The Eternal Kansas City
| "The Eternal Kansas City" | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||||||||
| Single by Van Morrison | ||||||||||
| from the album A Period of Transition | ||||||||||
| A-side | "The Eternal Kansas City" | |||||||||
| B-side | "Joyous Sound" | |||||||||
| Released | 1977 | |||||||||
| Recorded | Autumn 1976/early winter 1977 | |||||||||
| Genre | Folk rock, R&B, gospel | |||||||||
| Length | 5:26 | |||||||||
| Label | Warner Brothers | |||||||||
| Writer(s) | Van Morrison | |||||||||
| Producer(s) | Van Morrison | |||||||||
| Van Morrison singles chronology | ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
"The Eternal Kansas City" is a song by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison. It was the key song on the 1977 album A Period of Transition,[1] and was his first single released since "Gloria" in 1974.
Biographer Howard DeWitt believes that the song makes the listener feel as if in a church, because of the "mystical choir", featured at the beginning of the song: "Excuse me do you know the way to Kansas City?". "Then an almost jump arrangement makes 'The Eternal Kansas City' an excellent rhythm and blues influenced song."[2]
Johnny Rogan describes the song as "The only song on the album where there was evidence of Morrison's mysterious majesty, it blended the lily-white sound of Anita Kerr Singers with strong gospel overtones."[3]
Dr John on the song
Dr John, arranger and musician on A Period of Transition, describes the song as being:
The song that Van got the whole album hooked up around. It was a real deep thing for him to focus on. It goes from a real ethereal voice sound to a jazz introduction and then into a kind of chunky R&B.[1]
Personnel
- Van Morrison: vocal
- Ollie E. Brown: drums
- Marlo Henderson: guitar
- Jerry Jumonville: alto saxophone
- Reggie McBride: bass
- Joel Peskin: baritone saxophone
- Mac Rebennack (Dr. John): piano
- Mark Underwood: trumpet
- Carlena Williams, Paulette Parker, Candy Nash, Toni McVey: backing vocals
Notes
References
- Hinton, Brian (1997). Celtic Crossroads: The Art of Van Morrison, Sanctuary, ISBN 1-86074-169-X
- DeWitt, Howard A. (1983). Van Morrison: The Mystic's Music, Horizon Books, ISBN 0-938840-02-9
- Rogan, Johnny (2006). Van Morrison: No Surrender, London:Vintage Books ISBN 978-0-09-943183-1