.
But I must confess that one of my reasons for putting up an inflaming blog was to see if anyone reads them!
I do think AS is a very uninspiring album.
Adam - I knew you would respond! I await your reply.
Georgia Fame comes from the fact that I was in Tbilisi last week and I am afraid that Georgia is still on my mind.
I too saw the dreadful piece of guff where VM and Cliff Richard were singing about God. It really was the most appalling thing that I have seem for years, and indeed was so bad that it came close to curdling the glass of wine that I was drinking. VM has produced some fabulous music, but sadly this has been accompanied by such dreadful pieces of mediocrity so as to always leave me disappointed. I have a number of VM albums and apart from Astral Weeks and, perhaps, Tupelo Honey they all include some very mundane tracks. It seems to me that VM writes a few good songs, maybe enough for half an album, but because he is required to produce a whole album he fills it up with mediocre padding. And this may be evidenced by the fact that since he split with Them in 1966 he has produced roughly one album a year. In my view, had he resisted and only recorded the good stuff he would have produced half as many albums and they would all be fantastic. Regrettably this is not so and we are left with an irritating and disappointing list of albums that aren’t quite good enough. VM is a massive talent. It is just a pity that his fans have to sift through a lot of chaff to find the wheat. On this I would comment that whereas I would normally avoid purchasing any “Best of” album this is perhaps the best way to purchase VM as the sifting of the rubbish has already been done for you!
You would get enough for a great double/triple album of say 30 tracks. Regrettably this would not include my Van favourite 'Natalia' as I seem to be the only person in the world who likes this track. But I concur totally with your comments and actually it was our watching of TOP2 after the dire rugby that inspired me to think a bit more about the Van legacy.
Perhaps also listening to Delia Derbyshire's electronic 'Black Mass' from 1967 also made me a little more wound up than usual.
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