Van Morrison - Blowin' Your Mind

"…As good as that gold CD sounds, this LP reissue sounds better (of course) and better than the original Bang LP, which was bright, hard and not particularly pleasant, though you could hear a great recording under the poor EQ." Music = 8/11; Sound = 10/11 – Michael Fremer, www.musicangle.com

When the "New World" had more or less overcome the "British Invasion" and was just starting to rediscover its own musical roots, Van Morrison, from Belfast, began to feel at home in the U.S. and signed a solo recording contract with the New York producer and songwriter Bert Berns in 1967. Four singles were released, of which the first, "Brown Eyed Girl," was an immediate hit. As though Berns could have foreseen his early death in December 1967, he released Blowin' Your Mind without asking Morrison's consent and so laid the foundation stone for a lengthy discography. This, Morrison's very first album, is full of easy-going songs which reach back to rhythm and blues, but there are also numbers which are filled with weighty apathy – songs which already reveal the characteristic musical genes of someone John Lee Hooker described as, "the greatest white blues singer."