Van Morrison Somebody Tried To Sell Me A Bridge 2025

Van just keeps cranking them out. This one is mostly blues covers with four Morrison originals, including the title track. There's twenty tracks, and while most of them are good, 80 minutes is too long. You can see it as value for your dollar, or you might think Van needs a producer that would cut the chaff. I'm leaning towards the later opinion.

At 81, Morrison is in excellent voice. He has a highly skilled band behind him as usual, and there are several guests, including Elvin Bishop, Taj Mahal, and Buddy Guy.

Tempos are perhaps too similar throughout. But then there's an unusually slow version of Fats Domino's Ain't That A Shame that transforms the song in an interesting way. 

Song selection is just fine. It's a who's who of classic blues composers.

Taj Mahal plays harmonica and sings along on four tracks. He's good, and a better harmonica player than Van. Elvin Bishop plays guitar on five songs, and he's a hot guitarist, but Anthony Paule in Morison's band is no slouch and plays plenty of good leads. Bishop's fills and leads on Loving Memories and You're The One are pretty special. John Allair plays Hammond organ and piano throughout, and also gives a featured boogie-woogie piano break on his own (Go To The) High Place In Your Mind. 

But the guest star that makes the most impact is Buddy Guy on the last two tracks. Guy's idiosyncratic guitar playing is nothing short of amazing, and the two tracks he plays on own the record.

So I could do with 4 or 5 less songs, as several seem interchangeable, and eighty minutes is too long. It could have been compressed into a stone classic. With too many songs, it plays like the 30th anniversary version with the songs that were rightfully cut added to a perfectly fine record. As it is, it's good.