Van Morrison - Veedon Fleece - what a great album!

My favorite VM album.

 

Veedon Fleece is a beautifully spiritual album. I'm also quite fond of the underrated Common One.

 

I'm going to have to listen to Common One...really is there anything less than a very good Van Morrison album? He set and kept the standard so high...I think if he kept Hymns to the Silence to one lp, it would be just about unbeatable.

 

I love Vendon Fleece, but I can't remember if I have a CD copy or not, I do have the record.
It has a very laid back, Sunday morning kind of music for me.
I also like Common One and Beautiful Vision,
Have you listen to TB Sheets, I love the way the guitar, harmonica and the drums snap on that record. I always play it really loud.

 

Yes, just another excellent album. Again, his stuff is so consistently moving and , well a lot has a common sound without sounding repetitive...I really don't know how to state what I mean (the term inarticulate comes to mind)...sometimes, it seems like one long piece of work developing and unfolding over decades, and I think lots of folks take the recurring excellence for granted. Back to VF, I first tried it last year, and it may just be my favorite. From the first tune, you are in another, simpler, likely better world, for a little while.

 

Mine too. It's one of only a handful of albums I can put on when I need to calm my nerves... and it has never let me down. Right from the first track, "Fair Play," there's an undertow that just pulls me into a particular mood and it soothes me. I absolutely love it.

 

I also love Veedon Fleece. Its that kind of album that transports you to another time and place.

My copy sounds nice. Not so noisy. Made In Germany but dont know when.

 

For me Veedon Fleece is one of the 3 best Van albums,i have listened to it maybe even more than Astral Weeks,it's magical...sometimes i think that time stops when i play Country Fair .

Does anybody knows who played the tamboura or sitar on it?
and what is the real meaning of the word Veedon?
I really like to know.

 

There's a lengthy article on Veedon Fleece in the latest Uncut. I don't have my copy to hand but I think there's some discussion in there on the album's title.

 

Would love to read that (uncut article)...

Thx also to the poster above who shared the pic. Is that the girl van was with at the time..?

 

Carol Guida,she went with him on the trip to Ireland.

 

my second favorite after Astral Weeks

 

Yeah, Carol Guida.

I was interested to read the lyrics in Fair Play were partly about their decision to move to Meadow Way in San Geronimo.

 

My first VM album. Won it in a radio station contest in the fall of '74, along with then-new LPs by Tull, Foghat, Maria Muldaur & Manfred Mann's Earth Band. Still my go-to VM!

 

Sutton House - the location for the album cover shot. A large mansion, overlooking Dublin Bay built in the 1800s. Once the home of the Jameson Whiskey family, it was later a hotel and is now converted into luxury (very expensive) apartments. I grew up just down the road from here....

 

I've got 3 copies of this album. Original CD, Remaster CD and recently acquired 80s German vinyl.

The only song I sometimes find outstays its welcome is You Don't Pull no punches, particularly when he starts singing about Babar the elephant. Otherwise, perfect album.

 

According to the non exhaustive sessionography in Clinton Heylin's book, known outtakes from the original Nov 73 sessions are:
'Cul de Sac' (now released on the 2008 VF issue) and
'Street Theory' (this is a real gem and unfortunatley MIA apart from the 'Laughing In The Wind' cd boot - a later version was released on Philosopher's Stone).

I would guess the version of 'Twilight Zone' also on the 2008 issue is also from the November sessions as it is so close instrumentally to 'Fair Play'.

'Bulbs' and 'Cul de Sac' from the LP were recorded March 74 with a different band which is why they sound out of place, though I still like them.

To get a version of how the LP might have sounded if Van hadn't made that -some say, bizarre - decision to add those two tracks, I would substitute 'Street Theory' for 'Bulbs' and switch the 'Cul de Sac' versions.

 

Thanks for the info

 

I just noticed this post. Happy spring Rob. I owe you an email...

 

Has anyone found a decent used vinyl copy of this, or is the album prone to sound noisy from the start. What I mean is , there is a lot of surface noise on the versions I have tried.

 

You and me both, but some others around here have had better luck apparently.

 

Fwiw, I prefer the Cul de Sac version on the album over the 2008 reissue track and Bulbs (which was the45 off cd) to Street Theory as it appears on Philosopher's Stone. I love Twilight Zone and continue to wonder how it never made it on an album in the 70's.

 

Veedon Fleece is a brilliant album. Among my favorites, along with Common One and Into the Music.

Anyone even remotely interested in reading some very insightful analysis of Van's music should read through the album-by-album threads hosted by curbach and DJ WILBUR in this forum several years ago. Sorry I wasn't here to participate back then.

 

I think Warner Bros. made him add Bulbs, thinking it would be a successful single.

 

I've had another look at the Uncut article and there's a sidebar on the album title. Van says "I haven't a clue what the title means. It's a person's name". It then goes on to say that there's a family called Veedon that shows up in Dublin an early 20th century census.