Van Morrison - Live Rarities, Volume 4: 1974

Here's another in my series of Van Morrison's live rarities albums. As I've explained previously, I've posted lots of Morrison live albums in the late 1960s and 1970s, including entire concerts. I tried to select those in order to reduce the number of songs that overlapped from one album to another. But even after all that, there were some rare live performances that didn't show up on any of them, thus the need for this series.

All of these performances are officially unreleased. For whatever, reason, 1974 was one of the better years in terms of the quantity and quality of Morrison bootlegs. So, for the most parts, the songs here sound pretty good. But be warned that most of these are from audience bootlegs, not soundboards, and some of them sound a bit rough at times.

But I figure that's made up by the rarity of the performance. For instance, "Many Rivers to Cross" is one of the rougher recordings, with some talking of audience members heard here and there. But who would have ever expected Morrison to cover that song?! According to setlists.fm, he only played it twice in his entire career, both in 1974.

A few of the songs here are Morrison originals that he just almost never played in concert: "Bulbs," "Street Choir," "Cul de Sac," and "Joyous Sound." "Joyous Sound" is a song that he's played in concert from time to time. But this is an unusually early version, done in concert three years before it showed up on the "A Period of Transition" album in 1977.

01 Caldonia (Van Morrison)
02 I Like it like That - Kansas City (Van Morrison)
03 Night Time Is the Right Time (Van Morrison)
04 Bulbs (Van Morrison)
05 Street Choir (Van Morrison)
06 I've Got News for You (Van Morrison)
07 Many Rivers to Cross (Van Morrison)
08 Cul de Sac (Van Morrison)
09 Ain't Nobody's Bizness If I Do (Van Morrison)
10 Joyous Sound (Van Morrison)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16701214/VANMRRSN1974_LivRritiesVolum4_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I used a photo of Morrison playing live in Amsterdam in 1974.