Van Morrison: Too Long In Exile

From the Archive: The blues runs through Van Morrison's Too Long In Exile (Polydor), even on the songs that aren't blues.

The blues runs through Van Morrison's Too Long In Exile (Polydor), even on the songs that aren't blues. Around the end of the '70s, Morrison abandoned rock and all its trappings, and went off to make his own music. That music which filled every Morrison album since with the possible exception of his collaboration with the Chieftains, Irish Heartbeat, drew on all of his influences, R and B, jazz, country, but decidedly and deliberately did not rock. Too Long In Exile signifies a change. It may not exactly rock, but it is his funkiest album in well over a decade.