Preaching the gospel of rock'n'roll

Van Morrison has returned to his roots for this new record, a tribute to the 'spirit music' that made him the great artist he is

- Dylan Jones

VAN MORRISON'S voice is so good he could probably sing the official Ulez exemption guidance and make it sound soulful. He's been singing the same way - loud and raucous, soft and low - for 60 years, and somewhat remarkably it hasn't appeared to age.

If you compare the voice on his band Them's version of It's All Over Now Baby Blue from 1966, for instance, to Blue and Green from 2008's Keep It Simple, or compare any recent live performance to his imperious and imperial period with his mighty Caledonia Soul Orchestra in the early Seventies, and you won't notice any change at all. And that is remarkable - more so than even Mick Jagger. The 2023 Van Morrison sounds a lot like the 1964 Van Morrison.

While he obviously no longer looks like the taciturn frontman of the Belfast R&B stalwarts Them, his voice is identical. Just last month he played a barnstorming gig at the Albert Hall - forsaking his greatest hits for a protracted performance of his most recent album, Moving On Skiffle - and for nearly two hours he sounded like a man in the first flush of youth, singing for all the world as though he was going to do it for the rest of his life. But then he's already done that, creating a body of work that in his field is largely unparalleled.

Morrison's voice is not just a thing of great beauty, it's something to be treasured, a rare jewel of a sound.

This week you can hear its latest iteration on Accentuate The Positive, an album in which Morrison returns to one of his childhood passions: rock'n'roll.

Growing up in Belfast shortly after the Second World War, he was inspired by the heady sounds of 20th-century blues and rock'n'roll.