The Ultimate Veedon Fleece Album Review

Any artist with a 50-year career is supposed to hit a few important accomplishments, and if you’re speaking about a talented musician like Van Morrison, the accomplishments start stacking up quickly.

Van Morrison’s ’60s masterwork, ‘Astral Weeks,’ was inspired by his hometown of Belfast, and it required a voyage back to Ireland to summon up his legendary ‘Veedon Fleece’ in the 1970s. ‘Veedon Fleece’ was released in October 1974 and is his eighth studio album. This studio album, highly influenced by Morrison’s Irish background and personal life, has a unique connection with 1968’s ‘Astral Weeks’ as two albums that reflect and complement one other in both direct and indirect ways. Let’s dive deeper into the album.

Inspiration Behind ‘Veedon Fleece’

For Van Morrison, 1973 was a pivotal year. Shortly after the divorce with his wife Janet (Planet) Rigsbee (aka Brown Eyed Girl), he chose to return to Ireland with his fiancée Carol Guida at the time to find meaning for his upcoming album. As per the results, his decision was intelligent, as he composed almost all of the material for ‘Veedon Fleece’ during his three-week stay there.

Approach Towards Lyrics & Music

Morrison created and produced all of the songs on ‘Veedon Fleece,’ with the majority of them penned in his home Ireland in October 1973.

The album has strong bass, acoustic guitar, strings, and flute, with vocals presented with a level of passion and a storytelling approach to the lyrics that is uncommon.

Forgotten Masterpiece

‘Veedon Fleece,’ released a year later, was poorly received by critics as a failed effort to recapture the enchantment of ‘Astral Weeks.’ The album’s score was dubbed “mood music for mature hippies” by Rolling Stone’s Jim Miller, who claimed Morrison’s singing sounded like “a pinched vocal nerve drowning in porridge.”

Needless to say, the response to the songwriter’s comeback to his softer beginnings was less than enthusiastic. ‘Veedon Fleece’ has also been dubbed “Van Morrison’s forgotten masterpiece,” and its impact has rippled through the music of hundreds of musicians for years.

After the release of the album, Morrison took a break from music for the first time in a decade and did not release another album for three years.

One of the main reasons behind ‘Veedon Fleece’s’ unpopularity is due to Morrison, who showed to have little enthusiasm for the album. He has hardly, if ever, performed the songs live, and they are frequently overlooked on Greatest Hits.

With its elegiac tone and intensely personal lyrics, Morrison wasn’t immediately associated with the harmony, love, and rhythm & blues sound that American listeners were accustomed to. This record, more than any other, captures the artist’s true transitional era, which is quite fantastic!

For more Van Morrison album reviews, check out SpoiledCabbage.com. They’re a great album review site with numerous albums for music lovers.

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