Happy 73rd, Van Morrison!

It's late, and given the time difference between here and Ireland (if that's where he's been celebrating his birthday) this may be a belated wish. Still, I think he'll forgive me, if I express another debt of gratitude for all that his music has done for me since that afternoon in Cambridge, Massachusetts in early September of 1967, when, while savoring my first roast beef with Russian dressing on a bulkie roll (a Boston specialty which I, a newly expat Floridian, had never tried before), I heard "Brown Eyed Girl" on the jukebox.

I've been noting his birthday here for some years, and have always featured clips of him singing his own songs. This year, I'm breaking with that tradition:


Yes, at 72 he had the confidence to cover a Sam Cooke classic, and to do it well.