Word: tupelo
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...possible that St. Dominic's Preview, his new album, is a retreat for Van Morrison. Which I'm not holding against him, mind you, it's just that his music life has been a crooked trail towards personal contentment, which he seemed to achieve in the domestic happiness of Tupelo Honey. The early, post-Them rantings of "T.B. Sheets," and "He Ain't Give You None," were nothing more than the transposition of his tormented personal life into his music. He began to solve those problems with Moondance, and finally dismissed them altogether for the connubial bliss of Tupelo Honey...
...Woodstock," and "Starting A New Life," formed the core of Tupelo Honey's first side, its affirmation of domestic life. In the former, there is the line, "Lord, don't it get you, when you're bound to roam--Hear you children singin' daddy's comin' home." The latter speaks of moving, but not of the kind of roaming fancied by troubadours. It is the moving of a family unit, "We gotta move, way on down the line,--Girl, we been standing in one place for too long a time." The feeling is reinforced by "You're My Woman," following...
...about all of that Belfast pain and suffering." With that statement he summed up his music after Moondance: a more joyous, tighter, harder rock music, like his early music, but much more secure lyrically. There have been two solid albums since Moondance, His Band and the Street Choir and Tupelo Honey, and Van Morrison has become immensely popular. He came to the Orpheum on the crest of another change. He moved to California from Woodstock, New York, made a home in Marin County, and documented the change on Tupelo Honey. The most consistent aspect of Van and his music...
Morrison began to use his voice non-verbally, as an instrument. In most songs he would bring the band down to a groove and then simply scat sing over that groove. "Caravan" had a beautifully timed and syncopated, "doo-doot" scat chorus from the choir, and "Tupelo Honey" had a long scat singing section. The scat singing is an undercurrent, a constant reminder of the building tensions in Morrison's music...
...word here on the band. Van Morrison has always had trouble with bands; it's a function of his temperament. He broke up his band right after Tupelo Honey, fired his manager, and then let Warner Brothers browbeat him about a tour--to capitalize on his popularity, presumably--while he collected himself and a new band. This band, its members unfortunately anonymous, is as good a group of musicians as Van has ever had to play behind him. They blew tight rock when they had to and, more difficult, knew precisely how to play softly, and to hold the chords...