Van Morrison

Astral Weeks wowed the critics, but it was this upbeat album that captured the public's attention and made Van a high charting man. It features the perennial FM hit "Moon Dance," but every song on the album, from "And It Stoned Me" to "Glad Tidings," rank among Van's best. A jazz, folk and soul-strewn celebration of life's gifts, this is perfect "feel good" music that doesn't insult your intelligence.

Long ago, Van Morrison reached that point where the influences on his music no longer
mattered. It is as pointless to attempt to detect those influences as it would be for any
musician to try to imitate him. Van Morrison's music cannot really be imitated, because, as
with Dylan's music, what one hears is not style, but personality. With each record--Them
Again, Astral Weeks, or Moondance--one gets a sense that Van has achieved som... More >

An album worthy of an Irish r&b singer who wrote a teen hit called "Mystic Eyes" (not to mention a Brill Building smash called "Brown Eyed Girl"), adding punchy brass (including pennywhistles and foghorn) and a solid backbeat (including congas) to his folk-jazz swing, and a popwise formal control to his Gaelic poetry. Morrison's soul, like that of the black music he loves, is mortal and immortal simultaneously: this is a man who gets stoned on a drink of water and urges us to turn up our radios all the way into (that word again) the mystic. Visionary hooks his specialty. (Grade - A+)