projects, including the live jazz performances of 1996’s How Long Has This Been Going On, from the same year Tell Me Something: The Songs of Mose Allison, and 2000’s The Skiffle Sessions – Live In Belfast 1998, all of which found Morrison paying tribute to his early musical influences.
In 1997, Morrison released The Healing Game. The album received mixed reviews, with the lyrics being described as “tired” and “dull”, though critic Greil Marcus praised the musical complexity of the album by saying: “It carries the listener into a musical home so perfect and complete he or she might have forgotten such a thing existed.” The following year, he finally released some of his previously unissued studio recordings in a two-disc set, The Philosopher’s Stone. His next release, 1999’s Back on Top, achieved a modest success, being his highest charting album in the US since 1978’s Wavelength. Recent years: since 2000
Van Morrison continued to record and tour in the 2000s, often performing two or three times a week. He formed his own independent label, Exile Productions Ltd, which enables him to maintain full production control of each album he records, which he then delivers as a finished product to the recording label that he chooses, for marketing and distribution.
The album, Down the Road released in May 2002, received a good critical reception and proved to be his highest charting album in the US since 1972’s Saint Dominic’s Preview. It had a nostalgic tone, with its fifteen tracks representing the various musical genres that Morrison had previously coveredncluding R&B, blues, country and folk; one of the tracks was written as a tribute to his late father George, who had played a pivotal role in nurturing his early musical tastes.
Morrison’s next
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