Van Morrison – Keep It Simple

Underrated album but just realizing my two LPs are warped to hell. They play OK but god they are an ugly watch. Anyone else’s warped as well?

No doubt about it, Astral Weeks was a grand album, so were many other early releases by Van Morrison ... but for my money, give me Too Long In Exile or those of that ilk, though here on Keep It Simple Van delivers like I haven’t heard him raise the roof for a long long time. There are no implied pretenses here, this album is just what it claims to be, pure and simple. It’s got a fine blues feel to it, flavored with some country and a bit of jazz ... all laced together with exceptional vocals, a marvelous slide guitar, a sincere slightly textured feel that's brilliantly balanced and held in place by a warm organ, and those spirited essential backing singers, who if used correctly, can add incredible depth and beauty.

After all of these years there's not a lot to say about Van, other than he’s made a great album or a not so great album. Van needs time between releases, he's said as much over the last 40 years, yet he forever finds himself driven to put out too much music too quickly. Though here, you'll discover the joy that is Van Morrison, with songs that are as weathered and worn as his voice, songs drawn from the heart, from a man who has certainly done his fair share of stumbling ... but in the end, even when his lovers and wives have left him, he always has the music, and when it’s real, as it is here, it doesn’t get much finer.

“Now we got to keep it simple ... and that’s that.”

Review by Jenell Kesler