Читать книгу The Mojo Collection - Various Mojo Magazine - Страница 181

Record label: Warner Brothers

Produced: Lewis Merenstein

Recorded: Century Sound Studios, New York City; September 25-October 15, 1968

Released: September 1969 (UK) November 1969 (US)

Chart peaks: None (UK) None (US)

Personnel: Van Morrison (v, g); Jay Berliner (ag); Richard Davis (b); Connie Kay (d); John Payne (flute, soprano s); Warren Smith Jr (pc, vibraphone); Larry Fallon (ar); Brooks Arthur (e)

Track listing: Astral Weeks; Beside You; Sweet Thing; Cyprus Avenue; Young Lovers Do; Madame George; Ballerina; Slim Slow Slider

Running time: 47.14

Current CD: Warners 7599271762

Further listening: Tupelo Honey (1971); St Dominic’s Preview (1972); Veedon Fleece (1974)

Further reading: Van Morrison: Too Late To Stop Now (Steve Turner, 1993); Celtic Crossroads: The Art Of Van Morrison (Alan Clayson and Brian Hinton, 1997); Van Morrison: No Surrender (Johnny Rogan, 2006); www.vanmorrison.co.uk

Download: iTunes; HMV Digital

Released from his contract with Bert Berns’s Bang Records, Van was free at last to explore his musical vision. With a handful of songs he went into Century Sound Studios in Manhattan and created a recording of such breathtaking originality that it sounded like a career pinnacle rather than a beginning.

He’d told his new managers Lewis Merenstein and Robert Schwaid that he was aiming for a ‘jazz feel’. So jazz buff Schwaid recruited a quartet of crack New York sessionmen that included his bassist friend Richard Davis and drummer Connie Kay from The Modern Jazz Quartet. Shortly after Van’s twenty-third birthday, on the September 25 session, from 7–11pm they recorded Cyprus Avenue, Madame George, Beside You and Astral Weeks. Three weeks later the same musicians returned to record Sweet Thing, Ballerina, Young Lovers Do and Slim Slow Slider. String overdubs and the harpsichord on Cyprus Avenue were added by arranger Larry Fallon during mixing sessions, adding an unexpected texture to the basic tracks’ jazz lilt, heightening the album’s eerie, nostalgic mood.

Guitarist Jay Berliner hadn’t heard of Van Morrison before the September 25 session and wasn’t to hear the album until the late ’70s when younger friends pointed out to him that he had contributed to a classic. ‘In those days I was so busy that I had no idea what I was playing on,’ recalls Berliner. ‘I played classical guitar [which] was very unusual in that context. We were used to playing to charts, but Van just played us the songs on his guitar and then told us to go ahead and play exactly what we felt.’ Although the finished tracks were essentially live takes, both Schwaid and John Payne remember the material being much longer during recording. ‘About five minutes of improvisational sax playing was cut from Slim Slow Slider,’ says Payne. ‘I was just jamming. It made me sick that they cut it out.’ (Tapes of the jams were given to Warner Brothers by Schwaid in the ’70s but have never featured on any reissues.)

Although production was credited to Lewis Merenstein, Robert Schwaid and engineer Brooks Arthur (who owned Century Sound Studios), all played an important part in the sound. ‘In all fairness to Van, he was the one who was directing the taping,’ admits Schwaid. ‘Lew and I were in the control room but Van was the real producer.’ No one involved in the sessions can boast that they knew they were making a masterpiece. ‘I thought it was a great record at the time,’ says Schwaid, ‘but initially it was a failure. I don’t think we did 20,000 copies. It wasn’t until years later that people started to come up to me and tell me that their lives had been changed by Astral Weeks.’