He made his solo debut with Blowin’ Your Mind, in sessions later repackaged as T.B. Sheets, Bang Masters, and New York Sessions ‘67. He scat-sings his dark, brooding poetry in “He Ain’t Give You None,” slurring “you can leave now if you don’t like what’s happening,” either to hi... 

 After a down-and-out stint in Boston, Morrison made his most beautiful and intense album, Astral Weeks. The sound is almost all acoustic, with guitars, stand-up bass, brushed drums, and occasional strings or horns, as Van rants and raves about death (“Astral Weeks”), sex (“Sweet Thing”), ... 

 His Band and the Street Choir was a lighter version of Moondance, short on songs but kicking off with the great “Domino” and ending with the fierce “Street Choir.”  

 For Moondance, Morrison came up with the smooth style that made him most famous, a mellow, piano-based hybrid of pop, jazz, and Irish folk. He sings gentle reveries (“And It Stoned Me,” “Caravan”), seductive piano ballads (“Crazy Love”) and a romantic ode to a polluted and foul Boston... 

 Tupelo Honey is loose and wild fun, Van’s only really cheery-sounding album. He celebrates domestic bliss in rural California with the country charm of “When That Evening Sun Goes Down,” the huge title ballad, and “Wild Night,” a rocker that celebrates the girls who walk by dressed up f... 

 When the marriage broke up, Van responded with St. Dominic’s Preview, a concept album about feeling homesick in America, looking back on Ireland from California but finding only miles and miles of loneliness in between. The songs combine the bleak melancholy of Astral Weeks with the light touch... 

 But the only good song on Hard Nose the Highway was his bizarre version of Kermit the Frog’s Sesame Street classic, “Bein’ Green.” As a Protestant kid from Belfast, Van’s technically Orange, not Green, but it’s still a landmark of Muppet soul.  

 He made his solo debut with Blowin’ Your Mind, in sessions later repackaged as T.B. Sheets, Bang Masters, and New York Sessions ‘67. He scat-sings his dark, brooding poetry in “He Ain’t Give You None,” slurring “you can leave now if you don’t like what’s happening,” either to hi... 

 It’s Too Late to Stop Now is a warm live album, with an orchestra, vintage blues covers, and vivid band-crowd interaction. It peaks with “Saint Dominic’s Preview” and “Listen to the Lion,” where the music ebbs away slowly, instrument by instrument, until one fan breaks a roomful of si... 

 Veedon Fleece was another commercial flop, but it was the culmination of everything Van was doing up to that point, all Celtic mystic tumult in the vocals and pastoral beauty in the music. He sums up his vocal reach in the bearlike blues growl of “Linden Arlen Stole the Highlights” and the so... 

 Van spent three years in seclusion, returning with the shrill, clumsy Period of Transition.  

 Wavelength was a failed mainstream pop move, but the title track was a worthy hit, which like many of his best songs expresses the profound spiritual yearning to listen to the radio.  

 Into the Music was hailed by many as a creative comeback, but it sounds stuffy and ornate, with too many violin solos; the one killer is a cover of the Fifties oldie “It’s All in the Game.”  

 Morrison hit a painful slump in the Eighties, starting with the jazzy religious blather of Common One and Beautiful Vision.  

 Morrison hit a painful slump in the Eighties, starting with the jazzy religious blather of Common One and Beautiful Vision.  

 Inarticulate Speech, A Sense of Wonder, No Guru, and Poetic Champions are cranky self-imitation. 

 A Night in San Francisco is a good 1994 live album, up there with It’s Too Late to Stop Now and 1986’s Live at the Grand Opera House Belfast, and a document of what a marvelous live performer the old man remains.  

 Inarticulate Speech, A Sense of Wonder, No Guru, and Poetic Champions are cranky self-imitation. 

 Inarticulate Speech, A Sense of Wonder, No Guru, and Poetic Champions are cranky self-imitation. 

 Inarticulate Speech, A Sense of Wonder, No Guru, and Poetic Champions are cranky self-imitation. 

 But on Irish Heartbeat, a collection of standards with the Chieftains, Morrison kicked up his heels–you would have expected him to do an appropriately soulful “Carrickfergus” or “She Moved Through the Fair,” but who would have expected him to have so much fun with “Marie’s Wedding”?  

 Avalon Sunset was a modest breakthrough that has been paying off for him ever since. The music wasn’t radically different from his recent work–the same scat-singing poetics about love and God over easy-rolling folk rock–but the voice, the songwriting, and the spirit all had a renewed sense ... 

 After years of letting his audience down, Morrison found himself back in touch with a thriving cult, and The Best of Van Morrison was a well-timed summary. 

 After that, Van kept remaking the same album for several years, usually with at least a couple of worthy songs. Hymns to the Silence and Enlightenment are the most complex and self-involved; Too Long in Exile is the breeziest, including three duets with John Lee Hooker; Back on Top has “When th... 

 He made his solo debut with Blowin’ Your Mind, in sessions later repackaged as T.B. Sheets, Bang Masters, and New York Sessions ‘67. He scat-sings his dark, brooding poetry in “He Ain’t Give You None,” slurring “you can leave now if you don’t like what’s happening,” either to hi... 

 After that, Van kept remaking the same album for several years, usually with at least a couple of worthy songs. Hymns to the Silence and Enlightenment are the most complex and self-involved; Too Long in Exile is the breeziest, including three duets with John Lee Hooker; Back on Top has “When th... 

 Best of Van Morrison, Volume 2 preserves some great songs from this period–the live “Rave On, John Donne,” “Tore Down a la Rimbaud”–but Morrison seemed to suck the life out of his past glories.  

 After that, Van kept remaking the same album for several years, usually with at least a couple of worthy songs. Hymns to the Silence and Enlightenment are the most complex and self-involved; Too Long in Exile is the breeziest, including three duets with John Lee Hooker; Back on Top has “When th... 

 A Night in San Francisco is a good 1994 live album, up there with It’s Too Late to Stop Now and 1986’s Live at the Grand Opera House Belfast, and a document of what a marvelous live performer the old man remains.  

 The Philosopher’s Stone collects outtakes, and after so many prolific spleen-venting years, who knew Van had outtakes?  

 There have been countless Them repackages over the years; The Story of Them is almost the complete works on two CDs. Just don’t bother with any Them compilation that leaves out Van’s first great song, “Friday’s Child.”  

 After that, Van kept remaking the same album for several years, usually with at least a couple of worthy songs. Hymns to the Silence and Enlightenment are the most complex and self-involved; Too Long in Exile is the breeziest, including three duets with John Lee Hooker; Back on Top has “When th... 

 The Skiffle Sessions is a strange live collaboration with Fifties old-timers Lonnie Donegan and Chris Barber, while You Win Again is an even stranger set of mostly Jerry Lee Lewis covers sung with the Killer’s daughter, Linda Gail Lewis.  

 The Skiffle Sessions is a strange live collaboration with Fifties old-timers Lonnie Donegan and Chris Barber, while You Win Again is an even stranger set of mostly Jerry Lee Lewis covers sung with the Killer’s daughter, Linda Gail Lewis.  

 For non-diehard fans, there may be little point trying to tell the recent albums apart–you don’t need any of them unless you need all of them. But Down the Road and What’s Wrong With This Picture? offer treats like the telling “Hey Mr. DJ” (“Play me something/That I know”), a moving... 

 For non-diehard fans, there may be little point trying to tell the recent albums apart–you don’t need any of them unless you need all of them. But Down the Road and What’s Wrong With This Picture? offer treats like the telling “Hey Mr. DJ” (“Play me something/That I know”), a moving... 

 On Magic Time Van vows to “Keep Mediocrity At Bay,” even though “They Sold Me Out,” because they can’t kill the “Gypsy In My Soul.” But he shines in the astral “Celtic New Year” and the hiliarously grumpy theme song “Just Like Greta” (“I want to be alone”).  

 Pay The Devil is his ineffably Irish collection of country covers–on Bill Anderson’s 1964 “Once a Day,” he abandons his usual bravado to sound scared and forlorn.  

 Live At Austin City Limits has stunning versions of “Muleskinner Blues” and “Big Blue Diamonds.” 

 Still On Top: The Greatest Hits is a three-CD box that goes too heavy on the late material, with just one tune from Veedon Fleece and nada from Astral Weeks; Best of Van Morrison Vol. 3 offers a previously unreleased “Tupelo Honey” duet with Bobby “Blue” Bland.  

 Still On Top: The Greatest Hits is a three-CD box that goes too heavy on the late material, with just one tune from Veedon Fleece and nada from Astral Weeks; Best of Van Morrison Vol. 3 offers a previously unreleased "Tupelo Honey" duet with Bobby "Blue" Bland. 

 Van Morrison at the Movies: Soundtrack Hits collects his strangely soulful 1990 version of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" (featured in The Departed), yet it cheats by not including "T.B. Sheets" from Scorcese's Bringing Out The Dead, still the sharpest cinematic use of a Van tune. 

 On Keep It Simple, Van shockingly reveals he’s not much of a social type (“Don’t Go To Nightclubs Any More”), chats up the gods (“Behind The Ritual”), and gets freaky in the tantric-sex ditty “That’s Entrainment.” (Not “entertainment” Van’s singing about neurobiology, of c... 

 In 2008, Van did a series of concerts no fan would have dared hope for—covering Astral Weeks all the way through, with original guitarist Jay Berliner. Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl revamps the classic with extra solos and vocal flights, expanding "Slim Slow Slider" into an 8-minu...