There were no singles released from the album. Thankfully, Morrison’s team at Warner’s fell in love with the music Morrison was making: producer Lewis Merenstein has gone on record as saying that he started crying the first time he heard the title track to Astral Weeks.Ģ. In 1968, Morrison was married to Janet Rigsbee and living in Boston, bound to a contract with Bang Records which kept him from recording anything new and effectively left him unable to secure club dates in New York City, but he was still a known commodity thanks to the success of his single “Brown-Eyed Girl.” As such, Warner Brothers approached him about recording for their label, and while it took some fierce wrangling to work through his legal attachment to Bang, they managed to make it happen and signed Morrison. Warner Brothers probably didn’t know what they were getting when they signed Morrison. To celebrate this anniversary, we’ve put together a list of five things that you may or may not know about this classic LP, so give it a read and give the album another listen.ġ. In other words, it’s damned near as perfect an album as exists, and it’s to be cherished.

It was 50 years ago this week that Van Morrison released ASTRAL WEEKS, an album which is to Morrison’s back catalog what PET SOUNDS is to the Beach Boys’ discography.

Van morrison live astral weeks