That was that performance on those days.' 'That was the whole point of having this particular group of people. 'The approach was spontaneity,' Morrison says. But, perhaps more important, Morrison gave his session players a tremendous amount of creative freedom. Morrison took the unorthodox step of bringing in a cast of accomplished jazz musicians to play on what was ostensibly a pop record - people like drummer Connie Kay of The Modern Jazz Quartet and bassist Richard Davis, who had played with the likes of Eric Dolphy.

'I wanted to do it around the singing, and it had to be kind of jazzy, because that's the way I'm singing it,' Morrison says. Still, to hear Morrison tell it, the final outcome wasn't necessarily the result of some inspired vision. Astral Weeks was spare, sprawling and lyrically demanding. The songs on Astral Weeks were a far cry from the blissful pop of the hit single 'Brown Eyed Girl,' which had been released the previous year. Astral Weeks is about a different way of organizing thought, a different way of organizing music. 'What I loved out of a Rolling Stones song, or even a Bruce Springsteen song, was how tightly constructed they were,' Levy says. And it wasn't long before long Astral Weeks got to him. But he had paid hard-earned cash for it, so he wasn't about to give up. Levy says he didn't like the record - at least not at first. 'I was like, 'What the hell is going on here? Where are the songs? And what is this dude talking about?' Which I still often ask when listening to this record.' This will be great.' The music was unusual - not what I was used to. 'And I thought, 'Big speakers, new record. For his first listen, he says he decided to bring it to the band room at his high school, where there was a massive stereo. Astral Weeks was one of them, so he bought it. When Joe Levy, editor-in-chief of Blender magazine, was in his early teens, he and his friends were on a mission to buy all the five-star records in the original Rolling Stone Record Guide. Originally released in 1968, Astral Weeks has routinely been named in music polls as one of the best records of all time. This week, Van Morrison released Astral Weeks: Live at the Hollywood Bowl, a recording that captures a couple of shows from November in which the singer performed his classic album in its entirety for the first time ever.

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