Van Morrison 60

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Heute hat er seinen 60.Geburtstag.


Eine kleine Reminiszenz:


Aus dem UNCUT-Magazine, July 2005


VAN MORRISON
The Shaw Theatre, London
Donnerstag, 14.April 2005

First you hear the harmonica. Then you see the hat. The six-piece band are already locked into a tight groove as Van Morrison strides onstage purposefully. "You gotta fight every day to keep mediocrity at bay", are the first words he sings. It's the opening line of the third song on his new album, Magic Time, but its elevation to show opener suggests that Morrison sees it as some sort of guiding mantra to his career.
There are those who will tell you that Morrison has broken his own cardinal rule and settled for comfortable mediocrity on his recent records. They will tell you that he abandoned making transcendental music in the late 1980s when he moved back towards his R&B roots. He's lost his drive, they will tell you. He's going through the motions and he can't be really be bothered anymore. To sit in the second row of a theatre like the Shaw and watch the man close up and personal is to see such demolished before your eyes.
What we are witnessing is pure artistry at work, a monumental performer in total command of his voice, his band and his material. When he sings "This Love Of Mine", a number associated with Frank Sinatra, it's impossible not to see a parallel between these two masterful interpreters of popular song.
Morrison makes music so naturally that many mistake his ease for laziness. His critics will also tell you that these days his songs are full of cliché and, as he runs through the new album, it's true the material is full of lonesome whistles blowing, moving further on up the road, the gypsy in his soul and shivers up and down the spine. Yet as he caresses such phrases and delivers them in his own unique style, it's clear he's both upholding the traditions of the music he loves and reinventing its argot anew.
In little over an hour he performs the entire Magic Time album. From the simple, laid-back swing of "Stranded" through the chugging R&B of "Evening Train" to the big-band jazz of "This Love Of Mine" via the lovely Irish roots of "Celtic New Year" and the simmering, late-night groove of "Gypsy In My Soul", it's as if he's penning a love letter to the music that has been his life. Morrison may not longer draw on the poetic visions of John Donne, Rimbaud and celtic mysticism. But here is another kind, based on a profound tradition that encompasses Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, Jelly Roll Morton, BB King, Mose Allison and the other artists whose old vinyl recordings adorned the cover of his 2002 album Down The Road.
Morrison turns 60 this year and, like his icons, he's spent a lifetime making music not for the sake of fashion or celebrity but because it's in his blood and in his soul and it's the only thing he knows how to do. "That's it. We've done it," he declared when they'd finished.
He had, too and long may he continue.
NIGEL WILLIAMSON


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AAAH! Mein held! Da schmeiß ich doch mal meine tchibo-microanlagen an!
The healing game. (Mal was anderes )

 

Meine Allzeit-Lieblings-CD von ihm: No Guru, no Method, no Teacher.
Aber fast alle von ihm gefallen mir und ich höre sie immer wieder mal.

Ein furchtbarer Grantler ist er allerdings. Befreundet möchte ich mit dem nicht sein.

 

Fast alle perfektionisten sind grantelig und unausstehlich.
No guru… ist auch klasse. Ich kenn aber die cds kaum noch, weil ich mir immer das fach vollhau und dann 7 cd im random hör. Nicht auf tchibo, der ist im büro. Zuhause, aufm wechsler.