Van Morrison fans

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ghostjmf
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Van Morrison fans

#1 Post by ghostjmf » Sun Nov 25, 2018 1:45 pm

have to listen to the Open Source program on the making of Astral Weeks.

Its worth it for the flute player singing along with his part. Bup-bupping along with his part, really.

And much, much else.

WBUR-FM, they'll have it in their archives, podchives, whatever.

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Re: Van Morrison fans

#2 Post by T_Bone0806 » Mon Nov 26, 2018 8:05 am

As much as I like the music of Van the Man...and I have a ton of his albums...I have never been able to appreciate Astral Weeks, which seems to be the favorite of many Morrison fans and typically shows up on the "Best Albums of All Time" lists of many music critics. I have revisited the album numerous times to see if something finally clicks, but it never does. To my ears, the sweet spot is the four album run of Moondance, His Band and Street Choir, Tupelo Honey, and St. Dominic's Preview. Terrific stuff right there.
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Re: Van Morrison fans

#3 Post by ghostjmf » Mon Nov 26, 2018 8:59 am

Believe me, even if you *don't* like the album, the "how it fell together" story is well worth the listen. A lot of this story is in the article I reffed earlier inthe year, but not the musical details. And not the music, from the flute-player's play-by-play.

Its wonderful.

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Re: Van Morrison fans

#4 Post by Vandal » Mon Nov 26, 2018 9:08 am

T_Bone0806 wrote:As much as I like the music of Van the Man...and I have a ton of his albums...I have never been able to appreciate Astral Weeks, which seems to be the favorite of many Morrison fans and typically shows up on the "Best Albums of All Time" lists of many music critics. I have revisited the album numerous times to see if something finally clicks, but it never does. To my ears, the sweet spot is the four album run of Moondance, His Band and Street Choir, Tupelo Honey, and St. Dominic's Preview. Terrific stuff right there.

Same here. I tried my best to like Astral Weeks, but it just never clicked.

I don't get why it makes so many BAoAT lists.
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Re: Van Morrison fans

#5 Post by ghostjmf » Mon Nov 26, 2018 10:38 am

I'm someone who learned these songs off the radio, the songs the FM radio in Phoenix & then Boston played, not from the albums, which I bought much later.

So I thought Into the Mystic was from Astral Weeks because it sounds so much "of" it. But its from Moondance, the next album. By all reports Moondance-the-song was written at the same time as the songs on Astral Weeks, but Morrison didn't feel it belonged on it.

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Re: Van Morrison fans

#6 Post by Bob Juch » Mon Nov 26, 2018 10:50 am

I had never heard of it so played a few of the tracks. Nope, too expressionistic for me.
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Re: Van Morrison fans

#7 Post by ghostjmf » Mon Nov 26, 2018 11:27 am

Well, if you like Into the Mystic, you'll probably like the title track of Astral Weeks.

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Re: Van Morrison fans

#8 Post by ghostjmf » Mon Nov 26, 2018 11:36 am

There are a few songs on the album list *I* don't recognize, because they weren't FM radio plays.

Please, you younger list-folks, remember or be told here that FM airplay back then was at the discretion of the DJ & some songs got played for years. At least in the Boston area where Van Morrison, by his short residence here, was a local legend.

I've always felt "Into the Mystic" was at least in part about the local, at that time very grubby Mystic River, as well as, well, "the Mystic".

We do have fog, but I can't say I've ever heard Van's foghorns.

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Re: Van Morrison fans

#9 Post by T_Bone0806 » Tue Nov 27, 2018 11:39 am

ghostjmf wrote:Well, if you like Into the Mystic, you'll probably like the title track of Astral Weeks.

This is part of what has always fascinated me about music, and really what is so much a part of what makes it so wonderful-that two people can listen to the same song and hear it so differently. You hear "Into The Mystic" and hear it as something that would fit quite comfortably onto "Astral Weeks", while I have never liked that album, don't hear much similarities within the song, and love "Into The Mystic"...so much so that it placed at #3 on my All-Time Favorite Songs list, and is the song I want played at my funeral service..which hopefully will be in the distant future, but I don't expect another song to usurp that position...

Music is so cool.. 8)
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Re: Van Morrison fans

#10 Post by ghostjmf » Sun Dec 02, 2018 12:30 pm

I'm not at a real keyboard, so can't write this up like I want to, but briefly:

Went to a talk yesterday at the Cambridge Public Library that people had arranged for the 50th anniversary of Astral Weeks. They got together the members of the band Morrison had touring New England with him as he & they rehearsed & demoed Astral Weeks. The band was invited to New York & would be paid good money, but only to observe the recording sessions, not play.

Probably was Warner Bros, Morrison's new label's decision (after an exec bought Morrison, with a paper bag with $10,000.00 in it brought to a deserted warehouse, from the mobsters who had inherited Bangs, the previous label, when its founder died; everything about this era would make a great movie).

The drummer decided to go back to Berklee School of Music. There are no drums on WB's Weeks. Drummer says he didn't like it when he first heard it because "it had no edge"; which, to him, would have been drums. Of course. (He likes it now.)

The bsss player taught the bass lines he had developed for each song to the session bass player. Who denies he was taught anything by this kid, but the flutist/soprano sax player corroborates the then-kid bassist.

The flutist/sax-player *is* on the album. By begging himself on.

None of these guys initially, when recruited for Van's backup band, had ever heard of Morrison. They didn't know Here Comes the Night. They didn't know Gloria 'til they were playing it behind Van at dates.

They recognized Brown Eyed Girl because it had been a huge hit here & was still on jukeboxes. They couldn't believe the guy who had had this big hit was playing sub-sub basements with 40 people in the audience. They thought they were doing a cover 'til Van started singing.

And none of them were impressed by those hits, because they were all jazz guys.

The bass player says when Van played Domino, that's when he said to himself "I *like* this".

Van met up with him outside Van's Green Street Cambridgeport apartment in a house there & said "this song came to me in a dream last night; let's play it".

The song was Moondance.


A lot of songs that showed up on Morrison's later albums were written in Cambridgeport, or even before then.

The Warner talent scouts who set up buying Morrison from Bangs had to have heard Domino, & Moondance, & others. I think they had Morrison record Astral Weeks, & then did almost nothing to promote it, so he could "get it out of his system" & record these sure-to-be hits for them later.

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Re: Van Morrison fans

#11 Post by ghostjmf » Mon Dec 03, 2018 3:02 pm

Can't get the search clip to copy, but type "van morrison + cambridge library" to get the Cambridge Wicked Local article to come up containing the clip with flutist John Payne playing along with his part on Slim Slow Slider.

"I'll try not to ruin it" he said.

I can't play clip here myself, but in person it was mesmerizing, magical.

Here it is!: Clip is at bottom of article.


http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/news/2 ... nniversary

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Re: Van Morrison fans

#12 Post by ghostjmf » Tue Dec 04, 2018 7:45 am

It was *$20,000.00* in a paper bag. Cheap at the price!

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