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Pay the Devil | 
 enlarge | Artist: Van Morrison
Label: Lost Highway
Category: Music
List Price: $19.99
Buy Used: $7.40
You Save: $12.59 (63%)
New (23) Used (16) from $7.40
Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 137137
Format: Deluxe Edition
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 2
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 000688710
UPC: 602498580684
EAN: 0602498580684
ASIN: B000FKO5FQ
Release Date: June 27, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
Disc 1
| • | There Stands The Glass | | • | Half As Much | | • | Things Have Gone To Pieces | | • | Big Blue Diamonds | | • | Playhouse | | • | Your Cheatin' Heart | | • | Don't You Make Me High | | • | My Bucket's Got A Hole In It | | • | Back Street Affair | | • | Pay The Devil | | • | What Am I Living For? | | • | This Has Got To Stop | | • | Once A Day | | • | More And More | | • | Till I Gain Control Again |
Disc 2
| • | Playhouse | | • | Till I Gain Control Again | | • | Big Blue Diamonds | | • | This Has Got To Stop | | • | There Stands The Glasss |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
With stunning album-length explorations of jazz and 1950s acoustic skiffle and a country-rockabilly collaboration with Linda Gail Lewis behind him, Van Morrison continues exploring classic country with compelling reinterpretations of standards from the 1950s to the 1970s. He reaches back over half a century for Hank Williams Sr.'s "Half As Much," "Your Cheatin' Heart," and "My Bucket's Got a Hole in It" and Webb Pierce's landmark honky-tonk hits "Back Street Affair," "There Stands the Glass," and "More and More." Moving to the mid-'60s, he capably explores George Jones's "Things Have Gone to Pieces" and Connie Smith's "Once a Day." The 1970s are his limit, however, as he probes Rodney Crowell's "'Til I Gain Control Again." Three Morrison originals blend nicely into this mix, as do two non-country favorites: Chuck Willis's "What Am I Living For" and a gleeful spin on Blue Lu Barker's 1938 jazzy, single-entendre favorite "Don't You Make Me High." Recorded in Ireland with uncluttered hard-country backing, Pay the Devil reiterates Morrison's own musical diversity and flair for making any song his own. --Rich Kienzle NOTE: This deluxe edition includes a five-track DVD, Live in Nashville, recorded at the historic Ryman Auditorium on March 7, 2006. Recommended Van Morrison 
Astral Weeks | 
Moondance | 
It's Too Late to Stop Now | 
Tupelo Honey | 
Into the Music | 
Saint Dominic's Previwe |
About the Artist
There's a reason they call Van Morrison the Belfast Cowboy. Now with Morrison's latest album Pay The Devil, that good reason has resulted in a great new album. From the start, the deeply soulful sounds of the American South helped inspire Morrison to one of the most enduring and consistently impressive careers in music history. For forty-years, he's drawn upon the greats of Rhythm & Blues to create his own distinctive and influential blend of soul and Celtic influences. On Pay The Devil, Morrison explores his inner cowboy more than ever before -- recording a compelling mix of his favorite country compositions as well as a few equally strong originals that more than earn their place among such distinguished company. And just as Morrison's longtime hero Ray Charles did once upon a time on Modern Sounds in Country & Western Music, Morrison has taken some enduring, endlessly relevant songs of the south and somehow made them all his own. Those who have been following Van Morrison for years might praise him for his remarkable range in taking this turn down a country road. Recent years have seen Morrison cover the musical waterfront with recordings that touch upon traditional Irish music, jazz, skiffle and other musical forms that move him. But the secret of Morrison's ongoing artistic success is that he has never followed fashion in the slightest. Rather he continues to be a working musician who simply follows his own soulful muse wherever it may lead him. The outstanding, plainspoken songs on Pay The Devil range from the familiar, like Morrison's impressive take on Hank Williams' "Your Cheating Heart" and Webb Pierce's "There Stands The Glass" to somewhat less familiar Country & Western gems. It is a true tribute to Morrison's genius as a vocal stylist that he can take a song as often covered as "Half As Much" -- recorded over the years by everyone from Hank Williams to Patsy Cline and Emmylou Harris - and manage to make it feel new all over again. He does so by clearly connecting with country's timeless themes of love and loss and life, sin and salvation. Through it all, Morrison proves to be one hell of a fine, subtle straight-ahead country singer in the grand tradition of George Jones. Indeed, one of Pay The Devil's many highlights is Morrison's take on "Things Have Gone To Pieces," a dark gem written by Leon Payne that Jones made famous. Then there's "What Am I Living For?" -- an old Chuck Willis number. Listen to how ! Morrison delivers Rodney Crowell's early masterpiece "Til I Gain Control Again" -- one of the more recent copyrights included here and a standout effort on an album full of them. Yet even among such high standards, Morrison's originals here are among the highlights - including "Playhouse" a sly, infectious song that one wishes the Genius of Soul had lived to record, and the title track - a reflection on making the devil's music and a fine reminder that "one man's meat is another man's poison" To listen to Pay The Devil, one might naturally assume that Morrison has traveled to Nashville and handed himself over to Music City's finest players and producers. Remarkably, Morrison has done nothing of the sort - recording Pay The Devil in Ireland with the same wonderful musicians who have been playing with him for years now with exceptional results. Even more remarkably, it turns out that Morrison has never even been to Nashville before. Regardless of that, he has made a classic album that sounds like Nashville at its finest and stands as tall as anything that's come out of the town in recent years. Pay The Devil is not just great country music, it's great music - whatever country you happen to come from. We've come to expect no less from Morrison. Finally, the Belfast Cowboy has come home.
Album Description
Pay The Devil is comprised of 15 tracks; three of these are originals and 12 are covers of some of Van Morrison's favorite classic country songs, including 'Your Cheatin Heart', 'Things Have Gone To Pieces' and 'Big Blue Diamonds'. Lost Highway. 2006.
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| Customer Reviews:
 great collection - live music is thebest part of it June 1, 2008
Hakim (San Francisco, CA, USA)
this album was released in two separate versions - one at the beginning of the year as a cd only, then one in the fall after one or more concerts that morrison did 'live at the ryman' in nashville. reason? the later version includes a second disk - a dvd of five of the songs done at the ryman.
he covers webb pierce, hank williams, curly williams, leon payne, and rodney crowell, among others - fiften tracks. wow! and he owns 'there stands the glass - he' turned the pierce song from a radio lament into a real scenario...
i only hope that morrison will release a full album of the live ryman recordings, since the studio stuff (while good) seems stiff and almost lifeless compared to his work live... it just does not hold a candle to the cuts from nashville.
if you are gonna buy this album, then i recommend that you spend the few extra bucks and buy the second version.
a side note - i discovered the 'live at the ryman' material via youtube... there were three videos put up earlier in 2008. i thopugh tthe, 'wow, what a clever guy morrison is - putting up a few cuts to get people to buy the album.' i mean, that is what mtv is all about, right? but having the cuts on demand seemed like such a great marketing idea.
i bought the album right away [luckily reading carefully to find the 'plus-dvd' version]. i sent the links to friends, who then bought the album. i got people interested who hadn't listened to the man in years, and he sold a few albums through my viewing that video.
but it turns out that he is not as clever as i had given him credit for being. one night, intending to show the youtube video to a friend, i found a notice that morrison and exile music had put a halt to the playing of the videos - and so cut off a potential source of audience enhancement. i said, 'fooey.'
but it's still a damn good album!
 Drinking album January 17, 2008
Andrew B. Noselli (New Milford, NJ)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
They have this album on the jukebox at the Dog House in Washington Township NJ and it sounds really good there. Several of the sonbgs of Pay The Devil make you want to take a seat at the bar and order two Southern Comforts and two Cherry Cokes. Van Morrison proves here that he cam teach Nashville a thing or two about what country music should sound like in this new century. No schmaltz, vocals should be straightfoward and belched out with aplomb. Some people think Van is a little bit of a hermit; this album shows you just how wrong these people are. Van Morrison shows us instead that he is conscious of his mystic canon of work and we may as well live at a truck stop if we really expect him to re-produce the mythos of his 80s albums onstage.
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