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 August 2006 Back to Table of Contents Back to Archives Main Page Section: Arts & Letters Payment Due By Ron Ehmke It’s not easy being a lifelong Van Morrison fan.
The general consensus on Morrison (one I don’t completely agree with) seems to be that he gave up on “feeling it” to its fullest sometime after the remarkable album Into the Music way back in 1979. Since then he has continued to release discs every year or so (an impressive rate for someone of his generation given the current climate), but they haven’t generally registered with large numbers of listeners or elicited as many glowing reviews as his earlier masterpieces did. Even so, most of his later recordings contain at least one or two keepers — moments when you know the magic is still there — and some of them are quite good indeed. (The Philosopher’s Stone, a career-spanning 1998 compilation of alternate versions and outtakes, is a must-have.) Over the last decade, in addition to more conventional albums, Morrison has released several nostalgia-tinged conceptual projects, including a disc of duets with Jerry Lee Lewis’s sister Linda Gail, a collection of “skiffle” songs from the pre-Beatles era of British pop, and a tribute to songwriter Mose Allison. Now comes Pay the Devil, consisting of a dozen covers of classic country songs and three of his own songs in that genre. When I say “classic,” I’m talking material forever tied to some of the greats: Hank Williams, Webb Pierce, George Jones, and company. One of the selections — “Your Cheatin’ Heart” — is easily among the best-known ballads in American popular music, while several others (including “There Stands the Glass,” “Half as Much,” “Back Street Affair,” and “Once a Day”) are time-honored jukebox gems. It’s a bold move to pick such familiar and beloved tunes, but Morrison makes them his own, in much the same way that Ray Charles left his mark on some of these same songs on his landmark country albums. (Tellingly, it’s one of the tunes I didn’t already know — Rodney Crowell’s poignant “Till I Gain Control Again” — that sounds like the standout to me.) While some critics have expressed surprise at the focus of the album, it makes perfect sense; there have been countryish numbers sprinkled through many of Morrison’s recordings over the last three decades, and the Irishman has never made any secret of his great love for American roots music. The band sounds great, the arrangements are respectful of the originals yet free to venture off in new directions, and the whole project sounds better with every listen. My only beef is, the album sheds much more light on the singer than it does on the songs he’s singing. I don’t hear anything in any of these songs that I didn’t already know was there. It’s hard to get excited about yet another version of “Cheatin’ Heart,” for instance, when you can hear any bar band in the world perform it much the same way. Consider, by contrast, Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s take on another Hank chestnut, “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” (on his 1993 album Spinning Around the Sun): when Gilmore sings those lyrics you’ve heard thousands of times, you’re stunned by how much pain they convey, and (thanks in large part to searing electric guitar accompaniment) the song sounds like a journey into one man’s private hell. Nothing on Pay the Devil sounds much like ol’ Beelzebub made much money off the deal. That’s not to suggest it’s a waste of time, only that it feels like just another fine-but-not-life-changing Van Morrison album. But, hey: some of us are used to that by now, and we’re not complaining too loudly anymore. Ron Ehmke is a Tonawanda-based writer and performer; more of his work can be found at www.everythingron.com. back to top back to table of contents Current Issue | About Forever Young | Where to Find | Advertise | Our Advertisers | Community Calendar | Contest | Clubs | Contact Us | Archives | Home |
