Too Long in Exile Van Morrison

Van Morrison - Roll With The Punches (2017) {Caroline Records-Exile Productions 2557718515} (Complete Artwork)
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© 2017 Caroline Records / Exile Productions 2557718515
Rock / Blues / Modern Electric Blues / Blue-Eyed Soul / Folk-Rock / Soft Rock

Van Morrison's 2016 album Keep Me Singing included the hard blues track "Goin' Down to Bangor," a tune that directly foreshadowed Roll with the Punches, a set of five originals and ten covers drenched in Chicago-style blues. He also heavily engages in collaboration here with appearances by Jeff Beck, Chris Farlowe, Jason Rebello, Paul Jones, and Georgie Fame.

In his old age, Van Morrison dispensed with any lingering niceties he harbored, favoring bluntness over poetry. That transition is made plain by the title Latest Record Project, Vol. 1, a literal description of the album if not its contents. Latest Record Project, Vol. 1 is indeed Morrison's latest record project as of 2021 – it's called "Vol. 1" because he recorded more than enough to fill a second volume, a remarkable feat considering that this album contains 28 tracks and runs well over two hours – and if that doesn't hint at what the music within sounds like, it's also true that Van Morrison has stayed in his R&B lane for much of the 2010s…

Pay the Devil, an album-long foray into country music, shouldn't come as a surprise to Van Morrison fans. It's a logical extension of his love affair with American music. Certainly blues, R&B, soul, and jazz have been at the forefront, but one can go all the way back to the Bang years and find "Joe Harper Saturday Morning," or songs on Tupelo Honey that touch country. More recently, You Win Again, with Linda Gail Lewis, offered two Hank Williams tunes and "Crazy Arms." The Skiffle Sessions with Lonnie Donegan offered traditional Southern tunes including Jimmie Rodgers' "Mule Skinner Blues." Morrison's lyrics have also referenced country music blatantly. Pay the Devil comes from direct sources of inspiration: his father's skiffle band and Ray Charles' historic forays into country on the two volumes of Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music in 1962. The evidence lies in three cuts on this disc, all of which Charles recorded: Curley Williams' "Half as Much," Art Harris and Fred Jay's "What Am I Livin' For," and Hank Williams' "Your Cheatin' Heart."

Van Morrison releases Latest Record Project: Volume 1 on Exile / BMG. His 42nd record and his most dynamic and contemporary album in years, Latest Record Project: Volume 1 is a 28-track delve into his ongoing love of blues, R&B, jazz and soul.

Sounds of the Seventies was a 40-volume series issued by Time-Life during the late 1980s and early-to-mid 1990s, spotlighting pop music of the 1970s. Much like Time-Life's other series chronicling popular music, volumes in the "Sounds of the Seventies" series covered a specific time period, including individual years in some volumes, and different parts of the decade (for instance, the early 1970s) in others; in addition, some volumes covered specific trends, such as music popular on album-oriented rock stations on the FM band.