Van Morrison should be a worried man. His blues come now from being less relevant than he was when he was hitting the highs of the 1970s. Worried Man Blues, a contaminated pairing of Woody Guthrie and The Carter Family’s lyrics, will get him nowhere close to the top any time soon. Moving on Skiffle will not do that either. Skiffle is as good as dead but Morrison believes he can pioneer its return. Either that or he likes the novelty of shaking the corpse of Lonnie Donegan upside down for spare change. He may need it after those lockdown singles. He is the worried man. He plays the worried song. He is about one looser rhyming hook away from I Come From Alabama With a Banjo On My Knee.
Make no mistake, Morrison still has a solid voice. He has not lost that, just his charm and knack for writing. Deploying a commanding tone with nothing to back it up is a shame. Washed-up, dull skiffle tunes do their best to bring that genre back to the forefront, or at least to the charts. Neither will happen and that is not because skiffle is not a great joy, there is clear, swinging love on Worried Man Blues, but because the childhood love the Astral Weeks powerhouse has for skiffle is still that. Childish. It has not formed into a unique take on the genre nor a contemporary showcase of the classic moving tones of the best in class.
“It takes a worried man to sing a worried song,” it takes an empty man to write an empty song, too. Worried Man Blues is abundant with the Chuck Berry-era of guitar work, those early formations that still sound so crisp and pure. They feel defiled by Morrison, whose work here amounts to nothing more than fumbled, upbeat tempo of having shackles on his feet and being worried in a similar range to his barbaric and hilarious previous album, What’s It Gonna Take?. Working over that with such out-of-touch and dullard lyrics is no doubt to be defended as bringing skiffle back to its original, rebellious form. But those rebellions are long gone. Those embers have burned their last and for Morrison to stuff his latest track full of a period that he was a placeholder for feels like wringing out the last creative juices from the jazz and folk music that inspired him in those early years.
Inspiration makes no appearance on this, a pathetic drubbing of a track with such historied, powerful performers behind it. To think Morrison in his current state can hold himself up to the likes of Guthrie, the Carter family and Lonegan is laughable. His fantasy runs rampant on this piece but the only element of creativity comes from envisioning himself as a man of that power in a contemporary setting. It cannot be, primarily because the chain gang working is skewered, split and defiled by Morrison here, whose inevitable take on this track is basic and primitive. Lacklustre at the best of times even when that piano and drumbeat keep so consistent. Instrumentally sound, but very bland workings from an artist on a hot streak of horror. Moving on Skiffle? Morrison wishes he was.
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I agree that Van’s latest recordings have been flops. Too bad! I’m a long term fan and have loved so much of his work.
The COVID thing about live performances that he and Clapton were going on about was embarrassing. But why am I having a hard time accepting that Van Morrison’s flame has flickered out. It’s not easy and maybe we shouldn’t give up yet.
I’ve never heard Van Morrison sound so brilliant. Totally engaging songs from beginning to end. He’s backed by astounding talent and the show is worth seeing again and again. Ewan Gleadow failed his recorder grade 1 and never recovered
Actually, I was grade six on recorder and grade four on ukelele.