Legacy Recordings Acquires Catalog of Music Legend Van Morrison

Post of the ... forever

 

The plot thickens

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/arts-entertainment/blog/2015/08/31/van-morrison-astral-weeks-reissue/

 

The new THE ESSENTIAL VAN MORRISON double-CD set sports a surprisingly good track list that's sequenced nicely, albeit chronologically, and the remastering job sounds very nice to these ears. This job portends well for any upcoming CD reissues forthcoming via Legacy Recordings ... if they are, in fact, eventually released in that format. It seems to me Legacy's only mentioned digital downloads and a few Deluxe Edition packages as being on the horizon ...

 

It is interesting that on the Irish Times podcast Van says all but one of the songs on Astral Weeks were composed in Belfast. He doesn't say which one. This article states they were written in Cambridge. Part of the mythology, I guess.

FOT: When you came to write those Astral Weeks songs you had been back to Belfast.

VM: Most of them were written in Belfast apart from one.​

 

A Sony Music Japan press release (in Japanese) dated “2015.08.26” details a similar rollout of Van Morrison’s catalogue in Japan during October, with The Essential Van Morrison (SICP-30854/5 4547366251111) scheduled for CD release on October 28th.

http://www.sonymusic.co.jp/artist/VanMorrison/

(Ex.) http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/artist_Van-Morrison_000000000006859/item_The-Essential-Van-Morrison_6599692

 

Posted the below in the Hi-Res download thread - even though it's not Hi-res yet.

Bought the Pono version of Van Morrison's Saint Dominic's Preview. I only have the original USA CD, and it does not use that mastering. I checked online and it's close in Dynamic Range to the remaster from 1997 or so. This new version with a 2015 date has a DR value of 11 but the DR values are not the same as the remaster. I had to convert to apple lossless to get the free TT Dynamic Range Meter to read the files on my Mac. Maybe it's just the 2007 remaster? No idea. See below.

DR Peak RMS Filename
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DR11 -0.19 dB -12.42 dB 01 Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When You Smile).m4a
DR11 -0.16 dB -12.76 dB 02 Gypsy.m4a
DR11 -0.18 dB -13.59 dB 03 I Will Be There.m4a
DR13 -0.36 dB -17.54 dB 04 Listen to the Lion.m4a
DR12 -0.39 dB -14.38 dB 05 Saint Dominic's Preview.m4a
DR10 -0.23 dB -12.55 dB 06 Redwood Tree.m4a
DR13 -0.30 dB -16.46 dB 07 Almost Independence Day.m4a
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Number of files: 7
Official DR value: DR11

 

Now I want to hear Train!

Too bad they aren't including at least some kind of edit of it.

 

Does anyone know whether Legacy intend to reissue any of these albums on vinyl?

 

Me too! I don't know what the run time is with the bonus tracks added and a lack thereof is the only reason I could see for them not including it.

 

I'm hoping these really are new Anesini remasters. I could see Sony saying "look, he remastered them in 2007/2008, that work either sat on a shelf or was put out for a very brief time, so why not use them? It's still a 'new' mastering to most people." But as mentioned, they're overly sharp and compressed, so I hope they start from scratch.

 

Yeah, that was a good read! Seems that's all there is that they have in the vault. But then where does that vocal/guitar only take of The Way Young Lovers Do that was posted in the thread earlier come from or reside? Anyway, I do look forward to the few extra and complete takes on the upcoming expanded edition. I suppose Beside You and Madame George will be well accounted for now between the earliest versions on the Bang cd and as alt takes on the AW expanded edition and Slim Slow Slider and Ballerina will now be complete. It's not like the album is in need of extras but I will be very happy to hear them!

 

Song publisher's demo?

I wonder if there are unique demos of the other AW material in a publisher's file cabinet somewhere. Not sure who was Van's music publisher at the time or if that had been moved in-house to Warner for this album. Couldn't find song publishing info on the older vinyl issues. If it was a Warner-Chappell inside thing, they would have had to work out rights to those songs already recorded for the Bang label.

 

Three are several bootlegs with publisher's demos of AW material, and a whole lot more pre-dating Moondance.

 

Yeah, I've only seen two demo songs from the album, tho, and not sure if they're studio-run throughs to show a producer, or song publishing demos per se, or both.

Anyhow, it's odd they don't make inclusion on this set. And of course the Catacombs recording would have been a wonderful round-out with Peter Wolf liner notes, but I guess that can wait another day.

(They could even bloat the set with a fold-down radio station Mono re-creation)

 

Yeah you're right - Lovers Do and Ballerina, were demoed with Kielbana and Payne in 1968, along with 6 tunes that didn't make the album, such as Bayou Girl.

 

Bayou Girl 'sounds like' to me akin to the AW album with the voice, acoustic guitar, jazz bass playing and sound, and flute. First time I've heard this. Similar with "Hey, Where Are You?" too I guess. That one sounds like another song actually on AW to me though. Not sure which one. The title track maybe?

 

Another reissue campaign?

The last one was abandoned halfway through.

http://www.superdeluxeedition.com/news/van-morrison-astral-weeks-expanded-and-other-news/

 

Yes. The campaign has already arrived digitally except for the deluxe editions and the AW and HSBAC expanded editions. The latter right on time for the ghostly spirits in our ancient haunts for Halloween! On the VAN MO' stairway.

 

We don't even know if there will be CDs. I think at this point vinyl is not in the immediate plans

 

The scheduled Japan release of The Essential Van Morrison is indicated as a Blu-spec (BSCD2) CD.

http://www.sonymusicshop.jp/m/item/itemShw.php?site=S&cd=SICP000030854

 

Yes. Which shows how weird the legend was that Merenstein bestowed/enforced the sound of Astral Weeks by choosing the jazz players to accompany Van, when he had the sound more or less down with his own musicians. Not to take anything away from Richard Davis.

 

At risk of making my opinion irrelevant, I will admit I heard mine via iTunes download...I got the 2 disc comp and St. Dominic's Preview and thought both sounded just great, although a second knock on my opinion is that some of this stuff I only had on cassette and hadn't listened to in a while...

 

He put something up on his website after the Moondance remaster multiple CD set came out blasting WB for releasing it and saying they were ripping him off again just like they did the first time, so I really doubt the story that the release involved a reversion of the rights to him. What was rumored at the time was that he wanted a deal that involved him getting the first 3 WB albums back, but that didn't happen and they released the set without his involvement or permission.

He put something up on his website after the Moondance remaster multiple CD set came out blasting WB for releasing it and saying they were ripping him off again just like they did the first time, so I really doubt the story that the release involved a reversion of the rights to him. What was rumored at the time was that he wanted a deal that involved him getting the first 3 WB albums back, but that didn't happen and they released the set without his involvement or permission.

 

Are you Brian Kennedy?

 

Tremendous



(Tremendous)