is Burning Spear the black Van Morrison? (and vice versa)

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Case for the defence:
- both began life in a late 60s band that did a vaguely mystical, pretty cutting edge and very back-to-basics roots music
- both went solo after a couple of albums and then produced two or three of the finest pieces of music ever created by human hands, informed by a powerful sense of spirituality
- both spent the ensuing 30 years in respectable-and-occasionally-inspired treading water mode, releasing albums, gigging, often good, rarely great
- one is a 'cult' roots reggae artist, the other a Grand Old Man beloved of the more 'mature' bits of the music press. Oh yes! the one with the cult is black...

― jon, Thursday, 29 August 2002 10:41 (twenty-three years ago)

this is a plausible try, except van left the tapes for "finest pieces of music ever" in a taxi, and we got astral weeks instead

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 29 August 2002 10:51 (twenty-three years ago)

Thankfully Winston Rodney has resisted releasing a duet with Cliff Richard.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 29 August 2002 20:07 (twenty-three years ago)

Van Morrison is the black Burning Spear?

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 29 August 2002 20:15 (twenty-three years ago)

No, Burning Spear is the Irish Van Morrison ...
... but correction to Martin Skidmore, I'm afraid Winston Rodney teamed up with Aerosmith (was it?), so you've added to my list of simiarlities!

― jon, Friday, 30 August 2002 06:27 (twenty-three years ago)

Does anyone want a copy of Astral Weeks by the way?

― Tom (Groke), Friday, 30 August 2002 06:36 (twenty-three years ago)

no thank you tom

― mark s (mark s), Friday, 30 August 2002 06:48 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm not sure that Aerosmith=Cliff, but I shall try to imagine a world where Run DMC decided to incorporate Summer Holiday into their hip hop.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 30 August 2002 16:29 (twenty-three years ago)

.... and Van the Man grunted 'I'm proud I'm black/I'm rejoicing I'm black' over the top .... one for the ideal covers thread?

― jon, Saturday, 31 August 2002 17:47 (twenty-three years ago)

four years pass...

thread deserved better

bumped because the new burning spear album is quite fucking enjoyable! not heavy 'n deep like marcus garvey of course, much more in that alive-and-poppin' horn section groove - "island" sort of party sound, much of it live - but his band hits some murderous grooves and the live stuff especially is great

on the downside, he sure does bitch about the music business a lot

― J0hn D., Wednesday, 6 June 2007 19:08 (nineteen years ago)

two months pass...

Happy Marcus Garvey day everybody! Here we list canonical albums which are not as good as <i>Marcus Garvey</i>

1. all of them

― J0hn D., Saturday, 18 August 2007 15:07 (eighteen years ago)

I think I will listen to that album and smoke a fat j.

Thanks J0hn! You're an inspiration.

― Oilyrags, Saturday, 18 August 2007 15:12 (eighteen years ago)

I just finished listening to it, it's fucking unstoppable

― J0hn D., Saturday, 18 August 2007 15:21 (eighteen years ago)

i like burning spear. they are great.

also. holy shit i just heard a CRAZZZY live album by Van called "It's Too Late To Stop Now"...wow it's over the top insanity, van's so all over the place....cypress avenue takes about 5-6 minutes to get anywhere near a recognizable version of the song.

― M@tt He1ges0n, Saturday, 18 August 2007 15:50 (eighteen years ago)

seven months pass...

marcus garvey words come to pass

― am0n, Saturday, 22 March 2008 01:33 (eighteen years ago)

Never really got into Burning Spear... or Van Morrison... so maybe not a bad comparison

― Tom D., Saturday, 22 March 2008 13:51 (eighteen years ago)

goo call am0n, the singing on that track is some of the heaviest shit ever

― J0hn D., Saturday, 22 March 2008 15:57 (eighteen years ago)

You know that sinking feeling when you come onto a thread with a specific joke/post and then you scroll up and see you wrote the exact same thing 4-6 years ago?

...Yeah.

― HI DERE, Saturday, 22 March 2008 16:45 (eighteen years ago)

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