Album Review: Van Morrison: The Skiffle Sessions and You Win Again

by Joseph Taylor

Van Morrison
You Win Again and The Skiffle Sessions

	List Price: $17.97 Our Price: $13.99 You Save: $3.98 (22%) Availability: This title usually ships within 24 hours. Audio CD (October 3, 2000) Original Release Date: October 3, 2000 Number of Discs: 1 Emd/Virgin; ASIN: B00004Y9S0
	List Price: $17.97 Our Price: $14.99 You Save: $2.98 (17%) Availability: This title usually ships within 24 hours. Audio CD (January 25, 2000) Original Release Date: January 25, 2000 Number of Discs: 1 Emd/Blue Note; ASIN: B00003NH9P

VAN Morrison is at a stage in his career where he doesn’t have to prove anything.  He doesn’t carry the burdens that some of his contemporaries do. He doesn’t, for instance, have to contend with or maintain an “outlaw” persona (The Rolling Stones) or compete with a strong musical identity established by a band (Pete Townshend).  Morrison is among a small group of musicians, such as Neil Young, Bob Dylan, and Randy Newman, whose current work stands on its own without comparisons to earlier accomplishments.

That said, I have to admit that some of Morrison’s recent albums reveal a middle-aged crankiness that can be wearisome. The albums have been good, sometimes great (e.g., Hymns to the Silence), but there’s usually one tune on each where Van feels compelled to bellyache. Whether singing about corruption in the music business (“Professional Jealousy,” “Big Time Operators”) or the difficulties of songwriting (“The Philosopher’s Stone”) Morrison seems to be intent on telling us how tough it is to be Van.

With his two most recent discs, The Skiffle Sessions and You Win Again, Morrison lightens up a bit. On The Skiffle Sessions, a live disc recorded in Belfast (Van’s home town), he shares billing with Lonnie Donegan and Chris Barber, two legends of British music. Donegan began the skiffle craze in England and Ireland that inspired Morrison and a number of others, including John Lennon and Paul McCartney.  His 1956 version of "Rock Island Line" was among the first British pop records to hit the American Top Twenty.

Chris Barber is a highly regarded British jazz musician. The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD contains a lengthy entry for his recordings, quite a few of which are available in the US.  "Rock Island Line" was actually recorded by his band, of which Donegan was a member, and released as a single under Donegan's name.  Barber introduced a lot of American blues musicians to Britain by featuring them in his live performances during the fifties and sixties.

The Skiffle Sessions features a mixture of old folk and blues songs by songwriters Morrison has long acknowledged as his prime influences, among them Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, and Jimmie Rodgers. Nine of the sixteen tracks are traditionals. Gathering Morrison together with Donegan and Barber, two musicans who inspired him, brings him full circle.  He and his partners offer their roots straight, played on acoustic instruments with affection and without flash.

Donegan opens with “It Takes a Worried Man” and sets the tone for the disc. He and the other musicians here have played this music so often they breathe it. There’s a casual, sitting around the back porch feel to the proceedings and when Van joins Donegan for the vocals on the second tune, “Lost John,” he's caught up in the spirit of the event.  He sounds relaxed and loose; he’s having fun.

There’s some great instrumental support from Barber and from the remaining six members of the band, especially guitarists Paul Henry and Big Jim Sullivan.  There are few rough edges, a few flubbed notes, but that’s okay. Everybody is having a great time and it shows.

You Win Again teams Van with Linda Gail Lewis, whose brother, Jerry Lee Lewis, might be a familiar name to some of you.  Linda Gail is a master of traditional piano styles, from boogie-woogie to honky tonk, and she’s a full throated singer whose raspy voice meshes well with Morrison’s.  Her smile on the cover photo of the disc must be infectious--Van’s smiling a little himself and he looks like he might even mean it.

There’s one new Morrison tune on You Win Again, but the remaining songs, like those on The Skiffle Sessions, helped musically form Morrison and his contemporaries. Three are by Hank Williams, one is by Otis Blackwell,  there’s one by New Orleans producer and songwriter Dave Bartholomew, and so on. Anyone who has even a passing acquaintance with blues, rock and roll, or country music of the last forty or fifty years will recognize at least a few of the songs.

The backup band, The Red Hot Pokers, are unobtrusive but not particularly inspired. The instrumental fire here comes from pedal steel player Paul Godden and from Linda Gail Lewis--she wails. While in some cases the two strong vocalists cancel eachother out, it's great to hear them bring something new to songs we know so well. There’s nothing profound here, but Morrison and Lewis bring a lot of passion to the songs and Lewis carries a hint mischief with her that helps keep things light (although not enough, I’m afraid, to loosen up the band).

In 1996 Morrison recorded How Long Has This Been Going On, an album of jazz tunes with Georgie Fame and a group of British jazz musicians.  Later that year he and Fame, along with some of those same musicians, joined Ben Sidran for a Mose Allison tribute. The Allison disc was the looser of the two, and both are enjoyable, but they have an air of seriousness that makes them feel tentative.  By contrast, Morrison approaches the music on these discs with so much goodwill that he can't help but give himself over to it.

The Skiffle Sessions and You Win Again may have the same effect on Morrison that Bob Dylan's two discs of blues and folk songs, Good As I Been To You and World Gone Wrong, had on him. Like Morrison, Dylan had long been making good but overlooked music. Returning to his roots revitalized him and he concentrated his powers to an astonishing level on Time Out of Mind.  He demonstrated that there's plenty of life and music left in him and plenty of surprises. The same, it seems to me, can be said of Van Morrison.