Sir Van Morrison doesn’t enjoy making albums anymore.
The 71-year-old folk singer is gearing up to release his 37th studio album, a blues record called ‘Roll Back The Punches’ – which features the likes of Jeff Beck, ‘Out of Time’ hitmaker Chris Farlowe and regular collaborator Georgie Fame – on September 22.
Despite having amassed a vast back catalogue over the past five decades, Van says he now finds the recording process ”boring”.
Asked if he still believes in releasing records, he told Uncut magazine: ”No, it’s just the way it happens. It’s not an album a year, because ‘Keep Me Singing’ was finished quite a while before it came out.
”I took probably a year to get that one out.
”This one hasn’t taken a year. What was the reason for doing it? I just wanted to record some blues and have – allegedly – some fun. But then it turns into hard work, as it always does.
”I don’t enjoy recording the tracks, but then the mixing and all the rest of it, it’s so boring.
”People would not believe how boring it is. I used to enjoy making albums, but the whole process of doing it now, I don’t enjoy it at all.”
It was not a desire to release another LP, but simply the ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ hitmaker’s aficionado for blues music that led him to make this record.
He explained: ”From a very early age, I connected with the blues. The thing about the blues is you don’t dissect it – you just do it. I’ve never over-analysed what I do; I just do it. Music has to be about just doing it and that’s the way the blues works – it’s an attitude. I was lucky to have met people who were the real thing – people like John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Witherspoon, Bo Diddley, Little Walter & Mose Allison. I got to hang out with them and absorb what they did. They were people with no ego whatsoever and they helped me learn a lot.”
