There's a slight gap in my early Van fandom. I certainly knew his big hits with Them, "Here Comes the Night" and "Gloria." And I knew his first solo smash, "Brown Eyed Girl," which was a favorite of the brown-skinned girls at my grade school dances. But I knew those songs from AM radio, and by the time I started listening to FM, they were playing "Moondance." What I missed in between was 1968's "Astral Weeks"--his first album for Warner Bros. And even though Van is one of my all-time favorite artists, and "Astral Weeks" is considered a landmark recording in rock, I managed not to hear it until last year when a friend burned a copy for me. I have to say the first four songs, including the title track, didn't knock me out. They all sounded like loose Celtic jams. Irish music, especially featuring the flute, is one of the few genres I can't bear too much of. But things pick up with the jazzy, vibraphone-fueled "The Way Young Lovers Do." And the lilting violin on "Madame George" dances around Van's soulful vocal. (Am I wrong but doesn't the string vamp toward the end get echoed in Van's vocal at the end of "Caravan"?) Anyway, last year Van fulfilled a longtime desire by performing "Astral Weeks" in its entirety, on the 40th anniversary of its release. I missed the show at the Hollywood Bowl, but I've got an advance copy of the CD, which is being released on Feb. 10 (a DVD is in the works too). Van assembled some of the musicians from the original recording and the concert is a fairly faithful reproduction, with The Man in good form. There also are a couple of non-"Astral" tracks: "Listen to the Lion" from "St. Dominic's Preview" and "Common One," which was the title of a 1980 Van album that was re-issued last year. "Common One" is actually the re-titled "Summertime in England" from that 1980 album, and the song ends with one of those classic Van chants: "Can you feel the silence/In the mystic church?" Yeah, brother man, preach that crazy black Irish gospel.
PS--Did Van get some new teeth, or have I just never seen him smile so broadly?
Comments