Van Morrison was riding high in 1973 _ as a songwriter, singer and performer. For proof, music lovers need look no further than the double live album "It's Too Late to Stop Now," which Morrison released the following year. It has long been regarded as one of rock's greatest live record-ings.
More than four decades later, Morrison is releasing a more expansive exploration of that time in his career, the four-disc sequel, " ... It's Too Late to Stop Now, Volumes II, III and IV & DVD," highlighting other performances during that same tour.
Morrison had assembled a group he dubbed the Caledonia Soul Orchestra, expanding on the basic rock-blues-soul quartet of guitar, keyboard, bass and drums. He also employed a two-member horn section with trumpet and saxes and a five-piece string ensemble that gave the Irish artist an exceptionally wide instrumental palette with which to work.
The original album had 18 tracks recorded at the Troubadour in West Hollywood, the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium and the Rainbow Theatre in London, the same venues from which the new set culls 45 additional performances. That gives a strong Southern California slant to the overall collection.
Although he's been more interested in exploring his artistry than cranking out hits, it was in the early '70s when Morrison's artistry intersected most frequently with the pop music mainstream, and his songs were regularly getting airplay on rock and pop stations.
That produced an arsenal of audience-familiar songs such as "Moondance," "Domino," "Come Running," "Wild Night," and "Warm Love." Those are mixed with several soul and R&B songs that influenced him, including Ray Charles' "I Believe to My Soul."
His reading of Hank Williams' "Hey Good Lookin'" demonstrates an equal familiarity with and appreciation of the classic honky-tonk version and Charles' big-band reworking in 1962.
As such forbears and influences as Charles and Jerry Lee Lewis typically did in concert, Morrison makes each one utterly unique, his elastic vocals stretching words, notes and syllables to the extreme, but always for emotional effect, never for ego-driven showboating.
Among his own songs, he dives equally deep into the spiritually focused "Listen to the Lion," a song about paying attention to one's inner voice rather than the noise of the outside world.
