{"id":262508,"date":"2026-01-25T01:13:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T01:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/262508\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T01:13:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T01:13:08","slug":"van-morrison-turns-his-attention-to-the-blues-in-somebody-tried-to-sell-me-a-bridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/262508\/","title":{"rendered":"Van Morrison turns his attention to the blues in Somebody Tried to Sell Me a Bridge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/p>\n

Time is Van Morrison\u2019s great theme, recurring throughout his immense discography of 48 studio albums. Like Bob Dylan, he\u2019s a ceaselessly touring performer whose music has settled into an unvarying groove, like one vast, never-ending song, as if trying to stop \u201cprecious time\u201d from \u201cslipping away\u201d, as he sang in a 1999 single. Unlike Dylan, the illusion of perpetuity is enhanced by his voice, which remains miraculously untouched by the passing years.<\/p>\n

The Belfast singer-songwriter turned 80 last year. The pace of his output has picked up recently. Somebody Tried to Sell Me a Bridge is the seventh studio album that he has released in the 2020s, one less than the total from the previous decade. Fury at time lost to Covid lockdowns spurred an outburst of bad-tempered song-writing in 2021\u2019s Latest Record Project, Volume 1<\/a> and 2022\u2019s What\u2019s It Gonna Take?, but he has simmered down since then.<\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s Remembering Now dwelt on recollections of his initiation into the world of music, like a river obeying \u201cthe deep summons of the sea\u201d, in Charles Dickens\u2019 evocative phrase. This contemplative late-career highlight arrived amid a series of covers albums<\/a> paying tribute to the skiffle and rock and roll songs that influenced him in his youth, a more literal reinterpretation of the past.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Somebody Tried to Sell Me a Bridge continues the sequence. It finds him turning his attention to the blues, the genre that inspired him to start singing as a teenager, barking Leadbelly songs as gruffly as possible while his father and uncle played harmonica. Leadbelly\u2019s \u201cOn a Monday\u201d is among the covers here, scrubbed up into amiable roots music with blues old-timer Taj Mahal on banjo, harmonica and co-vocals. Another venerable guest, Buddy Guy, appears on Willie Dickson\u2019s comically boastful \u201cI\u2019m Ready\u201d and also the classic 12-bar blues of BB King\u2019s \u201cRock Me Baby\u201d.<\/p>\n

There are 20 tracks in all, lasting about 80 minutes. The tempo hardly changes, but the musicianship is first-rate, a companionable medley of walking basslines, honky-tonk keyboards, deft guitar solos and brightly gusting harmonica. Van Morrison slurs, hollers and scats with evergreen force. \u201cMan, if I play my cards right, I can take everything right back to the start,\u201d he cries in his self-penned song \u201cLoving Memories\u201d. The album might not rank among his royal flushes, but it makes for a winning hand.<\/p>\n

\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606\u2606<\/p>\n

\u2018Somebody Tried to Sell Me a Bridge\u2019 is released by Orangefield Records<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-262508","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}