Details
Track Listing
1. Goin' Down Geneva
2. Philosopher's Stone
3. In the Midnight
4. Back on Top
5. When the Leaves Come Falling Down
6. High Summer
7. Reminds Me of You
8. New Biography
9. Precious Time
10. Golden Autumn Day
11. Philosopher's Stone - (alternate take, Bonus Track)
12. Valley of Tears - (Bonus Track)
Album Notes
Personnel: Van Morrison (vocals, acoustic guitar, harmonica); Mick Green (acoustic & electric guitars); Pee Wee Ellis (soprano, tenor & baritone saxophones, background vocals); Matt Holland (trumpet); Geraint Watkins (piano, Hammond B-3 organ); Fiachra Trench (piano); Ian Jennings (acoustic bass); Liam Bradley (drums, percussion, background vocals); Bobby Irwin (drums); Brian Kennedy (background vocals).
Recorded at The Wool Hall, Bath, England and Windmill Lane Studios, Dublin, Ireland.
After a few stylistic divergences wherein he tackled jazz standards and the Mose Allison songbook, Morrison returns to solid R&B/pop with BACK ON TOP. His first album for Virgin's blues imprint Pointblank finds him back on the track of albums like THE HEALING GAME, but is curiously (for an album on a blues label) devoid of blues tunes. The notable exception is the up-tempo blues shuffle "Come Down Geneva" that opens the album and finds Van musing about, among other things, the historical relevance of obscure rockabilly singer Vince Taylor.
Much of the rest of BACK ON TOP finds Morrison in a more pastoral, reflective mode, reveling in the natural wonders of the world around him without venturing into the spacey mysticism of his '80s albums. As is the case on several of Van's '90s albums, there's a song detailing the pitfalls of being a cog in the music business wheel; "New Biography" finds the notoriously private singer casting aspersions on the sources contacted for a book about his life. It wouldn't be classic Van if there weren't a little crankiness mixed in with the splendor.
Industry Reviews
Included in CMJ's Triple A '99 Top 5 - ...one of his best releases of his professional life...
CMJ (01/10/2000)
...Morrison's latest dispatch contains some of his most sonically and emotionally accessible music in years...
Entertainment Weekly (03/12/1999)
3 Stars (out of 5) - ...rendered in lively arrangements, are various blues, uptempo tunes and ballads reminiscent of Morrison's most classically minded past work...
Rolling Stone (04/01/1999)
4 stars out of 5 -- [H]ere he's revitalised and firing on all cylinders again.
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