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  1. Great news indeed. The first three albums (or four if you include Blowin’ Your Mind!) are already on Spotify, but strange that the sublime Tupelo Honey isn’t on the list. The other omission on first glance is the album he made with Linda Lee Lewis but I imagine he has had the masters and every copy he could get his hands on buried under several feet of concrete. The release does say they will have a digital roll-out of the ‘full catalogue’ so hopefully these will follow. But Luddite that I am I hope the whole lot will be available on physical release as well as streamed. I need to replace my damaged copies of Hymns to the Silence and Magic Time….

      • Yes, Linda Gail – mashing her up with brother Jerry Lee (and probably being distracted by fond memories of Linda ‘Rocka Doodle Doo’ Lewis).

        I agree, it’s not a bad record, but relations between the two were by all accounts poisonous by the end of the tour together, and Van doesn’t strike me as someone who forgives and forgets…

        • It’s a fabulous album!! Really cannot understand why it got panned. It’s a groove, is what it is, a thumping great Rn’B groove.

          You also need The Philosopher’s Stone, The Story Of Them, and a slew of bootlegs, notably the three-disc Catalog Strays, and the double The Real Philosopher’s Stone.

          I can understand why the bastard got grumpy, though. An almost unbroken string of fine albums, and he gets a lot of snooty criticism.

  4. Both ‘Blowin’ Your Mind’ and ‘T.B. Sheets’ are pictured in the Mojo advert, but not listed on that link.

    Is it me, or do record companies increasingly not really know what they’re releasing or what is already out there?

    ‘Record Collector’ recently had a representative of Universal (or is it Sony?) claiming that the company were unaware that the first two Stones British LPs weren’t available on CD.
    Not too sure if that meant they were going to do anything about it or just not bother.

  6. Excited – Too late to stop now and Poetic Champions in particular for me. Must be CD though – none of that streaming malarkey – its for New Age nutters.

  7. Woo hoo – only just got onto spotify as i work form home now so very handy in front o the computer.

    Period of transition. I rwead a review , maybe here or the old place or amazon but it summed the album up.It’s Saturday you are having a drink, ghetting prepoarations started for dinner -its a grwat record. Up beat, not brooding, Van sings well , big open sound, love the brass.

    Not the top of the class but a good record when you dont want to take life and Van too seriously.

    It was really a jam session and never intended as an album when they started out or so he says

    Excuuuuse me do you know the way to Kansas city????

    • I think collaboration albums work because it’s usually a dilution of what makes that artist good in the first place. Coffee table albums. Also, tribute albums are usually pretty woeful containing largely inferior cover versions.

  10. Emmylou can pull it off so to speak. Her duets albums with Mark Knopfler and Rodney Crowell are excellent but then again her voice is a perfect foil to a male voice.

  11. Tribute albums? Uncertain I agree, but the 2 Van ones are possibly supportive of that view. Vanthology, his songs covered by the essential footnotes of of black american soul music, like Little Milton, is mostly good, but out of print and a bugger to find “elsewhere”. (Let me know if you need a taster) However “No Prima Donna” is pretty iffy, and was actually put together by Van anyway, hence lots of his daughter and lots of sidesmen, including the echolalia man himself, Brian Kennedy. What you gain with Sinead and EC you lose with Phil Coulter and Liam Neeson

  12. Furthermore, Radio Ulster are celebrating the birthday of the sullen soulster with some gusto. The good folk of NI have voted for their 70 fave Van tunes, broadcast yesterday, tonight and tomorrow, a birthday tribute concert on Saturday and a live concert from the man himself from Cyprus Avenue, Belfast on Monday afternoon.
    All available on the wonderful new BBC iplayer

  15. Veedon Fleece is magnificent – one of the very best. But does anyone have any idea why Tupelo Honey isn’t there? Two tracks from it are on the compilation they’ve released but the album, which I love, is notable by its absence. And, weirdly, his last album of original material, Born to Sing: No Plan B is missing from Spotify too although you can buy it as a download.

    Still its great that the rest are there and people who don’t know them can discover these great albums

  16. I know it’s fashionable to go to your corner shop with at least 78,000 songs in your headphones, but wouldn’t it make more sense to put out, say, 6 albums every 6 months?
    Everyone’s clear what is coming out, and when, and every six months Van gets a glut of articles in the music press previewing the next batch.

    This schedule has all the finesse of the disastrous Stones’ 60s reissue campaign in 2002.

    Difficult to know how the ‘Story of Them’ compilation in the 1990s can be bettered, unless there are BBC sessions available.

      • That’s Kevin Conneff the bodhran (Irish drum) player letting the side down as usual. Although even he’s a sprightly 70 years young now.

        Sadly fiddle player Martin Fay (second right) and harpist Derek Bell (far right) have died since that album was released

    • This album is sublime, and in fact it’s actually playing now funnily enough as I’m having a Celtic themed day (coming up Planxty/Sweeney’s Men/Dr Strangely Strange/Horslips).

      I think i tis out of print and hard to get. I was lucky enough to see a Libray copy being sold off for 50p so of course I bagged it there and then

      Slainte Shanti

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