The disappointment, at least for me, is that it is a skiffle record. Skiffle is a distillation of simple blues, country, and gospel traditional music played on acoustic, often homemade instruments, and wildly popular for a relatively brief period in the UK of the 1950s, Morrison's childhood.
But that's about the only thing wrong with it. Morrison adds piano, organ, drums, as well as harmonica and sax to the simple acoustic guitar and washboard percussion of the classic skiffle sound. This certainly fattens up these simple tunes, and makes the form at least somewhat more interesting. Morrison did a live record with Lonnie Donegan back in 2000 that stuck to the skiffle tradition, and this is way better than that one.
And Van Morrison is obviously delighted by these tunes, and he sings the heck out of them. His voice and it's application have lost nothing, and at 77, he can sing as well as ever, which is pretty remarkable.
It is notable that since these are all covers, this also means that the political tirades of his last two records are absent from this outing, and that makes it a welcome respite.
The band cooks, but only so much, because this isn't rock and roll, it's skiffle, and the form is by it's nature pretty limited. The arrangements and the band improve on skiffle, even while the simplicity remains intact, so it remains a skiffle record, even with the updates to the style. And Van sounds happy singing these tunes from his childhood, and he sings them as well as we could expect. His voice sounds great.
Is it a welcome break from his last two? You bet it is. Is it essential Van Morrison? Not even close, but it is good, especially given the limitations of the style.
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