Van Morrison - Blowin' Your Mind

1998 CD release

5 bonus tracks - 13 total

Although Van Morrison's first solo album is remembered for containing the immortal pop hit "Brown Eyed Girl," Blowin' Your Mind! is actually a dry run for his masterpiece, Astral Weeks. Songs like "Who Drove the Red Sports Car" look to that song cycle, even as "Midnight Special" nods to Morrison's R&B past. But it's the agonizing "T.B. Sheets" -- all nine-plus minutes of it -- that dominates this record and belies its trendy title and pop association. "T.B. Sheets" takes the blues and reinvents it as noble tragedy and humiliating mortality. It's where Van Morrison emerges as an artist.

by William Ruhlmann