He also had a philosophy that all songs should sound like La Bamba and made Van change his lyrics from brown-skinned girl to brown eyed girl. Berns wrote such great songs as Twist and Shout (Iseley Brothers, Beatles), Here Comes the Night (Van Morrison and Them), Cry to Me and Everybody Needs Somebody to Love (Solomon Burke, Rolling Stones), Baby Please Come Home (Led Zeppelin) as well as Cry Baby and Piece of My Heart (Janis Joplin). may have demurred on promotion due to Morrison’s contractual problems with Bert Berns’ widow. It was not until 1972 that I heard the songs Astral Weeks and Madame George played on WNEW FM. Actually, I listened to the radio every day during that period. If Astral Weeks received any radio play it must have been on a day that I wasn’t listening. I vividly remember my local NYC FM rock stations playing Van Morrison’s Gloria and TB Sheets often during 1968 – 1969, yet, I never heard anything from Astral Weeks until I saw Van perform a killer version of Cypress Avenue for the PBS program Welcome to the Fillmore East on October 10, 1970, a full eight months after the release of Moondance. To say that Astral Weeks was released with little promotion is an understatement.
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