Van Morrison and Paul Simon : two masters release overlooked albums

Paul Simon : Late in the Evening

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In August of 1980 Paul Simon released the soundtrack to the movie One Trick Pony, around the same time the film he starred in hit theaters. Neither can be considered great successes though the project did produce Simon's Grammy nominated US #6 hit "Late In the Evening", a bouncy reminder of his second solo hit single, "Me And Julia Down By The Schoolyard".

Made for $7.5 million, the movie flopped. Simon took full responsibility even promising to pay Warner Brothers back. 

"Once I did Still Crazy. I thought about what ambitious thing I could do next, and I was arrogant enough to think I could so a movie, even though I wasn't prepared to make a movie," he's quoted in the Robert Hilburn biography. "I ended up making a series of bad decisions, and the movie was such a flop that I kin ]d of withdrew and licked my wounds and asked myself what the hell happened there."

As part of his quest for authenticity in the film, he had his own musicians play themselves in the film. Lou Reed even plays a hack producer.

Van Morrison : Satisfied

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Meanwhile Van Morrison released Common One, an album critics lambasted.Graham Locke reviewed it in NME calling it "colossally smug and cosmically dull; an interminable, vacuous and drearily egotistical stab at spirituality". Dave McCullough wrote in Sounds: "For the fan, as I am myself, it's not even possible to romanticize and say that Morrison has lost his way temporarily, so stern and so acute is his departure." Only "Satisfied" harkens back to the simplicity of Van the Man's old hits. There are two tunes here running longer than 15 minutes. 

  The album has been reassessed more recently, years after Lester Bangs wrote "Van was making holy music even though he thought he was, and us rock critics had made our usual mistake of paying too much attention to the lyrics."

While Dylan was hitting us over the head with his born again faith, Van was more subtle. He sings "it ain't why it just is" in "Summertime in England", and that just might be a far more powerful faith statement than anything on Dylans albums.