VAN MORRISON
''...IT'S TOO LATE TO STOP NOW... VOLUMES II, III, IV, DISC THREE''
JUNE 10 2016
214:47
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DISC ONE (VOLUME II) (RECORDED LIVE AT THE TROUBADOUR, LOS ANGELES 23 MAY 1973)
01 - Come Running 02:55
02 - These Dreams of You 03:35
03 - The Way Young Lovers Do 04:11
04 - Snow in San Anselmo 04:35
05 - I Just Want to Make Love to You 03:37 (Willie Dixon)
06 - Bring It on Home to Me 03:59 (Sam Cooke)
07 - Purple Heather 05:22
08 - Hey, Good Lookin' 02:13 (Hank Williams)
09 - Bein' Green 04:54 (Joseph Raposo)
10 - Brown Eyed Girl 03:30
11 - Listen to the Lion 09:07
12 - Hard Nose the Highway 05:01
13 - Moondance 05:09
14 - Cyprus Avenue 08:45
15 - Caravan 08:46
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DISC TWO (VOLUME III) (RECORDED LIVE AT THE SANTA MONICA CIVIC, CALIFORNIA 29 JUNE 1973)
01 - I've Been Working 03:57
02 - There There Child 03:16 (Van Morrison, John Platania)
03 - No Way 03:48 (Jeff Labes)
04 - Since I Fell for You 04:29
05 - Wild Night 04:25
06 - I Paid the Price 04:45 (Van Morrison, John Platania)
07 - Domino 04:11
08 - Gloria 03:14
09 - Buona Sera 02:42 (Peter De Rose, Carl Sigman)
10 - Moonshine Whiskey 06:51
11 - Ain't Nothing You Can Do 03:05 (Don Robey, Joseph Scott)
12 - Take Your Hand Out of My Pocket 03:20 (Sonny Boy Williamson I)
13 - Sweet Thing 04:43
14 - Into the Mystic 04:30
15 - I Believe to My Soul 03:36 (Ray Charles)
*****
DISC THREE (VOLUME IV) (RECORDED LIVE AT THE RAINBOW, LONDON 23 & 24 JULY 1973)
01 - Listen to the Lion 07:51
02 - I Paid the Price 05:45 (Van Morrison, John Platania)
03 - Bein' Green 04:47 (Joseph Raposo)
04 - Since I Fell for You 04:24 (Buddy Johnson)
05 - Into the Mystic 04:58
06 - Everyone 03:22
07 - I Believe to My Soul 03:29 (Ray Charles)
08 - Sweet Thing 05:50
09 - I Just Want to Make Love to You 05:32 (Willie Dixon)
10 - Wild Children 04:46
11 - Here Comes the Night 03:21 (Bert Berns)
12 - Buona Sera 02:39 (Peter De Rose, Carl Sigman)
13 - Domino 04:21
14 - Caravan 08:32
15 - Cyprus Avenue 08:15
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Tracks By Van Morrison Except As Indicated
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Van Morrison – vocal
Nathan Rubin – first violin
Tom Halpin or Tim Kovatch – violin
Nancy Ellis – viola
Teressa Adams – cello
Bill Atwood – trumpet, backing vocals
Jack Schroer – alto, tenor and baritone saxophones, tambourine, backing vocals
Jef Labes – piano, organ
John Platania – guitar, backing vocals
David Hayes – bass guitar, backing vocals
Dahaud Shaar (David Shaw) – drums, backing vocals
Production personnel
Van Morrison, Ted Templeman – producers
Van Morrison, Jef Labes (strings), Jack Schroer (horns) – arrangements
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REVIEW/AMG
Thom Jurek
When Van Morrison's double-length It's Too Late to Stop Now was released in 1974, it was an anomaly. Compiled from eight nights on his 1973 tour with his 11-piece Caledonia Soul Orchestra, it appeared months prior to Hard Nose the Highway. Contrary to standard industry practice of the time, its contents weren't doctored in the studio afterwards: There were no added overdubs or masked flubs. Some critics took issue with its sound -- claiming the band, particularly the horns, were too thin -- but there was no debate about the performances. It remains revered as one of the greatest concert recordings ever.
Sony Legacy has appended the original album by releasing a separate box set that includes three audio discs from those gigs and a live DVD set divided by concert. These are newly issued tracks, containing no overlaps with the original album. Some song selections may be the same, but these are completely different performances. Volume II is drawn from L.A.'s Troubadour in May 1973, Vol. III from Santa Monica Civic Center in June, and Volume IV compiled from two nights in July at London's Rainbow Theater. Guy Massey's remix offers stellar sound. There is a lot more balance between horns and strings, more emphasis on piano and lead guitar, while bass and drums are set just behind Morrison's vocals. Compilation producer Andrew Sandoval took great care in assembling the contents. He provides enough variation in selection with some wonderfully contrasting performances of various tunes, whether they be originals or covers. (Compare the versions of Ray Charles' "I Believe to My Soul," Willie Dixon's "I Just Want to Make Love to You," "Cypress Avenue," "Caravan," and "Domino" with one another.) Night to night, these tunes undergo shifts in vocal syncopation and improvisation, musical dynamic, and even tempo. The version of "I've Been Working" included here, a highlight on the original album, is revelatory in displaying the level of spontaneity and intensity Morrison and band were capable of on any given night. From his own catalog, "Brown Eyed Girl," "Come Running," and "Snow in San Anselmo," from Volume II; Volume III's "I Paid the Price," "Moonshine Whiskey," and "Wild Night," and Volume IV's "Domino," "Listen to the Lion," "Sweet Thing," and "Wild Children" are all standouts. The live DVD contains nine selections from the Rainbow. While this was taped by the BBC, it is not a replica of the oft-bootlegged simulcast -- it's shorter by three tracks, but it's superior in every other way.
This package confirms in spades what Morrison himself always claimed: That he was not a rock singer but a jazz, blues, and R&B one. While most artists from the era were trying to distance themselves from the roots that birthed rock & roll, he was celebrating them -- without nostalgia -- as living, breathing traditions worthy of deeper exploration and exposition. It's Too Late to Stop Now...Vols. II, III, IV and DVD is an essential document for hardcore Morrison fans.
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BIOGRAPHY/AMG
Jason Ankeny
Equal parts blue-eyed soul shouter and wild-eyed poet-sorcerer, Van Morrison is among popular music's true innovators, a restless seeker whose incantatory vocals and alchemical fusion of R&B, jazz, blues, and Celtic folk produced perhaps the most spiritually transcendent body of work in the rock & roll canon. Subject only to the whims of his own muse, his recordings cover extraordinary stylistic ground yet retain a consistency and purity virtually unmatched among his contemporaries, connected by the mythic power of his singular musical vision and his incendiary vocal delivery: spiraling repetitions of wails and whispers that bypass the confines of language to articulate emotional truths far beyond the scope of literal meaning.
George Ivan Morrison was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on August 31, 1945; his mother was a singer, while his father ardently collected classic American jazz and blues recordings. At 15, he quit school to join the local R&B band the Monarchs, touring military bases throughout Europe before returning home to form his own group, Them. Boasting a fiery, gritty sound heavily influenced by Morrison heroes like Howlin' Wolf, Brownie McGhee, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Little Walter, Them quickly earned a devout local following and in late 1964 recorded their debut single, "Don't Start Crying Now." The follow-up, an electrifying reading of Big Joe Williams' "Baby Please Don't Go," cracked the U.K. Top Ten in early 1965. Though not a major hit upon its original release, Them's Morrison-penned "Gloria" endures among the true classics of the rock pantheon, covered by everyone from the Doors to Patti Smith. Lineup changes plagued the band throughout its lifespan, however, and at the insistence of producer Bert Berns, over time session musicians increasingly assumed the lion's share of recording duties. A frustrated Morrison finally left Them following a 1966 tour of the U.S., quitting the music business and returning to Belfast.
After Berns relocated to New York City to form Bang Records, he convinced Morrison to travel stateside and record as a solo artist; the sessions produced arguably his most familiar hit, the jubilant "Brown-Eyed Girl" (originally titled "Brown-Skinned Girl"), a Top Ten smash in the summer of 1967. By contrast, however, the resulting album, Blowin' Your Mind, was a bleak, bluesy effort highlighted by the harrowing "T.B. Sheets." The sessions were originally intended to produce only material for singles, so when Berns released the LP against Morrison's wishes, he again retreated home to Ireland while the album tanked on the charts. Berns suffered a fatal heart attack in late 1967, which freed Morrison of his contractual obligations and energized him to start working on new material.
His first album for new label Warner Bros., 1968's Astral Weeks, remains not only Morrison's masterpiece, but one of the greatest records ever made. A haunting, deeply personal collection of impressionistic folk-styled epics recorded by an all-star jazz backing unit including bassist Richard Davis and drummer Connie Kay, its poetic complexity earned critical raves but made only a minimal commercial impact. The follow-up, 1970's Moondance, was every bit as brilliant; buoyant and optimistic where Astral Weeks had been dark and anguished, it cracked the Top 40, generating the perennials "Caravan" and "Into the Mystic."
The first half of the 1970s was the most fertile creative period of Morrison's career. From Moondance onward, his records reflected an increasingly celebratory and profoundly mystical outlook spurred on in large part by his marriage to wife Janet Planet and the couple's relocation to California. After His Band and the Street Choir yielded his biggest chart hit, "Domino," Morrison released 1971's Tupelo Honey, a lovely, pastoral meditation on wedded bliss highlighted by the single "Wild Night." In the wake of the following year's stirring Saint Dominic's Preview, he formed the Caledonia Soul Orchestra, featured both on the studio effort Hard Nose the Highway and on the excellent live set It's Too Late to Stop Now. However, in 1973 he not only dissolved the group but also divorced Planet and moved back to Belfast. The stunning 1974 LP Veedon Fleece chronicled Morrison's emotional turmoil; he then remained silent for three years, reportedly working on a number of aborted projects but releasing nothing until 1977's aptly titled A Period of Transition.
Plagued for some time by chronic stage fright, Morrison mounted his first tour in close to five years in support of 1978's Wavelength; his performances became more and more erratic, however, and during a 1979 date at New York's Palladium, he even stalked off-stage in mid-set and did not return. Into the Music, released later that year, evoked a more conventionally spiritual perspective than before, a pattern continued on successive outings for years to come. Albums like 1983's Inarticulate Speech of the Heart, 1985's A Sense of Wonder, and 1986's No Guru, No Method, No Teacher are all largely cut from the same cloth, employing serenely beautiful musical backdrops to explore themes of faith and healing. For 1988's Irish Heartbeat, however, Morrison teamed with another of his homeland's musical institutions, the famed Chieftains, for a collection of traditional folk songs.
Meanwhile, Avalon Sunset heralded a commercial rebirth of sorts in 1989. While "Whenever God Shines His Light," a duet with Cliff Richard, became Morrison's first U.K. Top 20 hit in over two decades, the gorgeous "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You" emerged as something of a contemporary standard, with a Rod Stewart cover cracking the U.S. Top Five in 1993. Further proof of Morrison's renewed popularity arrived with the 1990 release of Mercury's best-of package; far and away the best-selling album of his career, it introduced the singer to a new generation of fans. A new studio record, Enlightenment, appeared that same year, followed in 1991 by the ambitious double set Hymns to the Silence, widely hailed as his most impressive outing in years.
Following the uniformity of his 1980s work, the remainder of the decade proved impressively eclectic: 1993's Too Long in Exile returned Morrison to his musical roots with covers of blues and R&B classics, while on 1995's Days Like This he teamed with daughter Shana for a duet on "You Don't Know Me." For the Verve label, he cut 1996's How Long Has This Been Going On, a traditional jazz record co-credited to longtime pianist Georgie Fame, while for the follow-up Tell Me Something: The Songs of Mose Allison he worked with guest of honor Allison himself. Morrison continued balancing the past and the future in the years to follow, alternating between new studio albums (1997's The Healing Game, 1999's Back on Top) and collections of rare and live material (1998's The Philosopher's Stone and 2000's The Skiffle Sessions and You Win Again).
It wasn't until 2002 that an album of new material surfaced, but in May his long-anticipated Down the Road was released. Three years later, Morrison issued Magic Time. Pay the Devil, a country-tinged set, appeared in 2006 on Lost Highway Records. That same year, Morrison released his first commercial DVD, Live at Montreux 1980 and 1974, drawn from two separate appearances at the Montreux Jazz Festival. In 2008, Morrison released Keep It Simple, his first album of all-original material since 1999's Back on Top. In November of that same year, Morrison performed the entire Astral Weeks album live at two shows at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, which resulted in 2009's Astral Weeks: Live at the Hollywood Bowl album and Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl: The Concert Film. His 34th studio album, Born to Sing: No Plan B, recorded in Belfast, appeared in the fall of 2012. In 2015, Morrison made his debut for RCA Records with Duets: Re-Working the Catalogue, which found him sharing the vocal mike on 16 songs from throughout his career with artists such as Michael Bublé, Steve Winwood, Mick Hucknall, and Joss Stone.
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