Difficult not to agree with this.
….is not handsome. His voice is not of a particularly pleasant timbre. He refuses to project a phony aura of likeablility, and is likely incapable of projecting a real one. He\’s strange and prickly and inscrutable. It\’s likely that all of the members of the band he\’s playing with are more musically cultivated than he is. Some might be better singers. Hell, the audience probably has dozens of people with more musical chops than he has. He only brings one unusual thing to the table. No one knows what that one thing is; they only recognize it when they encounter it.
Try the CD It’s Too Late To Stop Now, a recoding of a concert about 20 – years ago, if you want the whole Van and nothing but.
Or the concerts I flew to Hollywood to see, on CD and DVD. The WHOLE of ASTRAL WEEKS made the 2nd half, and it was wholly magic.
Same bassist, David Hayes, both times, and the original jazz guitarist from the 1968 recording. Jay Berliner, at Hollywood, and quite often since.
Alan Douglas
is this a quote about Bryan Ferry?
The musical chops thing is weird. He’s been, notoriously, one of the most demanding musical professionals for decades.This is the multi-instrumentalist who can jam with the Chieftains, blending traditional and blues till you don’t know which it is, then play with John Lee Hooker, sharing vocals and taking the guitar part.
Apart from that, yes he can be moody.