From the moment jazz veteran Richard Davis’ acoustic double bass tips off the triple-meter rhythms of the title song, Van Morrison embarks on a mission of spiritual discovery “in another time, in another place” against an instrumental backdrop that weaves pop, jazz and folk elements into striking, seductive chamber pop. Sir George Ivan Morrison’s shifting assessment can’t blunt the album’s singular, hypnotic power. Related: We look back at another Van classic, His Band and Street Choir Within weeks of Astral Weeks’ completion, Van Morrison would distance himself from some of the production choices after performing the album in its entirety in 1969, he would virtually excise its eight songs from his live shows until 2008, when he ended that boycott to mount note-for-note live performances of the songs and arrangements to mark its 40th anniversary.
Walsh’s Astral Weeks-A Secret History of 1968, a wide-ranging and discursive look at Boston’s pop-cultural landscape that chronicles how the artist had fled to Cambridge in the wake of his battle with Bang and producer Bert Berns. How Morrison had arrived at that transformation remains partly shrouded by his notoriously mercurial temperament, as detailed in Ryan H.
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