Astral Weeks |
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Released: November 29, 1968 Charted: -- Peak: -- Sales (in millions): 0.5 US, -- UK, 0.5 world (includes US and UK) Genre: folk rock |
Tracks:Song Title [time] (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to charts.
All songs written by Van Morrison. Total Running Time: 47:10 The Players:
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Rating: 4.082 out of 5.00 (average of 24 ratings)
Awards:(Click on award to learn more).
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Van Morrison’s BeginningsThe Northern Irish singer/songwriter Van Morrison got his start as “the pint-sized head thug for the ruffian R&B combo Them” EK “which achieved immortality with the garage anthem ‘Gloria.’” TL After he went solo, he released the album Blowin’ Your Mind in 1967, which produced “the irresistible singalong ‘Brown-Eyed Girl.’” TL“Bang, his record label, wanted a pop star and Morrison didn’t see himself that way.” CM Van then had “a long, now-legendary contract dispute involving the mob.” PM The label founder, Bert Berns, died from a heart attack and his wife blamed Morrison and tried to have him deported. Morrison escaped this fate by marrying his girlfriend Janet Minto. They moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts and he worked the club circuit. CQ He was heavily exposed to jazz there and “the improvisational atmosphere was the perfect musical fit for Morrison.” CQ He has said that at the time he “was broke, tired, and simply did not know what to do. He didn’t want to think about it and he wanted musicians skilled enough to just follow him.” CQ His next move was to sign with Warner Brothers Records. His new producer, Lewis Merenstein, assembled a team of jazz players and they recorded Astral Weeks in New York in just two sessions on September 25 and October 15, 1968. TB “The spontaneity and speed of its recording is part of its legend.” TB The PlayersAmong the musicians are drummer Connie Kay, who played with the Modern Jazz Quartet; bassist Richard Davis, who worked on Eric Dolphy’s Out to Lunch; and guitarist Jay Berliner, who worked with Charles Mingus and others. EK Kay and Davis “in particular push what are actually pretty simple songs with an empathy that’s seldom seen outside jazz.” EK In addition, John Payne is on reeds and Warren Smith, Jr. on vibes.After the songs were recorded, they were overdubbed by Larry Fallon with strings and horns. “Fallon’s sympathetic violins give wings to Morrison’s voice. His tuba and trombone parts are like foghorns cutting through the mists of words.”CM According to Davis, “the Irish bard played the outline of his songs on guitar, and expected the others to follow him. He encouraged some improvisation, and to facilitate that, gave very little guidance.” TM Berliner said, “I played a lot of classical guitar on those sessions and it was very unusual to play classical guitar in that context. What stood out in my mind was the fact that he allowed us to stretch out.” TB “Much of the album drifts along without a fixed tempo, with the musicians swirling strains of folk melody or boppish riffage around Morrison’s lover-as-hero character.” TM The songs “depart from the obvious demarcations of verses, choruses, and bridges, to stretch out past the five-minute mark in five of the eight tracks.” TB The instrumentation is “unusual and sophisticated” TB and Morrison “listened to what the musicians were doing with his songs.” CM He then “improvises lyrics and phrases based on where the music is going.” CM Rock Meets Jazz“This rock monument actually draws from jazz, folk and blues to showcase Morrison’s bewitching voice.” UT In fact, this “isn’t a rock & roll album at all,” AM but “a jazz record disguised as a rock record.” JM “Accompanying himself on acoustic guitar, Morrison sings in his elastic, bluesy voice, accompanied by a jazz rhythm section.” AM “Its loose, combustible jazz sound still ranks as one of the most innovative things he’s done.” CQ“The only constant is the gentle strum of Morrison’s acoustic guitar as the nodding lull of the upright bass, horns, and I-didn’t-know-it-could-actually-be-cool jazz flute swirl around it, always on the verge of floating away, but preferring to stay in place to catch Morrison on his next musical shift.” CQ It “sounded like nothing he had done previously — and really, nothing anyone had done previously.” TL “The leap from all that to a delicate, graceful musing on romanticism is basically unprecedented.” EK “Astral Weeks is something to be unravelled, to tug at your heart and invite you to discover your soul – and the soul and deepness of feeling of others.” AD The SongwriterAstral Weeks is “a gorgeous, freewheeling meditation on life and looking forward; a kaleidoscopic, sylvan soundscape focused on images and feelings rather than a coherent narrative.” CQ Morrison’s words “are more like extended poems than lyrics, full of images and phrases that tease and provoke the imagination.” TB He creates “a beautiful sonic painting” RV and “spouts stream of consciousness lyrics like the James Joyce of music.” RVThe album has been described as “achingly beautiful,” EK “an emotional outpouring cast in delicate musical structures,” AM “an ingenious orchestration of poetry and mysticism” RV and “a languid, impressionistic, utterly gorgeous song cycle.” TL “The tunes are love songs dominated by nostalgia for youth, love, and the desire for rebirth.” TM The album “loosely follows the desperate thoughts of a young man who’s consumed by an unttainable woman, its lyrics sometimes seem so loaded with meanings and allusions they make your brain hurt.” TM “You’re hearing maybe the purest audible distillation of love and loss ever pressed onto record.” PM Morrison said, “The songs are poetic stories, so the meaning is the same as always—timeless and unchanging. The songs are works of fiction that will inherently have a different meaning for different people. People take from it whatever their disposition to take from it is.” WK He also said, it is “probably the most spiritually lyrical album I’ve ever done.” TB The Title“The album’s very title suggests the spiritual dimension.” TB It is “about adventures on a plane other than this wone. It’s a world of dreams and half-recollected scenes and a place where the past and the present coexist.” CM Critic Lester Bangs said, Astral Weeks “is a record about people stunned by life, completely overwhelmed, stalled in their skins, their ages and selves, paralyzed by the enormity of what in one moment of vision they can comprehend.” CM“Astral” was a term “from the counter-culture’s metaphysical lexicon, most commonly associated with the phrases ‘astral projection,’ an out-of-body experience, and ‘astral plane,’ a…concept of a dimension beyond the material world ruled by emotion and imagination. The duration of an ‘astral week’ could not be measured by earthly clocks, and its quality would transcend the mundane.” TB The Singer“His vocals are constantly morphing (a practice he would take up in later live performances), sometimes crooning, sometimes clipping the words, and sometimes not even finishing sentences at all.” CQ “Morrison may have been high strung at the time, but you would never know it listening to such a dazzling and relaxed album.” CQAstral Weeks Place in HistoryAstral Weeks is “drastically different from anything Van the Man had tried in the past or would attempt in the future.” JG It is generally considered one of the best albums in pop music history,” AM although Morrison has dismissed such lofty praise. WK “It is one of rock’s least-likely masterworks.” TLThe Warner Bros. publicity department hyped it as “the closest rock music has ever gotten to literature.” EK Nonetheless, “Astral Weeks more or less sank without a trace upon its release.” EK Detractors dismissed it as “a rambling record with a heavy jazz influence, lyrics that rival beat poets, and the average track goes on for seven minutes. It’s no wonder no one cared when it came out.” JM “It’s mostly through the critical rehabilitation of guys like Lester Bangs that this album achieved its widespread standing.” EK Astral Weeks’ “mystic poetry, spacious grooves, and romantic incantations still resonate in ways no other music can.” TL “He never made another record quite like Astral Weeks again.” EW SongsHere are thoughts on the individual songs from the album.“Astral Weeks” “Beside You” “Sweet Thing” “Cyprus Avenue” While the song paints “vivid pictures of childhood” CM Morrisons said, “It’s not about me. It’s totally fictional. It’s put together of composites, of conversations I heard – you know, things I saw in movies, newspapers, books, whatever. It comes out as stories. That’s it.” CM
“The Way Young Lovers Do” “Madame George” “It’s a folk song, yet extended with subtle, very subtle jazz bass lines – flute and another extraordinary from the heart and soul vocal and lyric… ‘Madame George’ captivates so much, poetry, love and joy – sadness…A masterpiece…It could carry on all day.” AD Morrison said of this song and “Cyprus Avenue” that they “came right out. I didn’t even think about what I was writing. There are some things that you write that just come out all at once.” TB
“Ballerina”
“Slim Slow Slider” Notes:In 2008, Van Morrison performed all eight of the album’s songs live. It was recorded on November 7 and 8 at the Hollywood Bowl and released as an album the next year. |
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First posted 11/30/2013; last updated 8/25/2024. |
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