Morrison keeps his word

Van Morrison

Keep It Simple

Lost Highway

The craggy, weathered head of Van Morrison stares out defiantly, almost bleakly, from the cover of this new CD. Yet the album’s title, “Keep It Simple,” taken together with the photo, seems less like a folksy truism than an edict issuing from an angry god.

True to his word, Mr. Morrison keeps it simple on his latest offering, his first album consisting of all original songs since “Back on Top” in 1999. Like a lot of his late-career work, “Keep It Simple” trades in unadulterated genre music — here it’s blues, gospel, country, rhythm-and-blues and especially soul.

The instrumentation and arrangement are standard issue: organ, backing female vocal and pedal-steel passages give the songs a soulful air. Mr. Morrison’s tenor is the same as it ever was — honeyed with a gravely edge — and despite his 62 years, he can still holler when he needs to.

There’s a smattering of autobiography here. “Don’t Go to Nightclubs Anymore,” a jazzy number that owes a great deal to a Duke Ellington standard with a similar title, is a frank and somewhat ponderous farewell to the lush life, with lyrics like, “I’m not a legend in my own mind/ I don’t need booze to unwind.” The songs “How Can a Poor Boy?” and “School of Hard Knocks” touch on the mercurial nature of fortune, appropriate for an artist whose popularity has been interrupted with occasional bouts of relative obscurity. The direct, injunctive nature of “Keep It Simple” is in keeping with Mr. Morrison’s reputation as an artist who goes his own way.

To my mind, the most interesting track here is “Soul,” a song about soul music that is equal parts definition and mission statement.

By way of comparison, if all a person knew about rock ’n roll were songs that extolled its virtues, chances are he would not hold the genre in high regard. (Consider Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock ’n Roll,” “Rock ’n Roll is Here to Stay” by Danny and the Juniors, Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock ’n Roll” and the execrable Huey Lewis number, “The Heart of Rock ’n Roll”).

As an example of its genre, Mr. Morrison’s “Soul” fares better than these rock chestnuts, but it raises the question of how Mr. Morrison, on the strength of a career spanning five decades and dozens of albums, stacks up against male soul legends such as Marvin Gaye, Percy Sledge, Ray Charles, Curtis Mayfield, Ron Isley, Barry White, Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, and others.

In his manifesto, Mr. Morrison sings “Soul is what you’ve been through/ What’s true for you/ Where you’re going to/ What you’re gonna do.” If this is true, then I suppose Mr. Morrison’s as soulful as he says he is, but to my mind he doesn’t compare favorably to the all-time greats.

Still, devoted fans will find “Keep It Simple” to be as easy and comfortable as a pair of well-worn shoes.