William Blake Exhibition At Tate Britain.

I had a grand day out in London yesterday at the William Blake exhibition at Tate Britain. It was a nice sunny morning when I met my friend Dave at Westbury station and we caught the 10.05 train to London, changing at Salisbury. Once we arrived at Waterloo, we took a taxi for the short journey to Pimlico where we enjoyed a spot of lunch by the river. The pub was the Morpeth Arms which was very pleasant, if somewhat expensive. Then it was time to make our way to the Tate Britain gallery.

It is more than 30 years since I last visited the Tate, that was for a Salvador Dali exhibition and this is only the third time I have been to London for a major exhibition of any sort. The last time was in 1999 for Monet at the Royal Academy. I’m not an expert on art in general or Blake in particular by any means, so don’t be expecting any great insights into Blake from me. What first aroused my interest in Blake is his influence on people I admire, such as Patti Smith, Allen Ginsberg and most especially Van Morrison. I wrote an article about Blake & Van a couple of years ago. You can read it below if you want.

The exhibition has been open since September and I was quite surprised at how busy it still is. It was very warm in there and quite dimly lit to preserve the pictures. The rooms were crowded, and you almost had to queue up to see some of the exhibits. In room 1 almost the first picture I saw was Albion Rose from 1793. I first became aware of this picture when it was used as an album cover by The Strawbs. Quite a few rock bands have used Blake’s work on album covers. Albion is the ancient name for Britain. I think Blake based it loosely on a picture by Leonardo Da Vinci called Vitruvian Man. There were lots of pencil drawings in Room 1 from the time Blake was a student at the Royal Academy.

Room 2 has many examples of Blake’s prints and engravings. Blake actually invented a new form of print making called ‘relief etching’ which allowed him to combine text and pictures and produce his wonderful illuminated little books.

 We shouldn’t forget the help he had from his wife Catherine or Kate as he called her. Without her assistance he couldn’t have produced these tiny little books. It must have been painstaking arduous work. Also, Blake’s work was often very political. He was inspired by revolutions in France & America. If he had been more famous, he might have been thrown in prison as a troublemaker, or alternatively locked up as a lunatic because of his visionary work.

Room 3 has the work from the period when Blake had rich benefactors who bought his paintings and gave him the independence to be as creative as he liked. 

There are illustrations from the Bible, Shakespeare & Milton. Blake often fell out with his patrons, especially William Hayley. I think we were in this room when it was nice to meet up with a fellow Van Morrison fan called Age who had come from the Netherlands for the day to see the exhibition.

Room 4 is work from the period when Blake held his first disastrous exhibitions. He also hoped to create frescoes on a huge scale. These hopes were never realised. There are projections on the wall of what he hoped to produce. There are books in this exhibition such as his illustrations of Night Thoughts by Edward Young and The Grave by Robert Blair. Also, I particularly liked the Elegy In A Churchyard by Thomas Gray illustrations.

Room 5 is called A New Kind Of Man and concerns his last years when he produced such work as his book Jerusalem and he illustrated Dante’s Divine Comedy and the Book Of Job. I think this was one of the happiest periods in his career when he finally got some deserved recognition.

I thought it was a fabulous exhibition. It is huge and for a serious person who wants to study Blake in detail, one visit isn’t enough. I think I was expecting much bigger pictures. I was surprised at how tiny some of the exhibits were. You need a magnifying glass to look at some of them. Painting is only one aspect of Blake’s greatness. He was also a poet and I didn’t attempt to try and read all the text. He was also a free thinker, a visionary and a mystic. If you really want to study Blake in depth its not necessary  to go to exhibitions, but I am very glad I did.

In the shop, because the exhibition ends in a few days they had reduced the posters to only £1.00 which was great.  After the hot stuffy atmosphere inside It was nice to get outside into the fresh January air. We took a leisurely stroll along the river and found a nice pub just past the Houses of Parliament. It was great to have a bit of a sit down. When we left there, it was just a short walk across Westminster Bridge to another pub we knew called The Hole In The Wall. Eventually it was time to head home. That’s when the trouble started. Due to signal failures and cancellations Waterloo station was in chaos with thousands of commuters trying to work out what was going on. Finally, a train to Salisbury was announced and it seemed like the whole world tried to get aboard. It was impossible to get a seat. We had to stand in a packed corridor all the way to Basingstoke. Anyway, we finally got back to Westbury and despite all the hassles with trains I’m really pleased I made the effort to see this wonderful exhibition. PS, Thanks to Dave for taking most of the great pictures.

Ancient Of Days: Van Morrison And William Blake

My  job before I gave up on work was working in a book warehouse. The money was no good but one of the benefits was that I got to read lots of nice books, also I could buy the damaged ones. A few years ago for only £1.00 I got a copy of 'Songs Of Innocence and Of Experience' by William Blake. Its a beautiful little book. The pages are an exact facsimile of Blake's original engravings of 1794. It inspired me to write a little piece on Blake's influence on Van Morrison because as you know Van's albums are strewn with references to Blake.
Let's look at some similarities between the two. Firstly, they were both visionaries. At the age of eight Blake saw a tree filled with angels on Peckham Rye,their bright wings bespangling every bough like stars. Van experienced similar visions as a child in Belfast. Ordinary streets would become diamond studded highways. As Van's music developed into a spiritual journey, he was trying to find out the reason for the childlike visions that he experienced. He wasn't the only musician to have these visions.Bob Dylan and Patti Smith both reported similar things during their early life. Beat poet Allen Ginsberg claimed that Blake used to speak to him as a child. It was maybe reading the Beat writers like Jack Kerouac and Ginsberg that led Van to Blake. When Van discovered the work of Blake he had found a kindred spirit. Both knew there was only a thin veil between the 'real' world to across the bridge to where angels dwell. Both Blake and Van were voracious readers and both were influenced by the Christian mystic Emmanuel Swedenborg although Van may have discovered Swedenborg via Blake. The pair of them are also nature lovers with their lyrics celebrating the pastoral English scene with shepherds and sheep on the hillsides in abundance. Both Van and Blake were obsessed with mysticism and were both mavericks in their field. As hard as it is to fit Blake into any school of art history it is equally hard to fit Van into any genre of music. Van first mentions Blake on the Veedon Fleece album on the track You Don't Pull No Punches But You Don't Push The River.

'Blake and the Eternals, oh standin' with the Sisters of Mercy
Looking for the Veedon Fleece, yeah
William Blake and the Eternals oh standin' with the Sisters of Mercy
Looking for the Veedon Fleece, yeah'.
During this period Van was embarking on a period of heavy reading and self education which is another similarity with Blake in that they were both largely self taught although Blake had been apprenticed to an engraver. Both displayed amazing maturity at a young age as well. Blake first exhibited his paintings at the Royal Acadamy at the age of 23, a similar age to Morrison when he released Astral Weeks in 1968. So who were the Eternals who Van refers to in the lyrics? They can be found in Blakes work Urizen

'Of the primeval priests assum'd power,
When Eternals spurn'd back his religion;
And gave him a place in the north,
Obscure, shadowy, void, solitary.
Eternals I hear your call gladly,
Dictate swift winged words, & fear not
To unfold your dark visions of torment.

The Eternals, also called the Immortals, are the four-fold men who inhabit Eternity and make up the body of Christ, the Eternal Great Humanity. After Veedon Fleece Van disappeared off the scene for about 3 years but he wasn't idle, he was studying all sorts of subjects and in subsequent albums there are dozens of name dropping literary references. Blake makes his return on 1980's Common One album in the epic song Summertime In England.
Did you ever hear about . . .
William Blake,TS Eliot
In the summer
In the countryside
They were smokin'
Summertime in England.
In the same song Van mentions Jesus walking down by Avalon and again this is very Blakean and is probably inspired by Blake's 'Jerusalem', and did those feet in ancient times etc. If any album could be described as Van's Blake album I suppose it might be Sense Of Wonder. One of the tracks takes its title from a Blake painting Ancient Of Days. The song Let The Slave incorporates The Price Of Experience by Blake and where Van sings, 'Everything that lives is holy' is a direct quote of Blake. The song A New Kind Of Man also I believe is the title of a book about Blake but I haven't read it. Blake is name checked again on the Avalon Sunset album on the track When Will I Ever Learn To Live In God.

The sun was setting over Avalon
The last time we stood in the west
Suffering long time angels enraptured by Blake
Burn out the dross innocence captured again
This is a wonderful song and a particular favourite of mine as it reminds me of my own experiences of Glastonbury and the surrounding area. The whole album is very Blakean with its romantic pastoral setting. Blake reappears on Golden Autumn Day on Van's Back On Top album.
Who would think this could happen in a city like this
Among Blakes green and pleasant hills,
And we must remember as we go through September
Among these dark satanic mills.

This time though its a much darker scene as Van relates being the victim of an attempted mugging probably in the city of Bath. You don't need name-checks though to see the influence of William on Van. On the track Checkin' It Out on Wavelength Van tells us that there are spirits and guides along the way who will help us. A lot of people would raise an eyebrow to this but William Blake wouldn't that's for sure. The sad thing for me is that around the mid 90's Van seemed to lose the angel of imagination that was his muse and his interest in mysticism and spirituality generally and his work had suffered as a result. Recently though he has started referring to guardian angels again in his live performances so maybe his interest in spiritual matters has returned. I hope so.

Moondance at 50.

It is a rainy dark Sunday afternoon and I have been listening to Moondance by Van Morrison. The reason is because it was 50 years ago tomorrow on January 27^th, 1970 that it was released, and I consider it one of the greatest albums ever made. I’m listening to the expanded 2-CD version that came out about 5 years ago. One of the CDs is the original remastered album and the other CD is 11 outtakes including previously unreleased songs. There is also a booklet with the original sleeve story by Janet Planet.  It is the original album that I want to talk about. I have dusted off a review that I wrote several years ago and hopefully improved it.

I'm not sure when I first heard Moondance. It might have been when I lived in Wrexham, Wales. I was living in digs at Mrs Bell’s but was never there. I was always at my friend’s house in a village called Ponciau (Pronounced Ponky). I used to go back to Mrs Bell’s on Sunday evenings for tea and because she was getting all this rent for nothing, she used to give me pocket money. Anyway, at Ponciau was this girl called Christine and her boyfriend Dave and he had a copy of Moondance. I remember hearing it also at a party in a farmhouse at Bangor On Dee. It made a nice change from all the psychedelic music of the time. Moondance was real music played by real people on real instruments. I reckon I must have bought this album about six times over the years, often as a birthday present for people to get them into Van.  Astral Weeks reveals its secrets to the listener with repeat playing, but I think Moondance is instantly accessible to the listener. It is packed with some of the greatest songs in popular music which you can get into on first hearing the album. It is a complete change from Astral Weeks. It’s not a string driven Jazzy folky thing, it is more of an R n B soul record with brass, electric guitars and backing singers.

The opening track is And It Stoned Me. As a child Van had mystical experiences and this song is a fine example of that, where a simple thing like two kids on a day out fishing can be filled with a sense of wonder and just the sensation of cold water becomes almost an out of body experience. I know what Van means because the song reminds me of when I was about 10 years old my class went to Peterborough swimming pool with our teacher for swimming lessons. It was an outdoor pool unheated and we all had to jump in the shallow end. The shock of the cold water nearly killed me. It was horrible, I wasn't filled with a sense of wonder I can tell you; I was filled with a sense of being bloody freezing. Anyway, Van had a much more pleasant experience.

The title song Moondance is just about Van's most famous song, along with Brown Eyed Girl and has helped to make him world famous. The amount of times this song is played on BBC Radio 2 must have made him known to millions of people and helped to fill the venues. It has almost become de regueur that he sings it in concert. I have heard him do some pretty bland performances of Moondance and he lets the band all have a solo. However, this is a classic song which shows Van is as great a jazz singer as Frank Sinatra, if not better. I am surprised Frank never recorded this song because it was tailor made for him in my opinion. Van even invents a new word in this song, fantabulous.

If Moondance proved that Van could out do Frank at the jazz singing, then Crazy Love shows that as a soul singer he is the equal of Smokey Robinson or The Rev Al Green or any of those great soul singers. I think it is probably his best love song ever.and his voice has never sounded better than when he delivers this falsetto style. It makes you feel mellow down to your very soul. I notice one of the backing singers on this album is Judy Clay. I remember when I was about 15 buying Private Number by William Bell and Judy Clay, one of my favourite songs in 1968.

The tempo is changed totally for Caravan. This song really comes into its own in live performance. I am particularly thinking of Vans storming rendition in the film The Last Waltz and the sublime extended version on the live It's Too Late To Stop Now album. The version on this album is brilliant, conjuring up images of gypsies around a campfire, radio's and electric lights. If you are listening to it right now TURN IT UP !!! so you know it’s got soul.  

Gypsy images crop up again in Into The Mystic which is one of the greatest songs ever written in the history of popular music. It is perfect, I especially like the term Bonnie Boat. It has occurred to me that it refers to Bonnie Prince Charlie, pretender to the throne who was defeated by the English at the bloody Battle of Culloden in 1756. Whilst on the run he met young Flora McDonald who agreed to help him escape. They escaped in a rowing boat to the Isle Of Skye. Charlie and Flora's flight is immortalised in the traditional Scottish song The Skye Boat Song which Van has recorded recently as an instrumental on his Versatile album. The chorus goes-Speed bonnie boat like a bird on the wing, Onward the sailors cry, Carry the lad that's born to be king, Over the sea to Skye. The similarity to Into The Mystic is uncanny. Ere the bonnie boat was won, as we sailed into the mystic, Hark, now hear the sailors cry, Smell the sea and feel the sky.  At the end Van declares in triumph that It's too late to stop now. After the initial disappointing public response to Astral Weeks Van knew that what he was recording was so good he couldn't be ignored any longer. He had a hit album on his hands and after all his trials and tribulations he had arrived. There was no turning back now.

The first five songs on this album are among the greatest songs ever written, so it is no surprise that the rest of the album doesn't quite reach these heights. That would be asking too much. When you are pitching in at the level of Into The Mystic it becomes difficult.

Come Running is a pleasant upbeat happy song that was released as a single in the USA. These Dreams Of You is another upbeat song with obscure lyrics about Ray Charles being shot down and paying dues in Canada. Van had some strange dreams. Brand New Day is my favourite of the rest. Van had a really hard time after the demise of Them and had a real big struggle to realise his dreams and this song sums up how he felt. With the recording of Moondance he knew he had finally expressed his vision and he was home and dry and it felt like a brand-new day. There is a cover version of this song by Miriam Makeba that I really like. Everyone is the speediest song and has a clavinet intro. I thought it was a harpsichord at first. It is a positive happy song but possibly my least favourite song on the album, but it would be churlish to criticise any song on this album. Glad Tidings is a brassy positive soul song to close the album. The lyrics talk about businessmen talking in numbers and 

strangers making demands which is probably about Van’s suspicions about the music business.

I have enjoyed revisiting Moondance again today. Let's hope that people will still be able to enjoy this great music in another 50 years time.