Skiffle Sessions: Live in Belfast 1998
Van Morrison often comes across as brusque and gloomy, which is hardly a bad thing. Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to come up with a more dire album than Morrison's masterwork,Astral Weeks. The brooding Belfast bard tends to lighten up, however, when he's in the company of musical forerunners and peers, as evidenced by 1994'sA Night in San Francisco(withJohn Lee Hooker,Junior Wells, andJimmy Witherspoon) and '96'sTell Me Something: The Songs of Mose Allison(featuringAllison,Georgie Fame, andBen Sidran). Here he reaches back to his skiffle youth, bringing aboardLonnie Donegan(to skiffle whatJames Brownis to funk), trad-jazz bandleaderChris Barber, andDr. Johnfor a performance of '50s favorites. Skiffle, which was a brief craze in those pre-Beatles days, is a resolutely upbeat mating of jazz, blues, and folk, so you find Donegan and Morrison bellowing the lyrically downcast likes of "Frankie & Johnny," "Goodnight Irene," and "It Takes a Worried Man" as if they didn't have a care in the world. The result is an album that some would consider forgettable... if they could only shake those catchy tunes that keep running through their minds.--Steven Stolder