His Band and the Street Choir

Astral Weeks Never mind that Van Morrison is one of the most indelible songwriters of the 20th century--take each album on its own terms. On 1968's seminal Astral Weeks, a twentysomething Van Morrison can be found belting his gospelly, bluesy vocals in just as fine a form as he would be 20 ye...	Moondance Van Morrison went a long way towards defining his wild Irish heart with his first two classic albums: the brooding, introspective Astral Weeks (1968), and the expansive, swinging Moondance. If the first was the work of a poet, its sequel was the statement of a musician and bandle...	Into the Music This 1979 release marked both a restoration of Van Morrison's full arsenal of powers as writer, performer, and bandleader after five years of uneven albums and a turning point toward the more interior works that would dominate his next decade. Gone is the lack of direction behind...	Beautiful Vision This 1982 sleeper captures Van Morrison banking the fires of his more urgent, R&B-flavored '70s classics to sculpt a quieter, contemplative synthesis laced with Celtic flourishes, minimalist synthesizers, and the skeletal horn charts of saxophonist Pee Wee Ellis and trumpeter-syn...	Keep It Simple Those familiar with Van Morrison's ever mercurial muse could hardly have been surprised when he turned up on the artistically centered, avant-country label Lost Highway to pay tribute to a era-spanning slate of country icons on the Nashville imprint's `06 collection, Pay the Dev...
Common One Easily among Van Morrison's least successful albums, Common One is probably also his least understood. Arriving in the wake of the far more concise, focused Into the Music, this 1980 project found Morrison making a sweeping left turn toward the open-ended, jazz-fueled vamps and s...	Inarticulate Speech of the Heart	Tupelo Honey Van Morrison's "Caledonia soul"--his unique blend of Irish mysticism and spiritual questing, literary allusion and blue-eyed R&B--can be as beautiful and deeply emotional as any music ever made. That's certainly the case on 1971's Tupelo Honey, one of the finest albums of Morriso...	Magic Time Like a human infusion of chamomile tea, hearing Van Morrison's voice has the effect of instantly soothing even the most stressed listener. That said, some of his releases have been so mellow that they muted the '60s soul influences that had been a part of Van's appeal. Not so wit...	Tupelo Honey

This album gave Bruce the Juice.
Listen to this album immediately followed by Springsteen's "Wild Innocent" and Van's influence on Bruce will be crystal clear. I'd like to see both Van and Bruce make this kind of music again.

Old fashion style - good vocal performance
In this album I like the song I'll be you r love too, poetic, great vocal and guitar performance. Is an example of what you can do with a guitar and voice alone. Raw style - great music The song appears in a movie with Russel Crow and Meg Ryan, about terrorism in the Andes 'Proof of life'

Van rocks
Was looking for song "blue money" thot he was saying "Blue Monday "

His band and the street choir
I was satisfied with product and will use amazon again

Mediocrity Illustrated
Okay, I love Van but this isn't really much of a record. If you can find it cheap, I'd recommend it. But don't pay full price for it. There are quite a few good songs - Crazy Face, I've Been Working, Sweet Jannie and the hit Blue Money (annoying "Do do you do" refrain aside"). Then there are a couple of great songs: the downtempo I'll Be Your Lover Too and soaring Street Choir. And there's one excellent song: the big hit Domino, propelled by an excellent horn chart and funky beat. But there are a couple of issues. Van's never been much of a lyricist (it seems he spent most of his talents along those lines on Astral Weeks), and too many of these songs are pedestrian love tunes with predictable Moon/June/Spoon rhymes - If I Ever Needed Someone, for example. Also, there's a LOT of generic, faceless R&B - Give Me a Kiss, Call Me Up In Dreamland and Gypsy Queen, namely. It gets worse. Virgo Clowns is one of the most annoying songs this guy ever attempted, and Gypsy Queen suffers from an awkward falsetto (the same he would later employ on Warm Love, one of his most forgettable hits). Domino is one of the guy's finest moments, but sadly the rest of the record doesn't measure up. It's still a relatively respectable record, but it doesn't compare to Astral Weeks or Moondance. If you can find it used, go for it. Just don't pay full price.