BEFORE Astral Weeks, before Van the Man, was Van the boy, fronting Belfast's sort of answer to The Rolling Stones.
This triple-disc anthology of Ivan Morrison's teenage first recordings adds up to "the most thorough collection of Morrison's early studio and live performances ever assembled", newly remastered too.
In a nutshell, it corals everything recorded for 1965's The Angry Young Them and the following year's Them Again, plus singles, demos, live sessions, alternative takes and rarities and a new essay by Morrison, who concludes "there's a lot of good stuff here", and he's not wrong.
Not only Gloria, Baby Please Don't Go and Here Comes The Night but here comes the best ever version of Bob Dylan's It's All Over Now, Baby Blue and the burgeoning Morrison writing talent of You Just Can't Win and The Story Of Them Part 1 and 2.
Morrison sounded uncannily close to Mick Jagger, but the burning blues, the searing anger, the restless romantic, the Celtic spirit, were already bursting through.
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