Van Morrison - Coming Down to Joy - Non-Album Tracks (1971)

I wish I could turn more people onto these albums of stray Van Morrison songs that I'm making. I think they're really great! And that's not because of anything I did, but because of the strength and number of songs he never officially released from the early part of his career.

A lot of people have some of this material, due to the popularity of the three CD bootleg "Van Morrison Gets His Chance to Wail." But that boot doesn't organize the material well, and it misses a lot of stuff. For instance, there was an acetate found recently at a garage sale (!) that contained three previously unknown Van Morrison studio recordings. One of them was a song, "Coming Down to Joy," that had been previously unbooted and even unheard of. It makes one wonder what else is still in the vaults.

For this album, I found songs from a variety of sources. Four of the eight songs are still officially released. Another song, "4% Pantomime," is a collaboration between Van Morrison and The Band. It was on a Band album, but I don't see why it couldn't have been on a Morrison album too. Similarly, Morrison collaborated with blues legend John Lee Hooker for a song ("Never Get Out of These Blues Alive") on one of Hooker's albums. The song was exceedingly long and somewhat repetitive at 12 minutes, so I edited it down. I also found a live version of the Bob Dylan classic "Just like a Woman" and edited out the crowd noise.

The result is a 40 minute album that could have come out in 1971. I think it's just as strong as, say, the album "His Band and Street Choir."

01 You've Got the Power (Van Morrison)
02 Coming Down to Joy (Van Morrison)
03 Lorna (Van Morrison)
04 Never Get Out of These Blues Alive (John Lee Hooker & Van Morrison)
05 Just like a Woman (Van Morrison)
06 4% Pantomime (Band & Van Morrison)
07 Ordinary People (Van Morrison)
08 Tell Me about Your Love (Van Morrison)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15257048/VanMrsn_1971_CmingDwntoJoy_atse.zip.html

The cover is a 1970 photo of Morrison. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any color ones that I really liked that weren't of him in concert. (I'll save the concert pics for live material I'll post here later.) Many months after initially posting this album, I colorized the photo.