Still legally bound to Bang Records, Morrison accepted the deal anyway. Despite the Morrison’s moody artistic temperament and tendency to leave the stage mid-set, the label was very interested in signing him, expecting a successful follow-up single to “Brown-Eyed Girl”. It was on this humble New England tour that Van the Man was approached by Warner Bros. Kielbania would later bring in the jazz-trained flautist John Payne into the group making the trio complete. Since many of the songs went on in a stream-of-consciousness manner for 20 minutes, Morrison asked his young wife for her opinions on how to refine these new tracks.Īfter having the skeleton of what would be Astral Weeks written, Morrison began touring the Boston area with bassist Tom Kielbania, a student at the Berklee College of Music, who began to use an upright bass to suit his new folk sound. Seemingly at ease in his new environment, he began writing and recording demos for his spontaneous folky numbers in his backyard. The 22-year-old Northern-Irish songwriter was looking to distance himself from the pop-orientated sound that had dominated his debut solo LP, Blowin’ Your Mind. Beantown native Jonathan Richman was slowly hitting the music scene and proto-punk gods The Velvet Underground had recently relocated there from the Big Apple. At the time Boston was slowly becoming a subterranean haven for musical misfits. In early 1968, the Belfast native moved to Boston with his then wife Janet “Planet” Rigsbee. Since it was released, Morrison has had mixed feelings with the song and has tried to distance himself from it as much as possible. However, the artist who penned it does not quite share the same views of it that the public has.
Today the song is his most well-known and can be heard daily on any classic rock themed radio station and is a staple for any bar band. In 1967 Van Morrison had himself a top-ten single with “Brown-Eyed Girl”. ASTRAL WEEKS – 50 YEARS LATER THE STORY OF VAN MORRISON’S MYSTICAL MASTERPIECE
0 kommentar(er)
