The muse hasn’t been very kind to Van Morrison lately, in the 1990s he was releasing an album of new material a year, in the 2010s there has been exactly one album of new material, and now, this re-working of some deep album cuts with singers ranging from the crooner Michael Buble to the UK blue eyed soul great Chris Farlowe, with a stop on the way with the late great Bobby Womack, might be seen as a holding action, though it isn’t.
According to Rolling Stone: “The project began in 2013, when Morrison played the Bluesfest at London’s Royal Albert Hall along with Bobby Womack, Mavis Staples and Natalie Cole. He booked studio sessions with all of them, and over the next year cut tracks with Joss Stone, Michael Bublé, Mark Knopfler, Taj Mahal and several others. Morrison even got P.J. Proby to duet with him on his 2002 song “Whatever Happened to P.J. Proby.”
Off the top of my head, I believe this to be the only “duets” album I’ve actually liked. From the opening bell Frank Sinatra to the should have known better Smokey Robinson to the last time round Barbra Streisand, the results have been uniformly poor: old standbys re-recorded only much much worse than the originals.
But because Morrison hasn’t gone for the big hits, the results here will be illuminating for newcomers and quite appreciated by we old timers. Here is Morrison third shot at “Irish Heartbeat” and if it isn’t the equal of his version with the Chieftains, it beats out the original on Inarticulate Speech Of The Heart. I am not crazy about Mark Knopfler’s voice but his guitar playing needs no excuses. “These Are The Days” was great on Avalon Sunset and is better here, Natalie Cole is a wonderful singer and her ease with this lyric of devotion (“this is the love of the one magician, turning water into wine….”) gives the song the ease of a faith revealed. The blokes at Passion should give it a listen and learn something about not offending Jesus with your bellowing.
Morrison sounds great as he sings everything from Irish lullabies to the purest of blues, with soul, pop and everything else there as well; no longer young, he never really sounded all that young any way and now he sounds timeless. Morrison recently decried the state of rhythm and blues (no rhythm, no blues was his assessment) and here you hear why, this is a purists music: it is so real.
There are very few miscues. I am not crazy about the Mick Hucknall track, Mavis Staples was underused. and I actively dislike Michael Buble, but I can survive them because there is always something great round the corner. Chris Farlowe is a wonderful foil on “Born To SIng” and the arrangement, a lovely sax solo, is spot on, the only sad thing about “Some Peace Of Mind” is Bobby Womack and Morrison never made an entire album together. Morrison did make an album with Georgie Fame (and I caught them together performing a fabulous set -first Fame and then Fame melted into the backing band, playing keyboards to the side). “Fiddle fiddle while Rome burns…” they harmonize.
But the best moment in the album is the too often dour Van sharing a giggle with Taj Mahal at the end of “How Can A Poor Boy?” which is also the end of Duets. When you are that good, there is plenty to laugh about.
Grade: A-
