Astral Weeks

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For the Charles Mingus album, see Astral Weeks (Charles Mingus album).
Astral Weeks
Astral Weeks cover
Studio album by Van Morrison
Released November 1968
Recorded September 25, October 1 and 15, 1968
Genre Folk rock
Length 46:05
Label Warner Bros. Records
Producer Lewis Merenstein
Professional reviews
Van Morrison chronology
Blowin' Your Mind!
(1967)		 Astral Weeks
(1968)		 Moondance
(1970)

Astral Weeks is a folk-rock and R & B album by Northern Irish musician Van Morrison, released in November 1968 on Warner Bros. Records. Astral Weeks was critically acclaimed upon its first release. It has often been placed on widely circulated lists of best albums of all time.[1] In the 1995 MOJO list of 100 Best Albums, it was listed as #2 and was #19 on the Rolling Stone Magazine's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003.[2]It became and remains a cult favourite, despite the fact that it failed to achieve significant mainstream sales success for decades. (It finally went gold in 2001.)

Contents

[edit] Background

At the beginning of 1968 Van Morrison was involved in a contract dispute with Bang Records that kept him from any recording activity. The situation was worsened by the sudden death of the label's founder Bert Berns: born with a congenital heart condition, Berns experienced a massive heart attack and was found dead in a New York hotel room on December 30, 1967. Prior to Berns's death, he and Morrison were having some creative difficulties. Berns was pushing Morrison towards a more pop-oriented direction, while Morrison wanted to explore new territory. As a result, Berns's widow, Ilene, held Morrison responsible for her husband's death. Years later Ilene Berns would downplay this scenario, but several witnesses from that time, including Morrison's ex-wife Janet Planet, have gone on record describing her subsequent vindictiveness towards Morrison.[3]

Meanwhile, Ilene was given ownership of Bang Records. Morrison's recording contract was also due roughly the same time as her inheritance. Legally bound to Bang Records, Morrison was not only kept out of the studio, but unable to find performing work in New York as most clubs were afraid to book him, fearing reprisals.[4] Ilene Berns then discovered that her late husband had been remiss in filing all the appropriate paperwork to keep Morrison (still a British citizen) in New York. She contacted immigration and attempted to get him deported. However, Morrison was able to stay when his then-girlfriend Janet Planet agreed to marry him.[5] Once they were married, Morrison and his wife moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was able to find work performing in the local clubs. Morrison began performing with a small electric combo consisting of local students, but this group only lasted one summer. Two of the members left due to other commitments, but Morrison was able to retain the bassist, Tom Kielbania, who was a student at the Berklee School of Music. It was then that Morrison decided to try an acoustic sound, and he and Kielbania began performing shows as an acoustic duo.[6]

Later, Kielbania heard flautist John Payne for the first time while sitting in on a jazz jam session. He took Payne to see Morrison, hoping Morrison would invite him to join them, and after allowing Payne to sit-in on one performance (switching off between flute and saxophone), Morrison did extend an invitation that Payne accepted.[7] The trio of Payne, Kielbania, and Morrison would continue to perform for four months,and it was around this time that Warner Bros. Records approached Morrison, hoping to sign him to their roster.[8] Presumably their interest was based on the prior success of "Brown-Eyed Girl," not on Morrison's current acoustic work. Regardless, their interest allowed Morrison to return to the recording studio.[9]

At the time, Warner Bros. had a deal with Inherit Productions, the production arm of Schwaid-Merenstein which was founded by manager Bob Schwaid (who worked for Warners Publishing) and producer Lewis Merenstein. While Merestein went to see Morrison in Boston, Schwaid went to work on Morrison's legal troubles.[10]

Morrison was still legally bound to Bang Records, and he would have more issues with them in the future. For the time being, Schwaid was able to free him from those obligations, under several conditions. First, Morrison had to write and submit to Web IV Music (Bert Berns's publishing company) three original compositions per month over the course of one year. An unusual and outrageous demand by any standard, Morrison was able to fulfill it by recording thirty-six nonsense songs in a single session. Such action risked legal reprisals, but none was taken. Morrison then had to assign Web IV one half of the copyright to any composition written and recorded by Morrison and released as a 45 rpm single within one year from September 12, 1968. That demand would become a moot point when Warner Bros. would refrain from releasing any single during that time frame. Finally, Morrison had to include two original compositions controlled by Web IV on his next album. Morrison would fulfill that demand with two of his own compositions, "Madame George" and "Beside You"[11] though the versions subsequently released were vastly different musically than the original versions recorded with Bang.

[edit] Recording sessions

With legal matters settled, Morrison was now able to proceed with his Warner Bros. debut. Sessions were held at Century Sound Studios in New York on September 25, October 1 and October 15, 1968.

Musician John Cale was recording next to Van Morrison's studio, and reported "Morrison couldn't work with anybody, so finally they just shut him in the studio by himself. He did all the songs with just an acoustic guitar, and later they overdubbed the rest of it around his tapes."[12]This is in fact completely untrue - the live tracks for the sessions were performed by Van on vocals and acoustic guitar, along with upright bass (not bass guitar), second acoustic guitar, vibes, flute, and drums. The only instruments added afterwards were strings, horns and the occasional drum part.[13]

Producer Lewis Merenstein had a background in jazz, and according to Merenstein, Morrison "was not an aficionado of jazz when I met him. R&B and soul, yes; but jazz, no."[14]For these sessions, Merenstein first contacted veteran bassist Richard Davis. Perhaps best known for his work with Eric Dolphy, Davis was essentially the session leader, and it was through Davis that Merenstein was able to recruit guitarist Jay Berliner, percussionist Warren Smith, Jr., and drummer Connie Kay. All of these musicians had strong backgrounds in jazz; Berliner had worked closely with Charles Mingus and Kay was part of the Modern Jazz Quartet.[15] Morrison was still working with Kielbania and Payne, but for these sessions, they were essentially replaced. According to Kielbania, "I got to show all the bass lines to Richard Davis. He embellished a lot of them, but I gave him the feeling."[15]

Davis was perhaps the most pivotal instrumentalist during these sessions. "If you listen to the album, every tune is led by Richard and everybody followed Richard and Van's voice," says Merenstein. "I knew if I brought Richard in, he would put the bottom on to support what Van wanted to do vocally, or acoustically. Then you get Jay playing those beautiful counter-lines to Van."[15] Davis was not impressed by Morrison, but not out of disdain or any preconceived notion. "No prep, no meeting," recalls Davis. "He was remote from us, 'cause he came in and went into a booth… And that's where he stayed, isolated in a booth. I don't think he ever introduced himself to us, nor we to him… he seemed very shy…[16] Drummer Connie Kay later told Rolling Stone that he approached Morrison and asked "what he wanted me to play, and he said to play whatever I felt like playing. We more or less sat there and jammed."[17] Davis explained that "jamming" is typically not merely random improvisation; it starts with a lead sheet, which is "a skeletal frame of what is to be done, and you fill in the flesh. What you fill in [comes] through your own imagination - nobody can tell you what to do. You just play it."

But for the Astral Weeks sessions, lead sheets apparently were not used or at least handed out. "What stood out in my mind was the fact that he allowed us to stretch out," recalls Berliner. "We were used to playing to charts, but Van just played us the songs on his guitar and then told us to go ahead and play exactly what he felt." Berliner actually had great appreciation for the freedom given to him and the band; something few, if any, of them were used to. "I played a lot of classical guitar on those sessions and it was very unusual to play classical guitar in that context," says Berliner.[18]

The first session held on September 25, 1968 produced four recordings that were used on the album. Only three were initially scheduled: "Cyprus Avenue," "Madame George," and "Beside You." Though Payne was not supposed to play, he still attended the first session and listened as another flautist played his parts. To this day, nobody recalls the name of the flautist as he has not been identified on any documentation; he does play flute on the released takes of "Beside You" and "Cyprus Avenue" but is not credited on the album. When Morrison tried to squeeze in one last tune during the end of that first session, Payne spoke up and pleaded to Merenstein to let him play. Payne was then allowed to play on what became the title track of the album - "Astral Weeks"-the fourth song produced from this session. For the remainder of the sessions, John Payne played on every song.[19]

The next session, according to John Payne, was early in the morning, possibly the next day, but it didn't work and nothing from this session was used. "It just didn't happen'" says Payne. "It was the wrong time of day for jazz musicians to create. I think that by the end of that session we all knew that nothing was going to be used. They just said, let's forget it."[20] According to Merenstein there was tension at this second session and it was stopped after about three hours.[21]

The third and final session on October 15th produced four more recordings that finished off the album — "The Way Young Lovers Do" "Sweet Thing", "Ballerina" and "Slim Slow Slider".[22] Both "Sweet Thing" and "Ballerina" were originally scheduled for the session, but much time was spent searching for a 'closer.' A number of songs were attempted and rejected before Morrison suggested "Slim Slow Slider." "I don't think we'd ever done [it] live," recalls Payne. "[Morrison] had a book full of songs… I don't know why he decided to do it...And we were first doing it with the drums, with Richard Davis and Connie Kay and the guitar player and the vibe player and me and Van - all of us were playing. Then I started playing soprano [sax] on the thing, and Lew said, 'OK, I wanna try it again. Start again. And I want just the bass, the soprano sax and Van.'" It was a successful take, but it also came with a very long coda, prompting Merenstein to make a large edit. Many of the tracks on Astral Weeks would be subjected to edits (mainly to tighten the performances), but the one on "Slim Slow Slider" was easily the most substantial. "I would estimate three, five minutes of instrumental stuff," says Payne. "We went through stages [until] we got to be avant-garde kind of weird, which is what you hear after the splice - all that weird stuff we're playing - but there was a whole progression to that." According to Merenstein, before he cut it, the coda "was a long, long ending that went nowhere, that just carried on from minute to minute...If it had [some] relativity to the tune itself, I would have left it there."[23]

[edit] Songs

With varied rhythms and frenzied vocals, mixed with bizarre lyrics that evoke images instead of coherent ideas and narratives, Astral Weeks has been compared to the school of Impressionism in painting, which similarly seeks to evoke emotions associated with an image. Although usually described as a "song cycle" rather than a concept album, the songs do seem to link together and form a loose narrative.

The album uses a form of symbolism that would eventually become a staple of Morrison's songs, equating earthly love and heaven, or the closest a living being can get to it. Morrison and Berliner's guitars and Davis's upright bass can be seen as the earth opposing the tuneful horns and Kay's percussion.

Morrison said the song "Astral Weeks" is "one of those songs where you can see the light at the end of the tunnel… I don't think I can elaborate on it any more than that."[24]The words in the song: "Talkin' to Huddie Ledbetter/Showin' pictures on the wall/" appear to be based on Morrison's real life custom of carrying around a poster of Lead Belly and hanging it on the wall wherever he was living. This was revealed in a Rolling Stone interview in 1978.[25]

The oldest composition on Astral Weeks is "Ballerina", which was composed sometime in 1966, while Morrison was still a member of Them and about the same time he first met his future wife, Janet (Planet) Rigsbee. Inspired by "a flash about an actress in an opera house appearing in a ballet" (according to Morrison), former Them guitarist Jim Armstrong recalls the band working on the song between engagements. "[Morrison] had all these words," Armstrong says, "we sort of formalized it, 'cause there was no structure to it." Them would perform the song one night in Hawaii, but it would not be recorded until Astral Weeks.

Morrison has denied that "Madame George" is about a transvestite, as many have believed. The original title of the song is "Madame Joy" and Morrison later changed the title although he actually sings the words "Madame Joy" in the song. An earlier recording with slightly altered lyrics and a much swifter tempo changes the tone considerably from the Astral Weeks recording, which is downbeat and nostalgic; the earlier recording is joyous, and seems to be from the point-of-view of a partygoer who sees the titular character.

The song "Cyprus Avenue" is a live favourite of Van Morrison's fans and was the closing song for most of his live shows for many years. According to Roy Kane, who grew up with Morrison in Belfast, Cyprus Avenue "…was the street that we would all aspire to - the other side of the tracks ... the Beersbridge Road had the railway line cut across it; and our side of it was one side of the tracks and Cyprus Avenue was the other… there was an Italian shop up in Ballyhackamore, that's where all the young ones used to go of a Sunday… we used to walk up to the Sky Beam for an ice cream or a cup of mushy peas and vinegar… We used to take a short cut up Cyprus Avenue, 'cause that's where all the expensive houses and all the good-looking totty came from… mostly upper-crusty totty… There's a couple of big girls' grammar schools up 'round that direction… That would have sunk in my head as [much] as his."[14]

Van Morrison told Ritchie Yorke, his biographer, that the songs "Madame George" and "Cyprus Avenue" were both written in stream of consciousness: "['Madame George'] just came right out...The song is just a stream of consciousness thing, as is 'Cyprus Avenue'...I didn't even think about what I was writing."[26]

[edit] Critical acclaim and influence

Besides the #2 rating by Mojo In 1995 and the #19 ranking by Rolling Stone magazine in 2003, Astral Weeks was listed at #3 on The Times Magazine list of The Times All Time Top 100 Albums.[27]In 1997 it was named the 9th greatest album of all time in a "Music of the Millennium" poll conducted by HMV, Channel 4, The Guardian and Classic FM. A separate readers' poll published in January 1996 placed Astral Weeks at #5 behind three Beatles albums and the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds. In 1998 Q magazine readers placed it at #52, and in 2000 the same magazine placed it at # 6 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. In 2003 the TV network VH1 named it the 40th greatest album ever. In 1999 Astral Weeks and Moondance, Morrison's next album, were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

It was listed along with Moondance among the All-Time 100 albums by CNNTime magazine in November 2006.[28]

The influential rock journalist Lester Bangs wrote in 1979: "It sounded like the man who made Astral Weeks was in terrible pain, pain most of Van Morrison's previous works had only suggested; but like the later albums by The Velvet Underground, there was a redemptive element in the blackness, ultimate compassion for the suffering of others, and a swath of pure beauty and mystical awe that cut right through the heart of the work."[29]

Elvis Costello described Astral Weeks as "still the most adventurous record made in the rock medium, and there hasn't been a record with that amount of daring made since."[30]

Greil Marcus, in a 2006 interview in The Believer, said that Martin Scorsese told him that the first half of his movie Taxi Driver was based on Astral Weeks.[31]

[edit] Origin of the title of the album

Steve Turner, one of Van Morrison's biographers, has said, "Eccentric Irish painter Cezil McCartney......was an influence on the titling of Astral Weeks." 'A friend of mine had drawings in his flat of astral projection,' "Van told me:" 'I was at his house when I was working on a song which began, If I venture down the slipstream and that's why I called it Astral Weeks.'[32] '"It was a painting," McCartney corrects."'There were several paintings in the studio at the time. Van looked at the painting and it suggested astral travelling to him."'[33]

An album of music by Charles Mingus with the same title was released (possibly without authorization) at about the same time that Morrison's seminal work appeared. The relationship between Mingus' relatively obscure Astral Weeks and Van Morrison's famous Astral Weeks is poorly documented. It is uncertain as to who used the title first. Some of the musicians and others that Morrison employed had worked with Mingus.

[edit] Album sleeve notes

On the back cover of the album sleeve is printed a poem with Van Morrison's signature. The poem obviously written to his then-wife Janet Planet ends with the lines:

I close my eyes and sleep for love comes flowing streams of consciousness
Soft like snow, to and fro,
Let us go there together, darlin', way from the river to here and now
And carry it with a smile, bumper to bumper
Stepping lightly, just like a ballerina.

[edit] Album cover image

The album cover photograph of Van Morrison was taken by Joel Brodsky, best known for his "Young Lions" photoshoot with Jim Morrison that resulted in the photograph of Jim used on the 1985 album cover of The Best of the Doors.[34]

[edit] Track listing

All songs were written by Van Morrison.

[edit] Side one: Part One: In The Beginning

  1. "Astral Weeks" – 7:00
  2. "Beside You" – 5:10
  3. "Sweet Thing" – 4:10
  4. "Cyprus Avenue" – 6:50

[edit] Side two: Part Two: Afterwards

  1. "The Way Young Lovers Do" – 3:10
  2. "Madame George" – 9:25
  3. "Ballerina" – 7:00
  4. "Slim Slow Slider" – 3:20

[edit] Personnel

[edit] Production

  • Producer: Lewis Merenstein
  • Engineer: Brooks Arthur
  • Arranger and Conductor: Larry Fallon

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Best of All Time Listsacclaimedmusic.net
  2. ^ (19)Astral Weeks. Rolling Stone Magazine online. Retrieved on 2007-03-30.
  3. ^ Heylin 2003. p166.
  4. ^ Heylin 2003. p167.
  5. ^ Heylin 2003. p168.
  6. ^ Heylin 2003. p169.
  7. ^ Heylin 2003. pp172-173.
  8. ^ Heylin 2003. p173.
  9. ^ Heylin 2003. p176.
  10. ^ Turner 1993. pp177-181.
  11. ^ Turner 1993. pp178-181.
  12. ^ Lester Bangs:Astral Weeks
  13. ^ Rogan 2006. p227.
  14. ^ a b Heylin 2003. p189.
  15. ^ a b c Heylin 2003. p190.
  16. ^ Heylin 2003. p191.
  17. ^ Heylin 2003. pp191-192.
  18. ^ Heylin 2003. p192.
  19. ^ Heylin 2003. p194.
  20. ^ Turner 1993. p190
  21. ^ Rogan 2006. p226.
  22. ^ Hinton, 1997, p89
  23. ^ Heylin 2003. pp195-197.
  24. ^ Heylin 2003. p187.
  25. ^ Collis, (1996) p31
  26. ^ Yorke, Into the Music, p. 61
  27. ^ rocklistmusic.co The Times All Time Top 100 Albums
  28. ^ Tyrangiel, Josh. "The All-TIME 100 Albums: Astral Weeks", Time, 2006-11-13. Retrieved on 2007-05-03. 
  29. ^ Bangs, Lester (1979). "Astral Weeks". In Greil Marcus (Ed.), Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung, p.20. New York: Anchor Books.
  30. ^ Hinton 1997. p90.
  31. ^ The Believer. June/July 2006, p.78
  32. ^ Turner 1993. p89.
  33. ^ Rogan 2006. p173.
  34. ^ Photograph for Astral Weeks by Joel Brodsky

[edit] References

  • Collis, John (1996). Inarticulate Speech of the Heart, Little Brown and Company, ISBN 0-306-80811-0
  • Heylin, Clinton (2003). Can You Feel the Silence? Van Morrison: A New Biography, Chicago Review Press ISBN 1-55652-542-7
  • Hinton, Brian (1997). Celtic Crossroads: The Art of Van Morrison, Sanctuary, ISBN 1-86074169X
  • Rogan, Johnny (2006). Van Morrison:No Surrender, London:Vintage Books ISBN 9780099431831
  • Turner, Steve (1993). Too Late to Stop Now, Viking Penguin, ISBN 0-670-85147-7
  • Yorke, Ritchie (1975). Into The Music, London:Charisma Books , ISBN 0-85947-013-X

[edit] External links

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