Includes The New Van Morrison/Tom Jones Duet, Cry For Home:
Listen Here
(This version of a song first heard on 1983’s ‘Inarticulate Speech Of The Heart’, was cut in 1997 but has remained unheard until now.)
The Best of Van Morrison Volume 3 is a comprehensive collection of Van’s later material (1993 - 2005) and includes two previously unreleased tracks and duets with Tom Jones, John Lee Hooker, B.B. King and Ray Charles among others. It is a must for fans old and new.
You can hear some of the tracks on Van's MySpace page.
EMI Catalogue Marketing are honoured to release The Best of Van Morrison Volume 3 on 11th June 2007, preceded by a new single on 4th June.
A 2 CD collection featuring 31 tracks, The Best of Van Morrison is a comprehensive collection of Van’s later material and includes two previously unreleased tracks and duets with Tom Jones, John Lee Hooker, B.B. King and Ray Charles among others. It is a must for fans old and new.
CD1
1. Cry For Home with Tom Jones (previously unreleased)
2. Too Long In Exile
3. Gloria with John Lee Hooker
4. Help Me with Junior Wells (live)
5. Lonely Avenue / 4 O’ Clock In The Morning with Jimmy Witherspoon (live)
6. Days Like This
7. Ancient Highway
8. Raincheck
9. Moondance
10. Centerpiece with Georgie Fame & Annie Ross
11. That's Life (live)
12. Benediction (re-mix) with Georgie Fame & Ben Sidran
13. The Healing Game (re-mix)
14. I Don't Want To Go On Without You with Jim Hunter
CD2
1. Shenandoah with The Chieftains
2. Precious Time
3. Back On Top (re-mix)
4. When The Leaves Come Falling Down
5. Lost John with Lonnie Donegan (live)
6. Tupelo Honey with Bobby Bland (previously unreleased)
7. Meet Me In The Indian Summer (Orchestral version) (re-mix)
8. Georgia On My Mind
9. Hey Mr. DJ
10. Steal My Heart Away
11. Crazy Love with Ray Charles
12. Once In A Blue Moon
13. Little Village
14. Blue And Green
15. Sitting On Top Of The World with Carl Perkins
16. Early In The Morning with B.B. King
17. Stranded
Van Morrison has never been a man to rest on his considerable laurels, Live shows have always incorporated healthy amounts of new music, and the public has responded by buying tickets and albums in ever-increasing numbers. So this third volume of highlights from his four-decade-plus career, expansive though it may be, is already a piece of history. But the rich cast of supporting characters it features, including many of Van’s earliest influences, will give fans who came to his work more recently (and helped the first ‘Best Of ‘ make the UK Top 5) a rare insight into Morrison’s richly complex musical make-up.
What constitutes The Best Of Van Morrison will always be a subjective choice: the man himself ran through several listings and running orders before pronouncing himself satisfied. The sources of the key tracks from the last 15 years range from 1993’s Number 4 album ‘Too Long In Exile’ to 2005’s ‘Magic Time’, while a selection of choice cuts from hard-to-find releases will delight aficionados. It’s impossible to define Morrison with reference to any one recording, but the sheer diversity of the material here, encompassing live tracks, studio takes and remixes, sets a standard others will be hard-pressed to equal.
Over three decades ago, Van Morrison was quoted as saying: ‘The only thing that matters is whether you’ve got it or not. The only thing that counts is if you’re still around. And I’m still around.’ That still holds true today – listen and learn.
Reviews:
Popmatters.com:
As the story goes, Van Morrison wanted nothing to do with his first greatest hits collection, The Best of Van Morrison, Vol. 1. He probably warmed up
to the idea, though, after the sales figures started pouring in—year after year after year. He personally selected the songs that went into the second volume, and does so again on his newest collection, Volume 3.
In Morrison’s typically iconoclastic fashion, though, Volume 3 is a curious collection. Spanning his 1993-2005 output, it covers a stretch of Morrison’s career marked by more than a few so-so albums. To his credit, he recognizes the best
tracks—songs like “Too Long in Exile”, “Days Like This”, “Ancient Highway”, and “Precious Time”—from those years. He also delves deep into his history of collaborations and live performances. So the listener is presented with the opportunity to evaluate Morrison as a total performer.
It’s a canny move—perhaps one necessitated by the overall quality of his recent studio output, but probably not. No one forced Van Morrison to make Volume 3 a two-disc, 31-song affair, so he obviously takes this new retrospective as an opportunity to frame the last decade-and-a half on his terms.
The live tracks remind us of what we’ve always known about Morrison—that he’s got soul and charisma to spare. The tracks here don’t find him coasting, and as usual, he’s backed by crack musicians. An uptempo version of “Help Me”, featuring Junior Wells, simmers with a warm “Green Onions” vibe. Morrison’s leisurely medley of
“Lonely Avenue” and “4 O’Clock in the Morning” features a weary, groanin’ late-night vocal courtesy of blues great Jimmy Witherspoon.
Collaborations and duets like that may be Volume 3‘s biggest revelation; pictures of Morrison with his partners even dominate the album cover. Morrison possesses an exhaustive knowledge of vintage R&B and jazz, and seems to jump at the chance to record with the greats. John Lee Hooker sits in for a run-through of “Gloria”, while
Georgie Fame joins in on “Moondance”, “Centerpiece”, and “Benediction”. Lonnie Donegan (a skiffle-flavored “Lost John"), the Chieftains, Ray Charles (a gently swaying “Crazy Love") , Carl Perkins (a rockabilly-driven “Sitting on Top of the
World"), Bobby Bland, BB King, and others also make appearances. Almost without fail, these meetings are high-quality stuff.
If you’re skeptical of Van Morrison’s recent output, Volume 3 wins you over. The studio tracks exhibit the smoothness that Morrison’s always possessed, while the live tracks show his talent for going with a song’s flow. On the duets, Morrison’s clearly comfortable with artists who are either his heroes or his equals. True, it hides the fact that the last decade or so hasn’t been Morrison’s best—or maybe it forces you to reevaluate that notion. Maybe his original material wasn’t the right place to look, as he sounds like he’s having a blast on the live cuts on the duets. Morrison’s career still cries out for a comprehensive, career-spanning treatment, but
Volume 3 succeeds in its goal of shining a new light on his recent work.
-Andrew Gilstrap
Monstersandcritics.com:
Navigating Van Morrison's extensive catalog since 1993 is a formidable task even diehard fans might not want to attempt. The Irish icon has flirted with blues, jazz, country, pop, Celtic, and his own style of indescribable into-the-mystic spiritually-oriented poetic folk on his numerous releases, making for quite a thorny culling assignment. So the EMI brass were probably ecstatic when the singer took the job himself. He weeds through a dozen or so albums released since Volume 2's mile-marker, and adds a clutch of previously unavailable mixes, rarities, and live tracks. The result: a nearly two-and-a-half-hour, 31-track double-disc set as sprawling, eclectic, and tenacious as Morrison's vision and discography. From occasionally rambling but spirited duets with veterans Bobby "Blue" Bland, Junior Wells, Georgie Fame, Lonnie Donegan, B.B. King, the Chieftains, Ray Charles, and even Tom Jones to concert versions of hits such as "Moondance" and an impressive take on Sinatra’s classic "That's Life," along with hidden gems like "Steal My Heart Away," this is a beautifully assembled and sequenced collection. It presents most of this multitalented auteur's facets and softens his often crusty exterior by showing his appreciation for the journeymen that helped develop the trail that Morrison then blazed in his own distinctive style.
-Hal Horowitz
The Gazette: Van is not always a slave to fan faves, as his last PdA show proved:
