Admittedly, I don’t know a lot about Van Morrison. Unlike many
\nother artists in the Pierce Archive, there is damned little of
\nMorrison’s music lining the walls. Oh, it’s not that I don’t like
\nhis music – in fact, I have enjoyed a lot of what I’ve heard him
\ndo. But there’s the problem: I haven’t heard much, save for the
\nusual singles and
\nThe Best Of Van Morrison<\/i> that I bought some years ago.<\/p>\n
So starting with a collection of outtakes,
\nThe Philosopher’s Stone<\/i>, might not be the smartest move for
\nme, the diehard Morrison fan might think. As it turns out, after
\nlistening to this two-tape compilation, I am that much more
\ninspired to pick up more of Morrison’s catalog than before. If the
\nmajority of these 30 tracks were just tossed away, then what he put
\nout has to be damned incredible.<\/p>\n
The styles on this set run from the jazzy-rock Morrison became
\nwell-known for to all-out blues to beautiful ballads – even into
\nspoken-word at one point! While such a hopscotch over genres might
\nhave sank any other artist, it almost feels natural for
\nMorrison.<\/p>\n
A gentler side of Morrison is quickly evident, and is heard on
\ntracks like “Wonderful Remark”, a 1973 recording featuring Ronnie
\nMontrose on guitar. But instead of fiery guitar work, the spotlight
\nis placed on a flute solo running through the body of the song,
\nwhich brings out the track’s beauty. Other of the gentler songs
\nthat stick out are “Not Supposed To Break Down,” “Madame Joy” and
\n“I Have Finally Come To Realise”.<\/p>\n
Morrison also saves two tracks as darts against the evil music
\nindustry balloon, “Drumshanbo Hustle” (which I found pretty
\namusing) and “Showbuisiness,” which isn’t as powerful. I almost
\nwonder if “For Mr. Thomas” would qualify under the same category,
\nbut I didn’t seem to pick up that kind of venom on the track.<\/p>\n
There are only two tracks on
\nThe Philosopher’s Stone<\/i> that leave little question as to why
\nthey were cut. “Steeping Out Queen Part 2” isn’t a terrible track,
\nbut it almost seems to capture Morrison trying to find the mood of
\nthe song with spoken asides. “John Henry,” a modern version of the
\nAmerican folktale, is an all-out failure, though – Morrison should
\nhave known better not to first sound like Dr. John and then try to
\nscream as if he was pulling his own lungs out.<\/p>\n
But only two small stumbles on such a vast collection is well
\nabove average, and it leaves me questioning why many of these
\ntracks never made it to albums prior to this. “Really Don’t Know”
\nwould have somehow fit into the mood of
\nMoondance<\/i>, while “Laughing In The Wind,” “Lover’s Prayer”
\nand “Joyous Sound” would have most likely been radio hits for
\nMorrison. Even the Irish jig-like “High Spirits” that closes the
\nalbum would have had potential, what with the
\nRiverdance<\/i> craze that has swept this country in the last few
\nyears.<\/p>\n
The biggest obstacle
\nThe Philosopher’s Stone<\/i> has to face is that some might
\nconsider it primarily a “for-the-fans” package. In truth, this set
\nmight pull in many more new fans if they give it a fair shake. I
\nknow that after listening to the set, I’m already checking my
\nreference guides to see what other albums I can acquire. (Hmm… is
\na trip to the used record store this weekend possible?)<\/p>\n
\nThe Philosopher’s Stone<\/i> demonstrates that “outtake” does not
\nmean bad music. These mostly excellent tracks just didn’t make
\nMorrison’s quality cut – a fact which should make the rest of his
\ndiscography must-own material.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27666,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6941],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-39041","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-van-morrison","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39041"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39041"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}