Van Morrison Album "His Band And The Street Choir" (1970 A Capella Version)

Van Morrison is an Irish folk singer-songwriter. Known for his albums Moondance and Astral Weeks, he is famous for going through various musical phases. In 1970 he started to become obsessed with playing around with choral arrangements. He got a gospel choir together that he called his "street choir". He got them together and recorded an album that would eventually be titled His Band And The Street Choir.

Morrison had actually intended this album to be released as an a capella (meaning strictly-vocal-based music) with just him and his choir. After several weeks of recording, he realized that a capella orchestrations were not one of his strong suits. He decided to throw out the a capella versions and add his full band, hence the eventual title. Morrison would eventually grow to loath the extra vocal work and wished he had kept it his usual instrumental formula. Critics strong disagreed, loving the extra vocal work on it.

Because of Morrison's dislike of the material, the extra tracks from the album have never surfaced. Choral enthusiasts have been left disappointed because of this, often sifting through the mountains of bootlegs available from him. To this day, the only person who has apparently heard these tapes are Morrison himself. It is not known if he still holds copies of the original a capella recordings.