I've recently been listening to Van Morrison quite a lot, beyond the popular "Brown Eyed Girl" or his earlier "Gloria" with the band Them. I started listening to more of his after seeing his performance of "Caravan" in The Last Waltz, the film chronicling The Band's final concert. I don't know if it was the weird, purple and sequins outfit or the eccentric leg kicks followed by the drunken-looking stumble off the stage, but I decided to look into his music further.
The first album I bought was Moondance, which contained "Caravan" along with jam band favorite "Into the Mystic" and the title track which, apparently, is a favorite among crappy would-be crooner/easy listening types (cough, Michael Buble, cough). It was a good, enjoyable album, but didn't prepare me for Astral Weeks, his eccentric, critically acclaimed second album. The songs have this weird stream-of-consciousness feel like they are being written on the spot, but placed over a bed of shifting jazz-inflected strings that seem to respond and move with the words. It is hard to describe, but I suppose that's why they recorded it instead of simply releasing a press release about how great it was a la James Franco. The following track, "Madame George", once I understood what it was about, immediately supplanted The Kinks' "Lola" as my favorite song about a transvestite. Not necessarily my favorite on the album, but gives a good feel for what the rest is like.
Farther off the beaten path by Morrison is Veedon Fleece, a truly strange album that in one of its songs recasts Jason and the Argonauts with William Blake and the Sisters of Mercy playing the respective parts looking for the titular Veedon Fleece, whatever it is. I won't post that song, but another which does manage to name-check (for no readily apparent reason) "Poe, Oscar Wilde, and Thoreau" - "Fair Play to You".
Moving on, one of my favorite "modern" bands (both in that they are still making albums and don't play in an obviously "old" genre like say, Old Crow Medicine Show or even New Orleans brass bands like Rebirth) is Fleet Foxes. They remind me quite a bit of Crosby, Stills, Nash (and sometimes) Young in their harmonies (compare for example, sans Neil Young, "Suite -Judy Blue Eyes" to the track below). Someone online said the opening lines from the new album: "And now I am older/than my mother and father/ when they had their daughter/ Now what does that say about me?" capture the zeitgeist (always in need of capturing that zeitgeist) in the same way CSNY's "Woodstock" did for that generation. I'm inclined to agree; here's the opening track- "Montezuma".
I always like to post older music on these things though, because I've found it harder to discover the good stuff than with modern music. Much of it has been so long in the collective memory of older generations that heard it originally that it is taken for granted that everyone is aware of it (did you know, for instance that Elvis made some pretty good music before getting fat and moving to Vegas, I didn't). Other songs have just gotten lost somewhere along the way as the people who first heard them moved on (to other music) or passed on. With modern music there likely will be some way to hear about new, good music - through internet radio, blogs, word of mouth, ect, but it is more difficult with old music. Anyway the final two songs here are ones I heard first within the last year. The first, is recorded by Bessie Smith, "The Empress of the Blues", the first of the big female blues/jazz vocalists who paved the way for Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sarah Vaughan. She recorded multiple versions of "St. Louis Blues", the first coming in 1925 with a very young Louis Armstrong on cornet. The harmonium makes Bessie sound like she lurching along on a broken amusement park ride while Pops sits alongside commiserating on his cornet. A less disturbing version can be found here with what I assume is pretty rare footage of her performing. For extra points try and spot the Obama look-alike on sax when they show the band.
Finally, some gospel. And in case there was any doubt, let me say here: Dorothy Love Coates > Chris Tomlin, et al.
****Special Gratuitous Lagniappe Video*****
Posting that Bessie Smith song reminded me of a great performance by Satch I recently saw on a documentary and subsequently found on youtube, here he is performing "Dinah", complete with proto-chicken-dance arm movements at the beginning.
