Equal parts blue-eyed soul shouter and wild-eyed poet-sorcerer, Van Morrison is among popular music's true innovators, a restless seeker whose incantatory vocals and alchemical fusion of R&B, jazz, blues, and Celtic folk produced perhaps the most spiritually transcendent body of work in the rock & roll canon…
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."