VAN MORRISON : ACCENTUATE THE POSITIVE

  1. You Are My Sunshine
  2. When Will I Be Loved?
  3. Two Hound Dogs
  4. Flip, Flop and Fly
  5. I Want a Roof Over My Head
  6. Problems
  7. Hang Up My Rock and Roll Shoes
  8. The Shape I'm In
  9. Accentuate the Positive
  10. Lonesome Train
  11. A Shot of Rhythm and Blues
  12. Shakin' All Over
  13. Bye Bye Johnny
  14. Red Sails in the Sunset
  15. Sea of Heartbreak
  16. Blueberry Hill
  17. Bonaparte's Retreat
  18. Lucille
  19. Shake Rattle and Roll

Label : Exile Productions / Virgin Records

Release Date : November 3, 2023

Length : 61:41

Review (Louder) : “Rock’n’roll is about simplicity, sincerity and expressive power and there’s no way you can get away from that,” Van Morrison says about his new album of old classics. “That’s why it’s good and that’s why it’s lasted. It’s spirit music.” Accentuate The Positive is a welcome recording from Morrison for a number of reasons. Firstly, his recent albums have, if anything, tended to accentuate the negative, with their occasional diversions into the world of conspiracy theory. Musically, too, they’ve avoided the long, passionate workouts of his best records, leaning heavily on his R&B roots (although those are pretty good roots to lean on). For some it’s a long way from the poetry and mysticism of Morrison’s best work (even if it is still away with the fairies). Still, things in Morrison’s world have always had a tendency to slouch towards Bethlehem in one form or another. Either way, it’s something of a relief that Accentuate The Positive is, purely and simply, a covers album, a collection of songs taken mostly from the middle of the 20th century, arranged in the style of whichever R&B, country or rock’n’roll version means the most to him, and performed with the majestic casualness that only Van Morrison can bring to a song. It’s to his credit – and entirely unsurprising as well – that at no point does Morrison do what most artists do with a record comprised entirely of cover versions, namely to bugger about with them until they are bloated and horrible. Instead he sticks closely to his favourite arrangements, but, being one of the great geniuses of popular music, also manages to make these hairy old oldies his own. There’s a lot of material here, enough to fill a small jukebox, from a gorgeous take on You Are My Sunshine to a fantastic, knee-trembling Shakin’ All Over, and it all works. Morrison is like a guest on a musical chat show, turning these songs into musical anecdotes, perfectly illustrating the music that made him and that inspired him. And the sense of fun which only rarely comes over in his work – songs like The Days Before Rock’n’Roll and Cleaning Windows – is still here in covers of Big Joe Turner’s Flip, Flop And Fly and, perhaps most surprisingly, Chuck Berry’s Bye Bye Johnny. Throughout, Morrison makes old songs sound new and brings the enthusiasm of a teenager to an old man’s record.

Review (iNews) : The past several years have been challenging for fans of Van Morrison. The Belfast bluesman has long exuded an aura of grumpiness: he is to grouchiness what Harry Styles is to dresses and Vogue photoshoots. But he went full Facebook conspiracy theorist during the pandemic. Worse yet, his anti-lockdown sentiments seeped into his music via ranting workouts such as “The Long Con” and “What’s It Gonna Take” (join in if you know the words: “Lockdown is makin’ us crazy/ Freedom is our God-given right”). Accentuate the Positive is thankfully in a more rational register. Following March’s collection of skiffle covers, Moving On Skiffle, the singer’s second album of the year (not counting an instrumental compilation he put out in August) pays homage to the soundtrack of his youth. Growing up in post-war Belfast, Morrison was deeply affected by his early exposure to rock’n’roll and rhythm and blues. His latest LP is an extended “thank you” to the artists who did so much to shape his musical identity. Gratitude is mixed with enthusiasm as he wraps his vocal cords around Johnny Kidd and the Pirates’s “Shakin All Over” and Big Joe Turner’s “Flip, Flop and Fly”. He elsewhere veers into outright giddiness when jousting with Jeff Beck on Johnny Burnette’s “Lonesome Train” (one of Beck’s final recordings prior to his death) and Taj Mahal’s slide guitar on Little Richard‘s “Lucille”. Given the positive vibes, it’s a shame Morrison has nothing new to bring to the material. His tilts at these time-worn classics are so faithful as to verge on karaoke. They stick rigorously to the blueprint of the originals and are distinguished only by Morrison’s iconic mumbling. It’s a relief that Morrison seems to have left behind the argumentative uncle phase of his life and career. At age 78, he surely has at least one great musical triumph left in him – if the Rolling Stones can pull one off, why not Van? But Accentuate the Positive is the sound of an artist spinning his wheels. Fans hoping for a grand artistic rebirth from the blues wizard who conjured Astral Weeks will have to continue waiting.