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No Prima Donna:
The Songs Of Van Morrison
Various Artists

1. You Make Me Feel So Free (4:46) Sinead O'Connor
2. Queen of the Slipstream (4:43) Brian Kennedy
3. Coney Island (2:23) Liam Neeson
4. Crazy Love (3:11) Cassandra Wilson
5. Bright Side of the Road (5:04) Hothouse Flowers
6. Irish Heartbeat (4:56) Brian Kennedy, Shana Morrison
7. Full Force Gale (3:01) Elvis Costello
8. Tupelo Honey (3:26) Phil Coulter Orchestra
9. Madame George (4:47) Marianne Faithfull
10. Friday's Child (3:47) Lisa Stansfield

Click here for production information on this CD, on the track timings above for production information on a specific track.

Review by Andy Gill:
Dylan's had one or two, the Velvets likewise, Neil Young, Beefheart, Leonard Cohen, The Eagles and The Byrds one apiece, Curtis Mayfield a couple, and Hendrix no fewer than three. But heretofore, Van Morrison has had no tribute album of cover versions of his songs, remaining just about the only artist of stature from that era not to have been so honoured, which is all the more surprising, given the relative consistency of his output throughout the past three decades. After all, even Larry Adler's had his celebrity roast, and he's done nothing but write terrible letters to Private Eye for the last 20 years. But for Van The Man, nothing. People hardly bother covering his songs on their own albums, let alone clubbing together to get him his own tribute.

Why should this be so? Perhaps Morrison's legendary self-protective prickliness has put off would-be tributees. Who needs a hero's condemnation when all they're trying to do is show some respect? Or perhaps it's the awed nature of that respect itself, being too reverently bestowed. The latter seems likely: born with the gift of a golden voice, Morrison has always been regarded primarily as an interpreter rather than as a songwriter, and as such, his versions are considered all but unimprovable. Like they used to say of Dylan, nobody sings Van like The Man himself. So who would want to try, given the hiding to nothing they would undoubtedly be on?

Accordingly, in a mountain/Mohammed interface, Morrison has gone and instigated a tribute album himself, in collaboration with Phil Coulter, musical co-ordinator on the early Them records, and a friend ever since. The idea for No Prima Donna-The Songs Of Van Morrison came when Morrison was re-recording some old songs for the forthcoming film Moondance: originally intended as a soundtrack, the album developed a life of its own, quickly accumulating contributions from such as band-members Brian Kennedy (ex-Sweetmouth) and Shana Morrison (Van's daughter) and Hothouse Flowers, along with fans Elvis Costello, Marianne Faithfull and Lisa Stansfield and Morrison's personal choice Cassandra Wilson, whose version of Tupelo Honey on her own album Blue Light 'Til Dawn clearly impressed its composer.

Wilson's version of Crazy Love is one of No Prima Donna-The Songs Of Van Morrison's successes: she takes it dead straight, with simple acoustic guitar accompaniment and, on the later verses, with an orchestra playing gently down the hall, adding almost subliminal shading. It perhaps says something of Morrison's music that, unlike all previous tribute albums, half of this album's 10 tracks are by women, and by and large, they're the more successful interpretations. Marianne Faithfull, for instance, brings an appropriate wracked grandeur to Madame George, suggestive of life's lessons learnt the hard way, and recollected in greater tranquillity than the original. Less emotive than Morrison, hers is a calmer reminiscence, with a spoken confessional style applied to the section in which the little boys are walking away from it all, so cool. Lisa Stansfield's version of Friday's Child, by contrast, is a fairly straight quiet storm soul reading, but none the worse for that.

Sinead O'Connor opens the album with You Make Me Feel So Real, which she turns into a lumbering R&B colossus, slowing the song down with piano triplets and injecting a breathless, almost religious intensity into the lyrics. It's almost successful, but its heavy-handedness highlights a more general problem with many of these covers, that of the artists treating the material with a preciousness it often doesn't warrant.

Take Hothouse Flowers' version of Bright Side Of The Road: this is one of Morrison's simplest, most uplifting and joyous pieces, but here it's virtually petrified by an overwrought, gospelised dynamic. When, on the original, Van sings the chorus couplet From the dark side of the street/To the bright side of the road, there's no doubt a positive progress is being made.

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