When His Band and The Street Choir album was released on November 15, 1970, Van was a commercial entity - how he would hate that phrase, but there you go - having hit number 29 in the US Billboard charts with his breakthrough Moondance.
The latter record had seen the light of day earlier that year, on February 28. The uncertainty of the Astral Weeks time appeared to be banished, that sense of work emanating from the lonely bedsit, the artist in the garret, the young man willing to be produced by others. However, by the release of His Band and The Street Choir, Van was a sassy, expressive performer and band-leader, moving expertly across the genres, from R 'n B, to country to bluesy soul, both on Moondance and on this one. Indeed he produced His Band and The Street Choir himself.
The album opens with the punchy, brassy pop of Domino, all percussive excitement. If you heard that at a flat party on Morehampton Road in the mid-seventies - a likely enough eventuality- you would certainly want to dance, no matter who you were.
There is lots of variety in the Van show - I’ve been Working is easily one of the strongest tracks, a funky, ahem, work-out. However, the alternate take, also featured here, is funkier, more passionate, more down home, with the bass high in the mix.
Give Me A Kiss would have suited Elvis Presley around about 1957, while I’ll Be Your Lover Too is an intimate ballad, Van singing, with just acoustic guitars and cymbal brushes. Summer evening melancholia somehow lurks behind the defiant expressions of love. But I always thought it just didn't have enough of a melody.
Blue Money rocks along, like something Van might have recorded with Them. Virgo Clowns has a mandolin and bass clarinet while on the soulful Gypsy Queen he comes on with Curtis Mayfield-style falsetto. If I Ever Needed Someone is first cousin of Stand By Me, while the final track, Street Choir somehow prefigures the great Van song, Caravan - you know the one where he sings Turn it up, your radio, the one he did on The Last Waltz.
This remastered re-issue features the inevitable bonus takes, which boost the total playing time beyond the original 41 minutes and 40 seconds. So you get alternate versions of Call Me Up in Dreamland, Give Me A Kiss, Gypsy Queen, I’ve been Working and I’ll Be Your Lover Too. The alternate Gypsy Queen is fascinating because of a few false starts and Van talking a bit in that soft endearing Belfast accent. His Band and The Street Choir's artwork, incidentally, was designed by Van's then wife, Janet Planet who also wrote an enthusiastic, indeed loving, liner note.
In sum, His Band and The Street Choir is a curious album, self-consciously the sum of its influences - a liitle country, a little soul, a little rock n roll. but it is also elusive, a tower of gold in the distance. Somehow there, but somehow obscured by those more prominent towers, Moondance and Tupelo Honey - that album followed in October 1971.
Paddy Kehoe
