March 3rd San Fran Gig Review

Even in a detour to classic country music, a sharper Van Morrison is still the Man
Joel Selvin, Chronicle Senior Pop Music Critic

Monday, March 6, 2006

When Van Morrison goes country and western, he doesn't go far.
With a new album of classic country songs about to be released, Morrison made his annual swing through the States, a six-night, cross-country whirlwind that includes a stop Tuesday at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, original home of the Grand Ole Opry, and started Friday at the inevitable Masonic Auditorium, where Morrison has made it his practice to appear on virtually every visit to this country for the past 20 years.
Looking slimmer, sounding sharper and singing with more focus and purpose than he has in years, Morrison massed a huge 14-piece accompaniment around him; sang more than half the songs from the new album; dabbled in everything from hard-bopping jazz to dark, steely blues, strains of Celtic folk and thumping rhythm and blues; and sent everybody home before most shows even get started.
Underneath a broad-brimmed fedora and wraparound designer eyewear, Morrison strode onstage at exactly 6:45 p.m. show time and blew some tenor to get "Did Ye Get Healed" cooking. Fielding a slightly larger core band than usual, he tossed off a few numbers in his conventional R&B mode -- including a positively fire-breathing "St. James Infirmary" -- before bringing out the Nashville squadron of fiddle, steel guitar and a square background vocal trio.
Morrison kept lyric sheets on a nearby music stand, but he sang the old-fashioned country songs from his forthcoming album, "Pay the Devil," which hits stores Tuesday, with the kind of snarl and bite that has always been his specialty. He pounded the final chorus of Webb Pierce's "There Stands the Glass" with a gospel fervor he learned from Solomon Burke. He trained his trademark Celtic soul on the blue-collar morality play "Big Blue Diamonds." It may be country music, but it sounded a lot like Van Morrison.
While Morrison in his life has made soulful records that compare him favorably with as unique and deep a talent as Ray Charles, his country experiment is no "Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music." Ray Charles used country songs to make his music; "Ray Charles" remained the idiom. Van Morrison made a genre piece -- conventional, almost assembly-line country featuring well-known professional sidemen like dobro player Cindy Cashdollar -- and grafted his incorruptible musical character on top. The results do not always produce a rewarding blend, although Morrison is clearly a keen student of the country idiom and sang the hell out of some of the pieces.
As if this C&W wrinkle has reinvigorated his entire performance, he went straight out of the first country songs segment into a deft and daring high-wire scat act on "It's All in the Game" and gave his classic "Moondance" a spanking Horace Silver makeover, adding the fourth horn to the section work.
Morrison, now of the British Isles, was backed by flawless accompaniment from a band of long-standing musical associates, at least two of which -- organist John Allair and bassist David Hayes -- go back almost 30 years to when Morrison lived in Marin County.
At the Masonic, whatever he did -- country, jazz, R&B -- he glowed with confidence and a clear-eyed presence that has been missing from his performances for ages, at least since his 1992 Christmas shows at the Masonic, three-hour marathons that could have been some of the finest of his career.
If he was still shy of that kind of stratospheric height, Morrison remains someone who can flex more soul in a wordless shout than most singers can in an entire performance. He brought "Precious Time" to a close just mumbling along where the final choruses might have gone, punctuating the lines with little horn blasts from back in his throat.
He brought out his daughter Shana Morrison, who still lives in Marin where she grew up, to sing a duet, "Sometimes We Cry," and gave her a jolly, uncharacteristic hug at the conclusion. In the past he has been among the most erratic of performers, but at the Masonic on Friday he was, by comparison, warm, open and semi-informal. The country music was a musical diversion, a labor of love for Morrison that may have reawakened some of his instincts.
But even if he sang Mexican polka music or Hawaiian wedding songs, he would probably still sound like Van Morrison.
Email Joel Selvin at jselvin@sfchronicle.com.