Van Morrison - Live in Boston 1968 (The Catacombs, Boston, MA, 8-1968)

Here's something very new, very great, and very unexpected. In November 1968, Van Morrison released the album "Astral Weeks," which is so acclaimed that on an average of greatest albums of all time lists, it ranks number 15. He spent most of 1968 living in Boston and developing the unique sound that would result in that album. There never have been any publicly available audio recording of his time in Boston that year... until now!

A few days ago (early November 2018), Morrison's record company released the album "Live in Boston 1968" that has long been the unattainable holy grail for Morrison fans. Unfortunately, they only released it on iTunes in Britain for about 24 hours, and it's already gone! This apparently was done to maintain legal rights to the recording, given that there is a European copyright law that says the rights are lost after 50 years unless the recording is made available for sale to the public somewhere in Europe, if only briefly. Since this recording dates from 1968, the deadline would be the end of 2018. This appears to have been an attempt to make the recording public but in the most low key, unnoticed method possible. Here's an article about it:

https://www.spin.com/2018/11/van-morrison-catacombs-1968-legendary-recording/

Here's another very interesting article from March 2018 on what Morrison was doing in Boston in 1968, and how this concert was recorded:

http://www.wbur.org/artery/2018/03/06/ryan-walsh-van-morrison-astral-weeks

It turns out that the show was recorded by none other than Peter Wolf, who was a Boston D.J. at the time, but would become the long time lead singer of the J. Geils Band. He used a reel-to-reel machine set up on the stage, at a small Boston club called The Catacombs in August 1968. So while it is an audience recording, to my ears it sounds as good as many soundboard recordings, especially considering the concert recording standards of 1968. If you're a fan of Morrison's music, you need to hear this!

It contains three songs that would appear on "Astral Weeks" later that year: "Beside You, "Madame George," and "Cyprus Avenue." Also, there's a version of a legendary still unreleased "Astral Weeks" outtake previously known as "Train," but which appears here under the title "Train, Train." He also does a Them song ("One Two Brown Eyes"), a song that would appear on a 1970 album ("Virgo Clowns"), and songs he released in 1967: "He Ain't Give You None," "T. B. Sheets" and "Brown Eyed Girl." The band consists of just Morrison on acoustic guitar plus a double bass and a flute, so the whole recording has an "Astral Weeks" vibe, even including "Brown Eyed Girl."

Unfortunately, the recording ends at the end of the last song, "Madame George," as one can hear the sound of the tape running out. So it's too bad we don't have the rest of the show. But still, it's a miracle that at least this much of Morrison live in 1968 was recorded at all, and with such quality sound.

This album needs to be heard by lots of people. If and when it's ever for legal sale in the U.S, I'll take this down. But it's quite likely that it's going to stay in the vaults after this one brief appearance in Britain, done for legal purposes only.

01 Virgo Clowns (Van Morrison)
02 Cyprus Avenue (Van Morrison)
03 Brown Eyed Girl (Van Morrison)
04 He Ain't Give You None (Van Morrison)
05 One Two Brown Eyes (Van Morrison)
06 Beside You (Van Morrison)
07 T. B. Sheets (Van Morrison)
08 Train, Train (Van Morrison)
09 Madame George (Van Morrison)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15256696/VanMrsn_1968_LiveBostn1968CatacmbsBostonMA__8-1968__atse.zip.html

For the cover, I used a handbill of the Morrison shows at The Catacombs where this was recorded. (For a very short time in 1968, his band was going by the name the "Van Morrison Controversy.") I resized the top left drawing of a female head so the best of the rectangular handbill could fit on a square album cover. I also replaced some text relating to other shows at the club on the upper right with the title of the album.

My version is posted above. I'm also posting an alternate cover, based on the same handbill, done by Reddiffusion. This one repositions things slightly and don't have the extra text I added.

On a different note, if you're new to this blog, please check out the many other Van Morrison albums I've posted here. There pretty much is an entire album of quality stray tracks for every year between 1969 and 1977. It's almost like a second career of prime Morrison material.