Van Morrison Albums (CD-Now) completed 5/24/98

A paragon of blue-eyed soul, Van Morrison has been following his muse for four decades. His travels have led him down pathways where he's explored soul, jazz, blues, rhythm & blues, rock and roll, Celtic folk, pop balladry, and more, forging a distinctive amalgam that has Morrison's passionate self-expression at its core. With a minimum of hype or fanfare, working with a craftsman's discipline and an artist-mystic's creativity, Morrison has steadily amassed one of the great bodies of recorded work in the 20th century. His discography numbers roughly thirty albums, among them the deeply poetic song cycle Astral Weeks, the warm, pop-soul classic Moondance and such spiritually minded later works as the ambitious double-disc set Hymns to the Silence. At one extreme, Morrison has made raw, angry blues-rock with the British Invasion-era group Them. At the other, he has produced some of the most transcendent, even-toned soul music of the modern era as a solo artist. Like Bob Dylan, he was one of the first lyricists in rock and roll who was unafraid to expose the spiritual and poetical sides of his being. Musically, he tended more toward rhythm & blues than rock and roll, styling himself as a disciple of Ray Charles and Mose Allison. His early bands, the Monarchs and Them, combined soulful influences with youthful fire and immediacy. Them made its mark on the Top Forty with the edgy hits "Here Comes the Night" and "Gloria," the latter a Morrison-penned garage-rock classic. Envisioning broader horizons, Morrison struck out on his own in 1967, quickly launching himself with the evocative "Brown Eyed Girl." The back-to-back release of Astral Weeks and Moondance in the early Seventies established Morrison as a potent singer, songwriter, bandleader and visionary. Although he proved capable of tapping into the singles market with hooky R&B pop fare such as "Domino," "Wild Night" and "Wavelength," Morrison's metier has been album-length meditations filled with (and about) soul. His soulful delivery, mystical world view and gift for marrying the casual, intimate panoramas of jazz with the succinct, soulful impact of R&B has made him an icon of individuality in the world of popular music. Over the ensuing decades, his career has been a model of artistic consistency and workmanlike devotion. Heedless of trends and immune to fashion, Morrison has never bowed to commercial demands and always created his music with an almost defiant purity of intent. Many of his most mature recordings, such as Into the Music, Beautiful Vision and A Sense of Wonder, document his spiritual journey by drawing on literary-poetic influences (such as the often-cited William Blake), set against a backdrop of serene, ethereal musical soundscapes. More recently, on such albums as 1993's Too Long in Exile, Morrison has returned to his R&B roots without forsaking the ongoing quest for spiritual enlightenment. An obvious influence on fellow musicians ranging from Bruce Springsteen and Bob Seger to Sinead O'Connor and U2, Morrison remains a beacon of artistic integrity, soulful conviction and musical excellence.