Van Morrison – Moving on Skiffle

by Oliver
on March 16, 2023
in Album

Too much of a good thing, but damn good: Van Morrison interprets – the title Moving on Skiffle relatively obvious explanatory – 23 foreign compositions around the blues, R & B, country, folk, gospel or jazz in the appropriate genre mode.

Even if you might listen to the still fabulous voice of 77-year-old Van Morrison forever, and his musicians (including keyboardist Richard Dunn, guitarist Dave Keary, bassist Pete Hurley and drummer Colin Griffin, along with saxophonist/harmonicaMorrison, for example, washboard man Alan “Sticky” Wicket, pianist Stuart McIlroy or fiddler Seth Wakeman) build up their well-tempered mastery arranged behind it in a loosely grooving, relaxed, calm class that is as rich as it is reserved – right from the start a dynamic-homogeneous spectrum of beautifully soulful harmonies (Careless Love) to exhilarating country associations (Sail Away Ladies) measured, just as simple as bluesy swaying (Streamline Train) or in sailing scenarios (Take This Hammer) act, from the smooth party elegance to the wonderfully fiddling hit full of feelings (Gypsy Davy) stroll, and with it the range of the following finger exercises up to the Cajun flair in Streamlined Cannonball or the tropical I’m Movin’ On to anticipate: the individual pieces of Moving the Skiffle almost all of them are too long and detailed, and above all the total playing time of 94 minutes of a great back-to-the-roots record doesn’t do anyone any good.

Basically created a little too pleasingly, in the variable mass of a flow of great standards, there is no real arc of suspense, which is why the progression can at some point switch to a benevolent, atmospheric passage, although actually not a failure (despite a few, perhaps too often heard, banal selected cover platitudes like I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry) is recorded.
But still: Morrison passionately appropriates these songs by Dave Van Ronk, Lead Belly, Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers, Elizabeth Cotton and others, interpreting them (perhaps not ultimately poignantly or overwhelmingly, but) with a timeless vintage charm and myself with The Skiffle Sessions–Live in Belfast as a yardstick, there are certainly more serious allegations than that those involved lost focus a little out of sheer nostalgia-free love for the game measure and goal (although this point thwarts the rounding up of the rating between the points).



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