Born To Sing: No Plan B

Born To Sing: No Plan B

• MORRISON VAN BORN TO SING: NO PLAN B

The subtitle of Van Morrison s new album, Born To Sing: No Plan B, indicates the<br>power that music still holds for this living legend. No Plan B means this is not a<br>rehearsal, says Morrison. That s the main thing it s not a hobby, it s real, happening<br>now, in real time. This sense of absolute conviction, which has defined Morrison s<br>revolutionary work for almost fifty years, runs throughout the new record, his thirtyfifth<br>studio album as a solo artist. The ten original songs on Born To Sing, his first<br>new album in four years (the longest he has ever gone between recordings), reveal<br>an artist continuing to test his creative parameters.<br>As Morrison notes, perhaps the most striking thing on the new album is hearing him<br>weigh in on the global financial and economic meltdown on several songs. His sense<br>of outrage at the materialism and greed that have poisoned society first appears in the<br>opening track, the breezy soul strut Open the Door (To Your Heart), when he sings<br> Money doesn t make you fulfilled/Money s just to pay the bills. <br>Born To Sing, recorded live in the studio with a core six-piece band (plus Morrison<br>on piano, guitar, and alto saxophone), extends these musical roots into a signature<br>blend that s impossible to imitate or to categorize. Despite the album s title, Morrison<br>says that he didn t immediately know that he was born to sing. I didn t know it was<br>going to be a job until I was maybe fifteen or sixteen and started working in bands, <br>he says. I was just a kid trying to make my way in life. There was no revelation it<br>doesn t work that way. <br>Ever since then, though, Van Morrison has offered non-stop revelation to fans around<br>the world. With Born To Sing, he responds to a time of crisis with solace and insight,<br>vision and wonder, and incomparable soul that shows what happens when you really<br>do create from the heart, with no Plan B.