Let’s continue our Van Morrison birthday party by watching him play “Caravan” with The Band.

“I write songs. Then, I record them. And, later, maybe I perform them on stage. That’s what I do. That’s my job. Simple.”-Van Morrison

I think one of the greatest challenges we have in this lifetime is to stop complicating everything. Simplicity is critical.

Happy birthday, Van!

As we celebrate Van Morrison’s birthday, here he is performing “Into the Mystic.”

I absolutely love this tune and, while I’ve never seen Van play it live, I have seen both The Allman Brothers and The Dead do it in concert.

Happy 65th birthday to the incredible, the phenomenal, the brilliant Van Morrison.

Van is one of my favorite artists, dating back to his days with the band Them, which produced a number of fantastic songs, including “Baby, Please Don’t Go,” “Here Comes the Night” and, of course, the oft-covered “Gloria.”

After Them disbanded, Morrison embarked on a spectacular solo career marked by his characteristic growl and soulful saxophone. Of his approximately forty albums, several appear on my list of Desert Island Discs. Moondance, Tupelo Honey, Wavelength, Live at the Grand Opera House Belfast and the hauntingly hypnotic Astral Weeks all share a special place in my collection.

Few artists have the ability to touch my soul the way Van does, and I’ll be listening to him regularly for as long as I’m on this planet.

Forty-five years ago on this date in Rock and Roll History, Bob Dylan released one of the best albums ever recorded, “Highway 61 Revisited.”

On Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, this Desert Island Disc came in at #4, but it could just as easily have been #1. To me, this one solidified Dylan’s status as an unparalleled lyricist, as he painted vivid pictures with a slew of disturbing and chilling songs brimming with literary references.

The track list reads like a greatest hits, with “”Like a Rolling Stone,” “Ballad of a Thin Man,” “Desolation Row,” “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” and “Queen Jane Approximately. The rest of the tunes are less heralded, but certainly no less appreciated by Dylan afficionados. “Tombstone Blues,” “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry,” “From a Buick 6″ and a brilliant title track make this one of the most listened to discs in my collection.

I used to live a few blocks from Hwy 61 in Iowa, and this cassette was a staple of my roadtrips up and down the Mississippi. “Like a Rolling Stone” is a freakin’ anthem, “Tom Thumb” is my favorite Phil Lesh cover and Dylan was playing “Desolation Row” last summer when I took my tumble and tore up my ankle at Summerfest.

This was the first record where Dylan electrified every track, save for the acoustic closer of “Desolation Row.” In retrospect, it’s hilarious that the folkies were up in arms when Dylan went electric earlier that year.

An interesting side note is that Dylan also recorded “Positively 4th Street” during the sessions for “Hwy 61,” but it was released only as a single until it appeared on “Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits” a couple years later.

Although I was a small child when it was released, I cannot remember a time when I didn’t know this album inside-out.

Thanks Bob. It has brought me phenomenal joy through the years.

I’ve had “Life’s Been Good” from the venerable Joe Walsh stuck in my head since I posted my  Rock and Roll Philosophy interpretation of that lyric a few hours ago, so here’s Joe rockin’ it live with his pals from The Eagles.

One of the all-time great guitar riffs. Joe freakin’ rocks!

“Rock ‘n’ roll is really swing with a modern name. It began on the levees and plantations, took in folk songs, and features blues and rhythm. It’s the rhythm that gets to the kids – they’re starved of music they can dance to, after all those years of crooners.”~Alan Freed

Sounds about right to me.

A bunch of cool stuff on this date in Rock and Roll History that I felt compelled to share:

1959: The Quarrymen were a last minute replacement at the Casbah Coffee Club, and turned it into a regular Saturday night gig.

1964: Roy Orbison released “Pretty Woman,” an absitively tremendous tune.

1965: The Beatles played the Hollywood Bowl. Unfortunately, there were some technical glitches, so none of this show was included in “The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl” album.

1966: The Fab Four played their last concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Unquestionably, the biggest rock & roll disappointment of my life is that I never got to see the Beatles.

1969: Sly and the Family Stone hit #1 with the groovy “Everyday People.”

1970: Neil Young released the Desert Island Disc “After the Gold Rush.” I actually listened to that one a couple times this week and it is sheer brilliance.

1970: The Kinks released one of their classic songs, “Lola.” That’s L-O-L-A, Lola.

1970: John B. Sebastian, Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis, Ten Years After, ELP, The Doors, The Who, Sly and the Family Stone, Melanie & Tiny Tim all played the Isle of Wight concert. Wow!!! That must have been a phenomenal day of music!

Just thought you should know.

Since I just posted my Rock and Roll Philosophy interpretation of the Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour,” here’s Sir Paul McCartney performing it live.

“The magical mystery tour is coming to take you away”~The Beatles

Life is truly a magical mystery tour, unfolding one magical moment at a time. We can never be certain what the tour will bring, which is why it is critical to keep our attention focused in the present. When all of our energy is concentrated in the now, we have the ability to steer ourselves in any direction we choose.

One of the greatest challenges for most of us (and I’m challenged by this on a daily basis) is consistently mastering this current moment. We tend to focus way too much attention on the future and the past. The magical mystery tour is a moment to moment excursion. The past is history, so let it go. The only thing we have any control over is what we do right now, and that will profoundly affect how the tour develops.

Unless we are fully present in this moment, with all its challenges, it is unlikely that we will allow the unfolding of this tour in the manner that we desire AND deserve.

Plan for the future and learn from the past, but, as Garth Algar implored Wayne, “live in the now.”