Astral Weeks

Astral Weeks is Van Morrison’s second studio album. The Northern Irish singer-songwriter recorded it at Century Sound Studios in New York over September and October 1968, and Warner Bros. Records released it that November. The music on the album mixes folk, blues, jazz, and classical styles—a sharp turn from Morrison’s earlier pop hits like “Brown Eyed Girl” (1967).

Both the lyrics and the cover art use symbolism that links earthly love with heaven, a theme that would show up often in his later work. Critics have called the lyrics impressionistic, hypnotic, and modernist, and the record itself has been described as a song cycle or concept album. Astral Weeks got little promotion from the label and initially failed to catch on with listeners or reviewers. Over time, its reputation grew sharply, with praise for Morrison’s singing, arrangements, and songwriting.

It came to be seen as one of rock’s greatest and most important albums—though Morrison himself has dismissed that status. The album has appeared on many best-of lists and has had a lasting impact on fans and musicians. Forty years after its release, in November 2008, Morrison performed all eight songs live for the first time at two Hollywood Bowl concerts.

Background

That performance was later released as Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl. At the start of 1968, Morrison was stuck in a contract dispute with Bang Records, which kept him from recording. This followed the sudden death of the label’s founder, Bert Berns. Berns, who had a congenital heart defect, died of a heart attack in a New York hotel room on 30 December 1967.

Before his death, Berns and Morrison had clashed creatively: Berns wanted Morrison to keep making pop, while Morrison wanted to explore new musical ground. Berns’s widow, Ilene Berns, blamed Morrison and the conflict for her husband’s death. She later played down that accusation, but Morrison’s then-girlfriend Janet (Planet) Rigsbee has said Ilene Berns acted vindictively toward Morrison afterward. After Bert Berns died, Ilene Berns inherited his contracts.

Morrison’s annual option on his recording contract came due less than a week after the funeral. Legally tied to Bang, Morrison could not record and also struggled to find performing work in New York, since most clubs avoided booking him, fearing reprisals. (Bert Berns had known ties to organized crime, and those connections still affected artists like Morrison and Neil Diamond who tried to leave Bang, even after Berns’s death.) Ilene Berns then learned that her late husband had failed to file the right paperwork to keep Morrison—still a British citizen—in New York.

She contacted Immigration and Naturalization Service to try to have him deported. Morrison avoided deportation by marrying Janet Rigsbee. The couple moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Morrison found work playing local clubs. He performed with a small electric combo, doing blues numbers and songs from Blowin’ Your Mind! and his Them days.

Two musicians soon left, but Morrison kept the bassist, Tom Kielbania, a student at the Berklee School of Music. Morrison decided to try an acoustic sound, and he and Kielbania started playing coffee houses in the Boston area as an acoustic duo—Morrison on guitar, Kielbania on upright bass. Before this, Morrison had mostly recorded and performed with electric musicians. The acoustic approach gave him “greater vocal improvisation and a freer, folkier feel.” Later, Kielbania heard jazz-trained flautist John Payne sitting in on a jam session.

He invited Payne to the club where he played with Morrison, hoping Morrison would ask him to join. After letting Payne sit in once, Morrison invited him to stay. The trio of Payne, Kielbania, and Morrison performed together for four months. During the weeks they played at the Catacombs, they began shaping the template for Astral Weeks.

Around this time, Warner Bros. Records approached Morrison, hoping to sign him. Their interest likely came from his earlier success with “Brown Eyed Girl,” not from his current acoustic work. Either way, it let Morrison return to the studio.

Warner Bros. had a deal with Inherit Productions, the production arm of Schwaid-Merenstein, founded by manager Bob Schwaid (who worked for Warners Publishing) and producer Lewis Merenstein. Merenstein got a call from Warner Bros. to see Morrison in Boston. He later said that eight or nine producers had gone to hear Morrison, expecting “Brown Eyed Girl,” only to find “it was another person with the same voice.” Merenstein first heard Morrison play at Ace Recording studio.

When Morrison played the song “Astral Weeks” for him, Merenstein recalled, “I started crying. It just vibrated in my soul and I knew that I wanted to work with that sound.” While Merenstein visited Morrison, Schwaid worked to resolve Morrison’s contractual troubles with help from Warner Bros. executive Joe Smith, who eventually signed Morrison to the label. Still legally bound to Bang Records, Morrison would have more issues with them later. For now, Schwaid managed to free him from those obligations under several conditions.