#REMIND ME OF YOU VAN MORRISON FULL#

Of all the bands, The Doors were among the entranceway to a less kind and more violent world.

#REMIND ME OF YOU VAN MORRISON FULL#

The Sixties were wild and fun but also full of tension and a feeling that everything will collapse spectacularly, and by 1969, you can feel the bummer in the air. Still, all the boys and girls naturally understood the implications. As I got older and found myself in a world of desire, I understood Jim's voice like a siren to surrender your hesitance to be loved in a difficult to articulate manner. When you're twelve or thirteen, hearing a man wearing leather pants, and to me, resembling a Marlon Brando at his most 'Wild One' stance in life, well, it's very impressive for a young tot. What impressed me then as a teenager, and even now, the quality of Morrison's voice and how he relayed the words dramatically and profoundly. Jim Morrison gave the song the perfect theatrical touch. She played the record there when I stayed with her on the weekends. Not only did that album played consistently in our household, but my German Grandmother had the same album. My first aural memory is hearing Lotte Lenya singing that song on an album devoted to the theater songs by her husband, Weil, and Brecht. I remember them doing an extended version of Light My Fire, but I was mostly impressed that they did a version of a Kurt Weil/Bertolt Brecht song Alabama Song. I'm pretty sure that this performance was before their first album came out because it was the first time I heard their music. I can see Van's lips and mouth moving from the audience, but the rest of his body was like a petrified rock. The sounds they were making were brilliant, and the voice of Van was, of course, magnificent. Them, with Van Morrison, was extremely moody, and I got the impression that they were not happy to do a show at three in the afternoon.

I couldn't get enough of Them's Gloria, Here Comes The Night, but especially the creepy and sensual Mystic Eyes. I was either eleven or twelve years old, and for a short time, the Whisky had matinee performances for all ages, as long as they were with an adult. My dad took me to see the band Them at the Whisky on the Sunset Strip. At the height of my teenage years, The Doors were very much part of my landscape. If, like me, you own an early pressing of this LP and committed it to memory, you’ll still find yourself hearing new things on this pressing.I appreciate the band The Doors more than I love them. Instead, they remove the film that on earlier pressings slightly masks the congas on “Come Running,” shimmer of the acoustic guitar on “These Dreams of You,” and texture of the horns on nearly every track. Gray and Hoffman don’t unnaturally push anything forward. But they’re of a piece with the increase in instrumental detail throughout. If you’re accustomed to hearing to the original pressing, the prominence and detail of the bass on this new master may take a couple of plays to digest. The tambourine and “foghorn” effect (created by saxophones and organ) on “Into the Mystic” feel more fully presented here, as do the harmonic details of the strummed acoustic-guitar chords. Van Morrison’s voice also comes across as more three-dimensional on the newer pressing, and the touch of reverb surrounding it slightly more audible than on my 1970 Warner copy. You can even hear the brightness of the guitar strings and breathing behind the flute. John Platania’s acoustic guitar solo on “And It Stoned Me” and Collin Tilton’s flute on the title track sound more realistic. The updated version expands the soundstage and lets instruments and voices come out into the open more than they do on the original, olive-label Warner Brothers pressings. Kevin Gray and Steve Hoffman collaborated on an all-analog master of Moondance for Rhino, and RTI pressed the LP on 180-gram vinyl.

Remind me of you van morrison