Under the radar, a new Van Morrison album has arrived. On Morrison’s website, the release of Live at Orangefield, had been promised for a while, and last month, on vinyl and CD, on Van the Man’s Orangefield Records, it went on sale.
I subscribe to iTunes, and with any artist whose work I’ve downloaded, I will usually find that performer’s latest effort on the “New Releases” tab of my Apple Music homepage. But not always with Morrison, a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member who has released an astounding 45 studio albums since 1967.
Morrison, a native of Belfast, Northern Ireland, also has cut six live albums. His first one, It’s Too Late to Stop Now–an expanded edition was issued in 2016–is one of the best live albums ever. His second live collection, Live at the Grand Opera House Belfast, obviously was recorded in his hometown.
As was Live at Orangefield. The Belfast Cowboy’s first live performance took place with his skiffle group in 1959 at Orangefield High School when he was a student there. In 2014, the school closed, and to salute the school–and even more so Belfast–Morrison, with his always tight band, returned.
A Facebook Morrison group–Van, by the way, is no fan of Facebook–alerted me that Live at Orangefield was available to download. Apple didn’t notify me. Possibly, because both musically and in interviews, Morrison was probably the most strident opponent among entertainment industry figures of the COVID lockdowns, that online slight was intentional. Three Morrison singles, one recorded with Eric Clapton, attacked government COVID-related restrictions. The triple-vinyl album, Latest Record Project Volume One and its follow-up, What’s It Gonna Take?–continued the pushback.
While there were some favorable reviews, most critics savaged, unfairly, that output. Rock critics are mostly an intellectually vapid lot–and like sportswriters, most of them prefer writing about politics when the opportunity arises. Morrison, despite his legendary status, offered those mental midgets a ripe target. But history has been kind to this septuagenarian rebel. At the very least, the COVID lockdowns were an overreach. Still, in the media and the music business, Van Morrison, is almost certainly purposely ignored.
In a Google News search, as of this writing, I could only find two reviews of Live at Orangefield.
And that’s a pity, because Live at Orangefield is an essential Morrison work. While Morrison has a reputation as an aloof and ornery fellow–which is either not true or it is possibly an exaggeration pushed by those self-worshipping rock critics–he offers some charm here.
In a mostly spoken-word piece on this album, “On Hyndford Street,” Morrison calls out to the crowd, “If any of the guys from ‘the street’ are here, give me a shout if you remember this one.”
Playing ’round Mrs. Kelly’s lamp Going out to Holywood on the bus And walking from the end of the lines to the seaside Stopping at Fusco’s for ice cream [loud cheers follow] In the days before rock ‘n’ roll.
I looked it up–I don’t know if the establishment I found online is the same Fusco’s that Morrison and his pals used to patronize, but there is a Fusco’s in Belfast.
Van the Man was born on August 31, 1945 at 145 Hyndford Street. And particularly with “On Hyndford Street,” which as originally released on the Hymns to the Silence double album, but also on other tracks here, listeners get the feeling that they are participating in a walking tour of Belfast–with Morrison as a tour guide.
I’ve only seen Morrison once in concert–he was fantastic. Morrison has a reputation for not playing many of his hits from the overexposed “classic rock” era. But Van is a performer, not a fossil, and if he had fossilized his career, then he’d be on the stale casino circuit along with Lynard Skynard, which carries on even though that band has no original members left on its roster. But they play the hits, as do the Van Morrison tribute bands.
But there are some of those Van hits on Live at Orangefield. The album opens with the instrumental “Celtic Excavation,” and then segues to “Into the Mystic.” Belfast of course is a seaport. I don’t know if this stanza is about Belfast, but it could be.
And when that foghorn blows I will be coming home And when the foghorn blows I want to hear it I don’t have to fear it.
Another hit, albeit a minor one, “Cleaning Windows,” follows. Morrison’s job before becoming a full-time musician was toiling as a window washer in Belfast. Then comes “Orangefield” and “Moondance.”
Other Belfast-related songs include “Got to Go Back” and “Northern Muse (Solid Ground).”
Another highlight here is “That’s Life,” the Frank Sinatra song, which Morrison recorded with Georgie Fame in 1995. Lyrically it’s an important addition to the set list, and musically too. In the 2000s and the following decade, much of Van the Man’s output had a jazzy and swing feel. New age jazz is a genre Morrison worked with in the 1980s; several of the songs I mentioned earlier utilize that sound.
Live at Orangefield is an essential collection for the Morrison fan, and it’s a good place to start, particularly if you enjoy jazz-flavored popular music, if you want to learn more about this fantastic musician.
And if you live in Belfast–then, man, what are you waiting for?
One more thing: Smart people listen to Van Morrison.
Live at Orangefield is available in vinyl and CD forms at Van Morrison.com. And you can download it at iTunes and stream it on Spotify.
With the nomination of Sen. J.D. Vance as Donald Trump’s running mate, of course there is renewed interest in his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, and the Ron Howard movie based on it.
I’ve yet to read book, but I saw the movie in 2020 on Netflix, which distributed the film, and I thought it was a captivating look at Vance’s life.
Both the book and the movie draw on Vance’s upbringing in the southwestern Ohio post-industrial city of Middletown. His maternal grandparents were from Jackson, Kentucky–in the Appalachian portion of the state, which is where Hillbilly Elegy begins. The young Vance (Owen Asztalos) gets a quick lesson in the importance of family loyalty after losing a fight. The Vances, unfortunately, are quite the dysfunctional family, particularly his drug-addicted mother, Beverly (Amy Adams). Eventually, Vance ends up in the care of his grandmother, Bonnie “Mawmaw” Vance (Glenn Close), a chain-smoking, cussing, mean, but ultimately loving authority figure.
The movie contains many flashbacks as the adult J.D. (Gabriel Basso), a US Marine veteran who is a Yale law student, finds his promising future tangled up with his troubled past. His girlfriend, Usha (Freida Pinto), provides him much needed emotional support.
As I said earlier, this is a captivating film, and Howard, a gifted director, makes skilled used of imagery, including perhaps his favorite, water, and a stunning symbolic use of the Middletown rail bridge tunnel.
However, by 2020, Vance was vocal about his conservative beliefs, and he had moved from the Never Trump camp of the Republican Party to being a supporter of the 45th president. Which, in my opinion, led to movie critics, a group which politically consists mostly of leftists, to offer a large dose of negative reviews of Hillbilly Elegy. The Chicago Sun-Times’ Richard Roeper was a notable exception, he gave the movie a four-stars-out-of-four review.
An even worse response came from the 2021 Golden Raspberry Awards, better known as the Razzies. The bad movie answer to the Academy Awards nominated Hillbilly Elegy for three Razzies: Worst Director (Howard), Worst Adapted Screenplay (Vanessa Taylor), and Worst Supporting Actress (Close). However, Close, was also nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for the same role, and Hillbilly Elegy also garnered a Best Makeup and Hairstyling Oscar nomination.
Was this hatred was triggered by Vance’s politics?
I am certain of that, because also that year, Razzie “winners” included the documentary Absolute Proof, which questioned the results of the 2020 presidential election. Mike Lindell of My Pillow fame “won” Worst Actor for his role in that movie, and Rudy Giuliani “won” for Worst Supporting Actor for his brief role in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.
Voters for the Razzies are not required to see the movies they vote on. Other “winners” of Razzies, not surprisingly, include other conservatives, among them are Ronald Reagan, Dinesh D’Souza, and Jon Voigt.
I apologize for that brief diversion, but the Golden Raspberry Awards needs a serious and prolonged slapping around.
To summarize, don’t believe the critics. Unless you are an unhinged leftist suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome, Hillbilly Elegy is well worth your time.
The lessons from Hillbilly Elegy are conservative ones. Family bonds, hard work, and perseverance, while not a guarantee of success, make success more likely.
I suspect that left-wing critics will have one more group lash-out at Hillbilly Elegy.
And from the only presidential term of Joe Biden comes another lesson: Don’t believe the media. Even movie reviewers can’t be trusted.
Hillbilly Elegy is available for streaming on Netflix, where as of this writing is ranked #4 in the movie category. It is rated R for violence, drug use, and foul language.
Today I was going to post about the stunning and brave move to send Joe Biden out for a full four minutes to read from a teleprompter (yeah this guy is actually president) when something caught my eye.
Having seen that and not believing what I saw I wanted to re-watch the reactions of the CNN panel post debate so I went to CNN on youtube where they had a video of the panel. As I have to leave for work in a few minutes I’m going to tell the story in the four tweets my discovery produced.
just checked @youtube because I wanted to rewatch the @cnn reaction to the #PresidentialDebate They played all commentaries but one the one where the fellow at the end called out each & every one of them for claiming Biden was fine
They cut out Scott Jennings answer to pretend it wasn't there. You have to go to @newsbusters to see it because if you check the @cnn video, it's gone.
Well @cnn the only thing more embarrassing than my discovery of your soviet style airbrushing of Mr. Jennings debate commentary from your coverage was discovering that after all these years & all my experience of you I was STILL naïve enough to think such a thing was beneath you
Sgt Andrew Carter: [standing over the ‘Gonculator’ with a piece of a clock] Hey Colonel where should I put this?
Colonel Robert Hogan:Carter, what difference does it make?
Hogan’s Heroes: Klink vs the Gonculator 1968
I was checking out Twitchy last night when I saw this:
You don't believe it's possible Israeli women were raped by Palestinian men but you take it as a given that Palestinian men were raped by dogs. What's next? Gaza flooded by attack beavers? Arab children blinded by pigeons trained to crap in their eyes? Ninja dolphins?
None of it surprises me. Why? Because when you have a group that repeatedly lies and makes things up out of the whole cloth why would they NOT go farther and farther. Remember these guys were claiming that Israel attacked themselves when their own folks livestreamed their attacks on Oct 7th.
When you’ve got a group that’s unwilling to deal with actual reality the taller the tale the faster it will spread and the angrier you can make your mob that has never gotten over the fact that a bunch of ragtag Jews were able to defeat them time and time again.
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