It should come as no surprise that Van Morrison has made an album inspired by skiffle. Van Morrison’s love of skiffle dates back to his childhood. He would hang out at the famed Belfast record store Atlantic Records, where he’d hear early 20th century folk, blues and jazz from the likes of Lead Belly and Jelly Roll Morton. So when he heard Lonnie Donegan’s take on ‘Rock Island Line’ he intuitively understood the music he was creating. Before long, Van Morrison was playing with a skiffle band in school. Several decades on, Van Morrison now revisits his love of the genre with his new album ‘Moving On Skiffle’, which will be released on 10th March 2023.

‘Moving On Skiffle’ finds him taking a homemade style that exploded across Britain in the mid-1950s and infusing it with a level of sophistication and soulfulness that it didn’t always possess the first time around. The 23-track album goes to the heart of the music Van Morrison has inhabited ever since he was six years old, hanging out in the smoky confines of Belfast’s Atlantic Records. It also contains songs that underline, in their messages on the importance of freedom and living on your own terms, his lifetime philosophy. 

TRACK LISTING

Freight Train
Careless Love
Sail Away Ladies
Streamline Train
Take This Hammer
No Other Baby
Gypsy Davy
This Loving Light Of Mine
In The Evening When The Sun Goes Down
Yonder Comes A Sucker
Travelin’ Blues
Gov Don’t Allow
Come On In
Streamlined Cannonball
Greenback Dollar
Oh Lonesome Me
I Wish I Was An Apple On A Tree
I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry
I’m Movin’ On
Cold Cold Heart
Worried Man Blues
Cotton Fields
Green Rocky Road