Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
That's more like it!, 8 April 2008
I've been listening to Van Morrison's music for nearly 30 years, and with heavy heart passed on his last two albums ("Magic Time", and "Pay the Devil") because his recent music no longer connected with me the way it had in the past; after all no-one yet has made great music out of whingeing about the record industry and the price of fame. Somehow the bar-room blues, skiffle and jazz just didn't do it for me, at least not the way the incomparable, transcendental music on say "Veedon Fleece", "Into the Music" or "St. Dominic's Preview" had done.
So it's with great pleasure that I turned to "Keep it Simple"; it's not up there with his greatest work, but for me it's the best thing he's done since "Too Long in Exile". There are still a few forgettable pieces (the opening track "How Can a Poor Boy" for example), but there are some solid-gold gems here - "That's Entrainment", "Lover Come Back", "Keep it Simple", "End of the Land".
The final two tracks deserve to stand with anything he's done before - "Soul" and "Behind the Ritual"; the latter in particular is superb, and my only disappointment was that it finished a mere six minutes in just when I thought it was getting really interesting.
So thanks Van for a splendid album :-)
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26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Simple Delight, 18 Mar 2008
After 41 years in the music business, 32 studio albums and just over two years short of drawing his pension, Van Morrison continues to delight with his music.
Of course, there's nothing new here and neither should you expect there to be. The fact that Van produced the album means no change. He has been ploughing his own unique, visionary furrow for so long now he's hardly likely to employ Rick Rubin!
His familiar mix of blues, country, jazz and Celtic Soul has served Van and his fans well over the decades and Keep It Simple doesn't disappoint. His voice is in good shape as he takes us through 12 original songs which seem to be about life in late middle age tinged with nostalgia and even sentimentality. There are some gems in this collection, "End Of The Land" and "Song Of Home" and the exquisite "Lover Come Back" with a swirling organ and atmospheric steel guitar is worth the price of the album on its own.
There are no horns or strings in this production, just guitar, banjo, drums, piano, organ and the occasional sax, mandolin and fiddle. Keeping it simple?
No, there's nothing new. Just Van in top form delighting this fan once again.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Behind The Ritual/You Find The Spiritual, 3 April 2008
"At this point in his career, Van Morrison is less interested in surprises than in further exploring his long-standing obsessions: surviving the shocks of this life and rising gracefully toward the next one. Keep It Simple finds him looking back on his sixty-two years, filled with longing -- for home, for deliverance from the world's demands, for spiritual transcendence." Peter Travers
Van Morrison's 35th CD is a simplistic look inside the mind of one of our greatest poets and showmen. 'Keep It Simple' is just that. A look into the past, the present and an attempt at the future. Van wrote each of these eleven songs and plays guitar, banjo and organ. This approach is a method to showcase his voice which is still in rare form. He seems to alternate between the blues, jazz and the spiritual.
All of his new songs are wonderfully written and sung. The exceptional song that may be one of his best is 'That's Entrainment'. It is clear and concise and sung in a crisp tone. Entrainment as defined by 'Heartfelt' "being "in sync. When your head and heart, thoughts and feelings, are working harmoniously together, you have more clarity and inner balance-and you feel better." Is that not a goal to reach in a lifetime? Some of Van Morrison's lyrics reflect this philosophy:
You by the countryside
Oh you when you reach the sky
You and you're climbing up that hill
Well you when we're listening to the little whippoorwill
You when the sun goes down
You in the evening, in the morning when the sun comes round
You with your ballerina dance
Well you put me back in a trance
Well you take my breath away
Oh you even on a cloudy day
You make me holler when you come around
You make me holler when you shake 'em on down.
His theme song 'Keep It Simple' may be an attempt to address his critics and himself. Those who have not appreciated his work outside of his pop rock style and told him to 'keep it simple'.
'Illusions and pipe dreams on the one hand
And straight reality is always cold
Saying something hard edged is off the wall
And it just might be too bold
Well I'm down here on the running board
Where I've been many times before
But we got to keep it simple to save ourselves
Mocked me when I tried to get back
Said the train was completely off the track
And we got to get back to something simple to save ourselves "
Keeping it simple and on track with some blues and jazz to save ourselves.
" Van Morrison is a poet, an Irish folkie, a philosopher, a mystic, a showman, and a teenager-at-heart still dreaming of the R&B records he heard on the radio decades ago. In recent years, he has become a bluesman, complete with hat, sunglasses and deep voice. Or a cool-as-cucumber jazzy blues vocalist, at least. On his latest album, Keep It Simple, Morrison is somewhere between that jazz-blues cool cat and the head-in-the-clouds poet/philosopher of Astral Weeks, et al. For a stretch near the start, he almost literally switches back and forth, adopting a standard blues form nearly every other song." David Heaton
Van Morrison has been one of my heroes since I was a teenager. His voice and his music have spoken to me over the years. 'Keep It Simple' is a reflection of the times and of the time in life when we look back at where we have been and where we are going. This may be one of his CD's that speak to many of us, those who have followed him over the years. He is speaking to a generation who has always wanted to keep it simple. Not many of our contemporaries have given us this gift, Van Morrison has.
Highly Recommended. prisrob 04-03-08
Still on Top: The Greatest Hits
Astral Weeks
Tupelo Honey
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