Track Listing

1. How Can A Poor Boy?
2. School Of Hard Knocks
3. That's Entrainment
4. Don't Go To Nightclubs Anymore
5. Lover Come Back
6. Keep It Simple
7. End Of The Land
8. Song Of Home
9. No Thing
10. Soul
11. Behind The Ritual

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2211 in Music
• Released on: 2008-03-17
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 49 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Keep It Simple is Van Morrison's 35th album. Representing his first new material since 2005, it’s also the first Van LP in a while for which he has acted as composer, arranger, lyricist and multi-instrumentalist (sax, harmonica, ukelele) as well as specifically composing all 11 songs for the one project. The album wears its title well as the blues number "How Can a Poor Boy" kicks things off in sparse but compelling style. The arrangements stay elegant and subtle throughout, leaving space for Morisson’s chief weapon--his voice. At 63 he sounds as peerless as ever, even if his lyrical outlook is less mystical and more sober than before (see songs like "Don't Go to Nightclubs Anymore"). But when you least expect it, hints of his former lyrical powers return. "Into the Mystic" and the denouement "Behind the Ritual" are reminiscent of some of his best work, and while Keep It Simple cannot be compared to the visceral majesty and fanciful meanderings of Astral Weeks, it’s one of his most enjoyable outings for a while. --Danny McKenna

CD Description
'Keep It Simple' is the thirty third studio album from legendary singer songwriter Van Morrison and his first to feature all original material since 1999's 'Back On Top'. Producedby himself the album sees Morrison continue with the uniqueblend of soul, blues, jazz and folk that has earned him worldwide appeal.

About the Artist
Born in Belfast, Van Morrison's father was an avid collector of American blues and jazz records. Morrison grew up listening to Amercian music like Leadbelly, Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, Muddy Waters, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGee, John Lee Hooker, Mahalia Jackson, and Lightnin' Hopkins. He grew up surrounded by every kind of American musical influence. From the age of 13, he was adept at playing guitar, sax and harmonica and played with a series of local showbands along with Skiffle and Rock 'n' Roll groups, and Brian Rossi at the Plaza Ballroom. His early love of music, for the music, has certainly paid off. Morrison's music continues to have that authentic American Blues, Jazz and melodic Folk sound that he loved and listened to in his childhood, long before those early showbands and well before his initial 1964 (Hit Records) with his band called Them. It's a little recognized yet open secret that Van Morrison was, in fact, the band Them. In recognition of his unique position as one of the most important songwriters of the past century, Van Morrison was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, by the late great Ray Charles, in New York City in June 2003. Additionally, he was honored, in 2007, for his musical contribution to films. Presented by Al Pacino, this award highlights the depth and breadth of his compositions, as used by some of the most notable directors in the Motion Picture Industry today.

Van Morrison has journeyed far and wide since his early days in Belfast, but has invariably come back to the philosophy summed up in the title of this extraordinary new record. As Keep It Simple is released, keeping true to the music, and arguably the new Hardest Working man in Showbusiness, Morrison consistently continues a busy schedule of concerts playing to packed theatres across Europe, Canada and the United States.

Customer Reviews

That's more like it!
I've been listening to Van Morrison's music for nearly 30 years, and with heavy heart passed on his last two albums ("Magic Time", and "Pay the Devil") because his recent music no longer connected with me the way it had in the past; after all no-one yet has made great music out of whingeing about the record industry and the price of fame. Somehow the bar-room blues, skiffle and jazz just didn't do it for me, at least not the way the incomparable, transcendental music on say "Veedon Fleece", "Into the Music" or "St. Dominic's Preview" had done.

So it's with great pleasure that I turned to "Keep it Simple"; it's not up there with his greatest work, but for me it's the best thing he's done since "Too Long in Exile". There are still a few forgettable pieces (the opening track "How Can a Poor Boy" for example), but there are some solid-gold gems here - "That's Entrainment", "Lover Come Back", "Keep it Simple", "End of the Land".

The final two tracks deserve to stand with anything he's done before - "Soul" and "Behind the Ritual"; the latter in particular is superb, and my only disappointment was that it finished a mere six minutes in just when I thought it was getting really interesting.

So thanks Van for a splendid album :-)

A Simple Delight
After 41 years in the music business, 32 studio albums and just over two years short of drawing his pension, Van Morrison continues to delight with his music.

Of course, there's nothing new here and neither should you expect there to be. The fact that Van produced the album means no change. He has been ploughing his own unique, visionary furrow for so long now he's hardly likely to employ Rick Rubin!

His familiar mix of blues, country, jazz and Celtic Soul has served Van and his fans well over the decades and Keep It Simple doesn't disappoint. His voice is in good shape as he takes us through 12 original songs which seem to be about life in late middle age tinged with nostalgia and even sentimentality. There are some gems in this collection, "End Of The Land" and "Song Of Home" and the exquisite "Lover Come Back" with a swirling organ and atmospheric steel guitar is worth the price of the album on its own.

There are no horns or strings in this production, just guitar, banjo, drums, piano, organ and the occasional sax, mandolin and fiddle. Keeping it simple?

No, there's nothing new. Just Van in top form delighting this fan once again.

Behind The Ritual/You Find The Spiritual
"At this point in his career, Van Morrison is less interested in surprises than in further exploring his long-standing obsessions: surviving the shocks of this life and rising gracefully toward the next one. Keep It Simple finds him looking back on his sixty-two years, filled with longing -- for home, for deliverance from the world's demands, for spiritual transcendence." Peter Travers

Van Morrison's 35th CD is a simplistic look inside the mind of one of our greatest poets and showmen. 'Keep It Simple' is just that. A look into the past, the present and an attempt at the future. Van wrote each of these eleven songs and plays guitar, banjo and organ. This approach is a method to showcase his voice which is still in rare form. He seems to alternate between the blues, jazz and the spiritual.

All of his new songs are wonderfully written and sung. The exceptional song that may be one of his best is 'That's Entrainment'. It is clear and concise and sung in a crisp tone. Entrainment as defined by 'Heartfelt' "being "in sync. When your head and heart, thoughts and feelings, are working harmoniously together, you have more clarity and inner balance-and you feel better." Is that not a goal to reach in a lifetime? Some of Van Morrison's lyrics reflect this philosophy:

You by the countryside
Oh you when you reach the sky
You and you're climbing up that hill
Well you when we're listening to the little whippoorwill

You when the sun goes down
You in the evening, in the morning when the sun comes round
You with your ballerina dance
Well you put me back in a trance

Well you take my breath away
Oh you even on a cloudy day
You make me holler when you come around
You make me holler when you shake 'em on down.

His theme song 'Keep It Simple' may be an attempt to address his critics and himself. Those who have not appreciated his work outside of his pop rock style and told him to 'keep it simple'.

'Illusions and pipe dreams on the one hand
And straight reality is always cold
Saying something hard edged is off the wall
And it just might be too bold

Well I'm down here on the running board
Where I've been many times before
But we got to keep it simple to save ourselves

Mocked me when I tried to get back
Said the train was completely off the track
And we got to get back to something simple to save ourselves "

Keeping it simple and on track with some blues and jazz to save ourselves.

" Van Morrison is a poet, an Irish folkie, a philosopher, a mystic, a showman, and a teenager-at-heart still dreaming of the R&B records he heard on the radio decades ago. In recent years, he has become a bluesman, complete with hat, sunglasses and deep voice. Or a cool-as-cucumber jazzy blues vocalist, at least. On his latest album, Keep It Simple, Morrison is somewhere between that jazz-blues cool cat and the head-in-the-clouds poet/philosopher of Astral Weeks, et al. For a stretch near the start, he almost literally switches back and forth, adopting a standard blues form nearly every other song." David Heaton

Van Morrison has been one of my heroes since I was a teenager. His voice and his music have spoken to me over the years. 'Keep It Simple' is a reflection of the times and of the time in life when we look back at where we have been and where we are going. This may be one of his CD's that speak to many of us, those who have followed him over the years. He is speaking to a generation who has always wanted to keep it simple. Not many of our contemporaries have given us this gift, Van Morrison has.

Highly Recommended. prisrob 04-03-08

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