After Them split in 1966, Van Morrison was in vulnerable limbo when the band’s former producer, New York legend Bert Berns, offered a deal with his Bang Records. Morrison signed without reading the small print and believed he was recording four singles when he laid down eight songs in two days in March 1967. After Brown Eyed Girl became an unexpected US hit that June, he was alarmed to find it opening a whole album called Blowin’ Your Mind, complete with a tacky psychedelic cover.
Finding himself back in New York with no work permit, Morrison’s contract called for more tracks, but he was thrust into legal turmoil after Berns died that December.
After success and his true path came with 1968’s Astral Weeks, Morrison disowned his Bang forays, despite the legend surrounding classic single and harrowing epic TB Sheets.
Ever unpredictable, Van himself supplies affectionate liner notes to Sony’s lavishly repackaged expansion of his brief but seminal Bang experience which, over three CDs, presents the original album, insightful outtakes, rarities and a ‘Contract Obligation Session’, consisting of 31 mischievous acoustic doodles. Maybe that one’s only for completists, but the rest’s an invaluably fascinating document heralding Van Morrison’s flights to come.
