VAN MORRISON & THE CHIEFTAINS – IRISH HEARTBEAT LP – Nr MINT UK 1988 ORIG

Van Morrison & The Chieftains – Irish Heartbeat
(Mercury Records  1988  MERH124)
Matrix No’s: A2/B2 – UK Pressing

Sleeve in Excellent+ condition
– some rubbing around edges and sticker mark top right corner
Inner Sleeve in Nr MINT condition

Vinyl in Nr MINT condition
(there are some surface marks visible on the vinyl when held up to the light but they don’t affect the sound quality)

Sir George Ivan Morrison, OBE (born 31 August 1945), known as Van Morrison, is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter, instrumentalist and producer. In 2016, Morrison was knighted for his musical achievements and his services to tourism and charitable causes in Northern Ireland.

Known as “Van the Man”, Morrison started his professional career when, as a teenager in the late 1950s, he played a variety of instruments including guitar, harmonica, keyboards and saxophone for various Irish showbands, covering the popular hits of that time. He rose to prominence in the mid-1960s as the lead singer of the Northern Irish R&B band Them, with whom he recorded the garage band classic “Gloria”. His solo career began under the pop-hit oriented guidance of Bert Berns with the release of the hit single “Brown Eyed Girl” in 1967. After Berns’ death, Warner Bros. Records bought out his contract and allowed him three sessions to record Astral Weeks (1968). Even though this album would gradually garner high praise, it was initially a poor seller; Moondance (1970), however, established Morrison as a major artist, and he built on his reputation throughout the 1970s with a series of acclaimed albums and live performances. Morrison continues to record and tour, producing albums and live performances that sell well and are generally warmly received, sometimes collaborating with other artists, such as Georgie Fame and the Chieftains.

Much of Morrison’s music is structured around the conventions of soul music and R&B, such as the popular singles “Brown Eyed Girl”, “Jackie Wilson Said (I’m in Heaven When You Smile)”, “Domino” and “Wild Night”. An equal part of his catalogue consists of lengthy, loosely connected, spiritually-inspired musical journeys that show the influence of Celtic tradition, jazz and stream-of-consciousness narrative, such as the album Astral Weeks and the lesser-known Veedon Fleece and Common One. The two strains together are sometimes referred to as “Celtic soul”. He has received six Grammy Awards, the 1994 Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music, and has been inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

The Chieftains are a traditional Irish band formed in Dublin in November 1962, by Paddy Moloney, Sean Potts and Michael Tubridy. The band had their first rehearsals at Moloney’s house, with Tubridy, Martin Fay and David Fallon. Their sound, which is almost entirely instrumental and largely built around uilleann pipes, has become synonymous with traditional Irish music and they are regarded as having helped popularise Irish music across the world.

Paddy Moloney came out of Ceoltóirí Chualann, a group of musicians who specialised in instrumentals, and sought to form a new band. The group remained only semi-professional up until the 1970s and by then had achieved great success in Ireland and the United Kingdom. In 1973, their popularity began to spread to the United States when their previous albums were released there by Island Records. They received further acclaim when they worked on the Academy Award-winning soundtrack to Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 film Barry Lyndon, which triggered their transition to the mainstream in the US.

The group continued to release successful records throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and their work with Van Morrison in 1988 resulted in the critically acclaimed album Irish Heartbeat. They went on to collaborate with many other well-known musicians and singers; among them Luciano Pavarotti, the Rolling Stones, Madonna, Sinéad O’Connor and Roger Daltrey. The band have won six Grammys during their career and they were given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the prestigious BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in 2002. Some music experts have credited The Chieftains with bringing traditional Irish music to a worldwide audience, so much so that the Irish government awarded them the honorary title of ‘Ireland’s Musical Ambassadors’ in 1989. In 2012, they celebrated their 50th anniversary with the release of their most recent record Voice of Ages.

Irish Heartbeat is the eighteenth studio album by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison and is a collaboration with the traditional Irish musical group The Chieftains, released in 1988. The album was recorded at Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin, Ireland and reached number 18 in the UK album charts.

The album was recorded on dates from September to December 1987 and in January 1988. The Chieftains and Van Morrison had met years before at the Edinburgh rock festival. They joined up in Belfast during Morrison’s No Guru tour and afterwards, Morrison and Paddy Moloney discussed recording an album together during a walk. They each had a list of songs and reached a consensus to cover two of Morrison’s previously released tracks (the title track was one) and the rest from traditional Irish songs.

Recalled Moloney:

I think at that time Van was searching for his Irish roots. It was this man of blues, of rock ‘n’ roll, jazz and more importantly soul, coming home to his Irishness with The Chieftains and the music we’d been playing for so many years. Musically we were going to meet each other half way.

In October 1987 they performed together at Balmoral Studio in Belfast. The concert was broadcast on St. Patrick’s Day in 1988.

Track listing

All songs traditional, arranged by Van Morrison and Paddy Moloney, except as indicated.

Side one

1. “Star of the County Down” – 2:41
2. “Irish Heartbeat” (Morrison) – 3:52
3. “Tá Mo Chleamhnas Déanta (My Match It Is Made)” – 3:31
4. “Raglan Road” (lyrics by Patrick Kavanagh) – 4:43
5. “She Moved Through the Fair” – 4:44

Side two

1. “I’ll Tell Me Ma” – 2:29
2. “Carrickfergus” – 4:23
3. “Celtic Ray” (Morrison) – 3:47
4. “My Lagan Love” – 5:19
5. “Marie’s Wedding” – 3:17

Personnel

• Van Morrison – lead vocals, guitar, drums
• Paddy Moloney – uilleann pipes, tin whistle
• Martin Fay – fiddle, bones
• Derek Bell – harp, keyboards, tiompán
• Kevin Conneff – bodhran, co-lead vocals on “Star of the County Down”, “Tá Mo Chleamhnas Déanta” and “I’ll Tell Me Ma”
• Matt Molloy – flute
• Seán Keane – fiddle
• Ciarán Ó Braonáin – bass
• Mary Black – back-up vocals on “Marie’s Wedding” and “Tá Mo Chleamhnas Déanta”
• Maura O’Connell – back-up vocals on “Marie’s Wedding”
• June Boyce – back-up vocals on “Celtic Ray”, “Irish Heartbeat” and “Marie’s Wedding”