Tupelo Honey

Tupelo Honey is a digitally remastered and expanded edition of Van's 1971 release. Two previously unreleased bonus tracks are 'Wild Night' (alternative extended version) and a jazzy reworking of the traditional 'Down By The Riverside'. The opening sax-fuelled, R&B-infected 'Wild Night" is another joyous, soulful offering which earned Morrison a US Top 30 single. This album is a change from his earlier album of R&B flavour, His Band And Street Choir, into a more luminously pastoral drift typified by the nostalgic Old Old Woodstock.

Van Morrison's "Caledonia soul"--his unique blend of Irish mysticism and spiritual questing, literary allusion and blue-eyed R&B--can be as beautiful and deeply emotional as any music ever made. That's certainly the case on 1971's Tupelo Honey, one of the finest albums of Morrison's long career. Kicking off with the classic "Wild Night," Tupelo Honey is as completely joyous as the normally bitter Van gets, particularly on the title track and the unabashedly grateful, slow-building "You're My Woman," both among the most moving love songs he's recorded. --David Cantwell