Now aged 80, Sir George (as he is formally known since his knighthood) has released an album a year since he turned 70, competing with Willy Nelson and Neil Young for producing the most releases at the tail end of their careers.
But The Boss reckons this is a good ’un, a return to Van’s roots in the blues. Van’s father had a huge record collection he’d amassed in Detroit while working there in the early 1950s, so back in Belfast Van grew up listening to Jelly Roll Morton, Ray Charles, Leadbelly and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee.
Van started as a blues-based rock and soul singer with the group Them and, while he has veered into jazz, rockabilly, folk, R&B, pop, Celtic and country, The Boss thinks the blues influence has always been there.
Over 90 minutes, Somebody Tried To Sell Me A Bridge finds Van honing in on those roots, inviting legends such as Taj Mahal, Buddy Guy and Elvin Bishop to join him in a mix of originals and re-worked blues standards.
He overhauls John Lee Hooker’s Deep Blue Sea, adding his own harmonica and Elvin’s guitar to boogie it up; he takes Leadbelly’s On A Monday and duets with Taj Mahal, adding harmonica and banjo; he re-works Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee’s Can’t Help Myself and his scat vocals join Buddy Guy’s searing guitar on a steaming version of B.B. King’s Rock Me Baby.
Among the generous 20-track offering, Fats Domino’s classic Ain’t That A Shame gets a bold refurbishing, as Van slows it right down and injects his trademark emotional vocals — as well as adding female gospel voices — to deliver a treat.
There’s a cover of Blind Blake’s Delia’s Gone featuring Taj Mahal’s harmonica, and Buddy Guy adds both vocals and guitar on Willie Dixon’s I’m Ready. Van reminds us of his passion, undiminished, in his own slow blues composition, Loving Memories, aided by a tasteful guitar solo from Elvin Bishop.
The title track adds an edge, as Van is inclined to do now and then: he was grumpy about the COVID lockdowns and got himself into trouble, as he has with occasional neighbourhood disputes and record company bust-ups; Somebody Tried to Sell Me a Bridge, while bluesy enough, has a defiant tone at odds with this swinging, joyful collection — but The Boss has forgiven him already.
“None of us is perfect, General,” he says, looking at me dismissively. “Least of all you.” He can’t believe how Van’s voice is holding up after six decades of singing and recording, and claims Van is one of the finest vocalists in the history of rock and roll.
With his characteristic growl — a mix of those folk, blues, jazz, soul, gospel and Ulster Celtic influences — Van’s ability to improvise, wring everything out of repeated phrases and lay down scat vocals brimming with emotion continues, unabated.
The Rolling Stone rock critic Greil Marcus, once said that “No white man sings like Van Morrison.” He later added: “As a physical fact, Morrison may have the richest and most expressive voice pop music has produced since Elvis Presley, and with a sense of himself as an artist that Elvis was always denied.”
I’m not game to say anything. Woof!
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