With Legacy Recordings securing the rights to the meat and potatoes of Van Morrison’s catalog, the drive to get the music in shape and out to consumers is full-on. Covering more than 50 years of music, with 50 titles from 1964 to the present, Morrison’s solo works from 1971 to the present are up for renewal as is the music the singer made with his band Them from 1964 through 1966. The Essential Van Morrison is a double-disc, 37-track career-spanning anthology that kicks things off in grand style as a thorough introduction to Van Morrison. It all starts with those early Them nuggets like “Gloria” and “Here Comes The Night” before moving onto to Morrison’s first solo hit “Brown Eyed Girl.” Of course, “Astral Weeks,” the title track of his second solo album changed the game entirely, leading to a career of musical exploration that transcends those early R&B and pop flavorings to more organic strains of country music, jazz, Celtic folk and rock.
Through it all, The Essential Van Morrison offers up highlights like “Moondance,” “And It Stoned Me,” “Domino,” “Wild Night” “Jackie Wilson Said (I’m In Heaven When You Smile)” and a smokin’ live version of “Caravan.” And that’s just the first disc. The second disc features songs from 1979 onward, a period when Morrison was less commercial, but more experimental, and by far more respected than ever. His simple and eloquent lines on “Irish Heartbeat” with the Chieftains is a prime example of where his heart was in the 80s. “Days Like This” from 1995 features another easy and smooth vocal with a jazzy swing. Clearly, as he has aged, Morrison’s range has expanded to the point where he can take any song and make it all his own. Even “That’s Life,” the widely covered Dean Kay and Kelly Gordon classic made most famous by Frank Sinatra in 1966, feels warm, fuzzy and fresh in Morrison’s hands.
~ Shawn Perry
