van morrison vitals

You might also find it's worth investigating the earlier Blowin' Your Mind album or one of the innumerable different compilations that seem to be available of the sessions he recorded in NEW York for Bang! in 1967, after leaving Them but before signing to Warner Bros.

Next favourites, 'Tupelo Honey' and 'His Band And Street Choir'. But I too am open to suggestions as to anything else in this Celtic soul vein.

http://www.uncut.co.uk/news/van-morrisons-back-catalogue-gets-digital-release-70434
Van morrison catalogue from '71 onwards as well as Them material getting a digital release through Sony legacy, but no Astral Weeks.
Looks like some of them are getting Legacy Deluxe releases which I hope are physical cds. Would love the St Dominic's Preview, and possibly It's Too Late To Stop Now ones. I already have the live set a couple of times, including the remaster from 2008 so not as hard pushed.
NOt sure about Hard Nose The Highway since I'm not really sure what's on there , apart from a Kermit cover I think.

hard nose the highway has some good stuff -- i love "purple heather"... but yeah, mainly interested in the St Dominic's expanded reissue. Think those songs were drawn from a pretty wide variety of sessions, so there is probably some good stuff in the vaults.

"snow in san anselmo" is the jam

yeah so good.

I have a real liking for Wild Children from the Hardnose album, especially the sudden tempo shift into jazz instrumental

also check out Van Morrison, his Band and the Street Choir, some great songs, notably I've Been Working for its vocal performance

Astral Weeks, Moondance, His Band and the Street Choir are the ones owned by Warners rather than Van, so not part of this deal - dunno why Warners singled out Moondance for the deluxo treatment (poss Van's best-selling alb?)

does seem crazy that astral weeks hasn't been done up in deluxe style ...

i'd imagine outside of that 90s greatest hits, Moondance is his best selling album by a large margin

whoa apparently there *is* an astral weeks expanded reissue coming out in october with these bonus trax:
"Beside You" (Take 1), "Madame George" (Take 4), "Ballerina" (Long Version), "Slim Slow Slider" (Long Version).
crazy.

Wow. I mean, any unreleased AW stuff is an exciting prospect, but it'd be cool if they also included that live version Peter Wolf recorded in '67 or whenever.

ha yeah, i'll believe that when i hear it...

Where's this news about the Astral Weeks thing come from?

saw it on stephen erlewine's facebook (all music editor) -- also a his band and the street choir reissue:
Bonus tracks on Astral Weeks: "Beside You" (Take 1), "Madame George" (Take 4), "Ballerina" (Long Version), "Slim Slow Slider" (Long Version). Bonus tracks on Band: "Call Me Up In Dreamland" (Take 10), "Give Me A Kiss" (Take 3), "Gypsy Queen" (Take 3), "I've Been Working" (alternate), "I'll Be Your Lover Too" (alternate version)

I can't find anything on that so hope it's just early news. Would love a decent copy of AW

right, just found this
http://theseconddisc.com/2015/08/27/breaking-return-to-cypress-avenue-rhino-remasters-expands-van-morrisons-astral-weeks-his-band-and-the-street-choir/

out 30/10/15 apparently.

Hm, there's a whole lot more of his catalog on Spotify than there was last time I checked

After spending most of the morning listening, I gotta say that the 1986-1995 period is hella forgotten. So many good understated gems.

poetic champions compose!

Friday morning fans listen!

Very happy to re-acquire Irish Heartbeat, his 1988 set with the Chieftains.

Looking at all the album covers reminds me that Van looks like he couldn't have cared less about album covers.

since he likes three word titles I can see an album called Couldn't Care Less.

Poetic Champions Compose is great and so is Irish Heartbeat; Avalon Sunset is pretty good or at least has at least a couple of great tunes -- "Whenever God Shines His Light On Me," "When Will I Ever Learn to Live in God." Enlightenment felt pretty hurried to me though "Real Real Gone" is a winner. After that he feels pretty cranky to me until '97 but I really love The Healing Game.

enlightenment also has "avalon of the heart" which i love

i am mostly psyched that the philosopher's stone is widely available again

PCC has the most songs of any '80s albums on the original comp, so even Van liked it.

my memory of albums like Days Like This and Back on Top is of walking into Barnes & Nobles' often impeccable music section and seeing an impressive display (they were also one of the few stores that stocked deep catalog albums).

Is there a reason why they picked Enlightenment as one of the 4 Legacy Deluxe titles? The other 3 are early 70s, 2 classics and Hard Nose.

The Healing Game is such a fantastic album, I don't mean to hype via ranking hyperbole but I guess I only prefer Astral Weeks to it, and it's a very different album...

Rough God Goes Riding, Sometimes We Cry, so many great songs.

And the production value is spectacular!

As I was poking around to see if this stuff was in Spotify yet, I made a playlist of the stuff recommended here:

https://open.spotify.com/user/124420673/playlist/21u6NrVqK5MARcfwwUAPAR

The latest Record Collector, with the Kinks on the cover, has the announcement that there are 33 Legacy expanded editions coming with a lot of unreleased material so does that mean that these things are actually getting physical releases. That News is very late for the streaming/download versions.

I see Rhino is doing 180g vinyl reissues of some of the same titles that Legacy released digitally last year
http://www.rhino.com/article/doing-a-180-van-morrison-common-one-beautiful-vision-inarticulate-speech-of-the-heart?cmpid=rn/2016February12/NewReleases-VanMorrison-right-image-6&eml=2016February12/3159313/6134371&etsubid=34079420
which I find odd because I thought they were different, possibly rival, companies.

I still haven't heard anything about other physical media releases of any of that material that legacy released digitally last August. The only thing I've seen come out since that set of digital releases is the Them 3cd. Even the initial announcement was talking about 4 album titles getting Deluxe treatment apparently on cd.

Has anybody heard anything else new about thsi back catalogue getting cd release?

Has anybody here seen Van live recently? He's coming to Denmark but tickets are v expensive.

This blog writes up all his shows: http://mysticavenueblog.blogspot.com/ The recent ones are supposed to be excellent if you like Van with a jazzy tilt. Sad I missed his January shows in Oakland.

Cool, thanks!

Sir Van!

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03567/Van_3567538b.jpg

I think “And the healing has begun” is one of the best songs ever that is almost ruined by be writer/singer. Dude is just weird on it but those lyrics. The music

“I can’t stand myself” yeah me either bud

Have you got my
(got my)
Latest
(latest)
Record
(record)
Project

thought this thread was going to have his blood pressure stats

I love "and the healing has begun" unreservedly

(xp) permanently in the high 180s I'd say

I thought this thread might be about his internal organs, oh ffs not his wretched music!

I like Van’s version but would be open to suggestions of good covers.

Credit to Van's band, but what are you left with if you take the writer and singer off the song? A mid-tempo I - IV - V?

yeah, i love the song but his little yelps and asides can be annoying.

anyone know much about it? is he singing about Ireland?

I think it’s about returning to a former state of purity and innocence with a lover. Which is what a lot of Van Morrison love songs are about. I don’t think he wrote many songs about The Troubles, if that is what you thought it might be referring to.

I think it’s about returning to a former state of purity and innocence with a lover. Which is what a lot of Van Morrison love songs are about. I don’t think he wrote many songs about The Troubles, if that is what you thought it might be referring to.

Yes, I think he steered well clear of that subject. Not surprising as he was from deep in Loyalist country.

Huh yeah, maybe I’m reading that due to my American perspective atm