When That Rough God Goes Riding: Listening to Van Morrison

First Edition, 1st printing. Bright, clean & tight copy, unread, in AS NEW condition. "This is someone who can abandon himself. For a Protestant from East Belfast, Van Morrison has a lot of the Holy Ghost in him."--Elvis Costello. "The wild turbulence of his music, mirroring the swings in his popular acclaim, makes Van Morrison one of the most perplexing and mysterious figures in modern music. He willfully resists simple categorization: he is as much a bluesman as a Celtic soul singer, a rock-and-roller as a folk singer, a diva as a balladeer. His greatest songs are at one moment his own, at another his versions of those by others. In WHEN THAT ROUGH GOD GOES RIDING Greil Marcus pursues Van Morrison's particular genius through extraordinary and unclassifiable moments in Morrison's career, beginning in 1965 and continuing in full force to this day. It provides a journey between the transcendent (Marcus has listened to Astral Weeks more than any other album by an artist, never failing to be moved by it) and the wretched (Marcus dismisses seventeen years of Morrison's work as utterly forgettable). The book travels between the high points and sublime dislocations in which the singer reaches an extreme musical threshold, and it leaps the chasms as it tracks perhaps the most enigmatic and revelatory performer of our time. 'Van Morrison,' Greil Marcus once wrote, 'remains a singer who can be compared to no other in the history of modern popular music.' Here he is gloriously celebrated within the unique world of his own invention: his songs and performance." [jacket copy] "This is the book that Van Morrison's artistry has long deserved, and The Man's devotees will celebrate its blend of eloquence, passionate scholarship and soulfulness. WHEN THAT ROUGH GOD GOES RIDING superbly fulfills criticism's primary function: It sends you for the first or 100th time to the works of art on which it muses, better equipped to experience what's always been there."--Cleveland Plain Dealer. "No critical testimonial is more welcome than this assessment of Morrison's work by one of America's most astute cultural critics. Marcus is informed and insightful. Particularly illuminating are his observations on the tensions between Morrison's roles as singer and songwriter, and on Morrison's ongoing 'quest for the yarragh'--fleeting, elusive moments of transcendence. Morrison's volatile idiosyncrasy and diverse oeuvre make his career difficult to appraise, but Marcus convinces us of its singular importance."--Booklist. Pristine & handy hardcover w/brilliant corners & crisp edges, a square & tight binding, wrapped in a sharp, intact jacket; quite presentable.…