After the jukebox hits stopped coming after the mid-1970s, Van Morrison became prolific across many genres, even if he sometimes reached beyond his grasp. One of his best latter-day albums, The Healing Game (1997), has been reissued as a three-CD set. Disc one contains the original album plus a handful of B-sides and single versions. Disc two is all bonus tracks, most of them previously unissued. Disc three documents his 1997 concert at Montreux.
The star of the package is The Healing Games’ original set of 10 tracks, which have held up as timeless. The album opens with the majestic “Rough God Goes Riding” whose folky textures and outstanding saxophone solos suggest Music From Big Pink if The Band had recorded in a Soho loft instead of a house near Woodstock. The silken funk of “Fire in the Belly” cushions Morrison’s sharp, accusatory vocals. The Celtic-tinged balladry of “Piper at the Gates of Dawn” flows easily into the gently rollicking following track, the soulful “Burning Ground.” Morrison’s poetic sensibility is evident throughout, as is his knack for customizing his R&B and jazz inspirations into music unmistakably his own. The 10 tracks proceed in no hurry but none outlasts its welcome.
The alternate versions on disc two sound just fine (Morrison must have had his own reasons for rejecting them). Several other songs were unissued at the time of The Healing Games’ release (and would have sounded entirely in place on the album). Five tracks come from a previously unknown session with Carl Perkins, a stripped-down set of rockabilly and blues performed in a ’50s jump blues/R&B context. The Montreux disc finds Morrison exercising his jazz vocalist chops before an appreciative audience.
