Healing Game

Newly remastered sound and expanded packaging including lyrics of the 1997 album Healing Game by Van Morrison. The album was recorded in Dublin Ireland. The title song "The Healing Game" is about the tradition of Belfast street singing. Van Morrison in Q magazine said, "People find it incredible when I tell them that people used to sing and play music in the street. I think there's a whole oral tradition that's disappeared. 'Piper At The Gates Of Dawn' follows the children's book, The Wind in the Willows closely and Paddy Moloney plays uillean pipes with Phil Coulter on piano. On "Burning Ground" the singer relives a common scene from his childhood when jute was shipped to Belfast from India

Cranky, sly, dour, ecstatic, Van Morrison treads his own stubborn pilgrimage through blues, jazz, R&B, Celtic rays, and their ineffable junction in his own music. This 1997 album distills the renewed focus on blues and jazz sources that shaped much of his '90s work, noteworthy for its concision--this is one of his leanest, least expository sets in recent years, paring the arrangements down to the guts of the generally fine material. "Rough God Goes Riding" kicks off, an archetypal Morrison anthem that could have fit snugly on Moondance, no mean achievement after all these years, yet consistent with this marathon runner's ability to turn up vivid images and engaging grooves. There's a decided gospel fervor to the interplay of the frontman's salty vocals and his soulful choral partners, never more so than on the sublime title song. --Sam Sutherland