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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good but long superseded presentation of Van Morrison during his transitional recordings for the Bang label, 12 April 2007
After leaving "Them", Van Morrison recorded in New York for the Bang label. He teamed with ace pop/R&B producer Bert Berns. He had the first and biggest hit of his solo career with "Brown Eyed Girl" (US # 10, pop.) The collaboration between Morrison and Berns - the former trying to expand his musical vision, the latter looking for pop hits - proved in some cases counterproductive. Van quit Bang after the label released his first solo album "Blowin' Your Mind" without his agreement.
"T. B. Sheets" is one of the first repackages of Van's Bang Material, adding three new tracks (and also deleting three others) from "Blowin' Your Mind".
I recall once owning the original US, gatefold LP release, which was graced by a delightful front cover painting of Van Morrison.
This album is, in my opinion, more interesting than "Blowin' Your Mind" because the track selection is better.
"Ro Ro Rosey" (a pure Berns piece of product) is the only real dud. All the other tracks have artistic value (from "fair" to "very good".)
Aside from the hit single, the standout track here is "T.B. Sheets", as the previous reviewer noted. "T.B Sheets" sure meant a lot to me at the time... and still makes me shiver whenever I listen to it.
Two interesting, previously unreleased tracks appearing here are early, work-in-progress versions of "Astral Weeks" classics ("Madame George" and "Beside You.")
The main caveat here is that another Bang material reissue has rendered the CD under review obsolete.
In 1991, Columbia / Legacy put out a much superior sounding, 18-track, newly remastered CD that includes the eight tracks featured on the CD under review (and also a very information booklet.) You get ten tracks more. It should be noted, however, that the "Bang Material" take of "He Ain't Gonna Give You One" is an alternate.
For about the same price as "T.B. Sheets", you can enjoy the best compilation of Van Morrison's Bang material ever. I have recently posted a review of the "Bang Masters" CD on Amazon.co.uk. Should you consider buying this CD, I humbly advise you to read my track-by-track review of the "Bang Masters" before commiting yourself to buy it.
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24 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Van Morrison's solo debut from 1968...., 11 Feb 2004
V.M. walked out on Them and began a long solo-career with this album, 1968's T.B Sheets. This saw him enter into a brief contract with Bert Berns- whose death saw him free to do what he wanted after- Van was adrift in America. He'd ditched the band thing and was now becoming the solo artist.TB Sheets is very much a prequel to career-high Astral Weeks (also 1968)- going so far as containing earlier, inferior versions of AW-tracks like Beside You and Madame George. Morrison was deeply affected by a relationship with a girl that had died of T.B., or perhaps that's all myth, or perhaps it doesn't really matter. T.B Sheets is generally up-beat Stones/Animals/Zombies-sounding joy- the next album would embrace folk and jazz a lot more. It's a brilliant mistake, songs like Brown Eyed Girl and He Ain't Give You None sounding curiously upbeat- even if Lester Bangs detected a whiff of Humbert Humbert about some of the affections here. Didn't H.H.'s nymphette-lover die of T.B in Corfu? The key track here remains T.B Sheets itself, a nine-minute plus blues dirge, an elegy to a dying lover, a foot-tapping song which seems to suggest a kind of necrophelia. It should be familiar to many as a track which is used throughout Martin Scorsese's Bringing Out the Dead (most people think it's The Stones). But it seems too personal, a bit like PIL's Death Disco/Swan Lake, or Big Star's Holocaust. Bleak, bleak stuff. T.B-hacking in the wee-small hours-"look into my eyes/Your little star struck innuendows, inadequancies & foreign bodies...open up the window, let me breathe...". This recalls ancient blues, not to forget several Edgar Allen Poe poems- specifically Annabel Lee. It's perverse, compulsive and so...emotional. Just a cool drink of water- the sunlight shining through the crack in the window pane...looking down on the street below. It ends with repetitions of "I gotta go" and "There you go"- which seems a way beyond "The cool room, Lord, is a fool's room/And I can almost smell your TB SHEETS". Horrifying stuff- one of the darkest records made by anyone ever- Berlin is utterly lightweight compared... This version of TB Sheets is worth buying for the title track alone, and does set the scene for the timeless Astral Weeks. But it probably does need a decent remastering job, it's listenable, but could probably be improved on. I could probably go on about the song TB Sheets until the end of time- it's that kind of song...
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7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hooked, 8 May 2003
TB sheets is the supreme work of an outstanding artist, while less known than his famous Astral Weeks album it still contains some of his best work (TB Sheets possibly being the greatest song I have ever heard). In fact you can listen to two alternate versions of tracks from "Astral Weeks", both of them exellent. I have bought my first van Morrison tape at the age of 14 but TB sheets got me hooked again after 15 years. It is definately a must have record.
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