Van Morrison Announces New Album & Tour Dates

Legendary performer Van Morrison will issue Roll With The Punches, his 37th studio album, on September 22. Morrison will support the LP with a series of U.S. and U.K. tour dates.

Roll With The Punches finds Morrison recording a set of new self-written songs as well as R&B classics by the likes of Bo Diddley, Mose Allison, Lightnin’ Hopkins and others. Van produced the LP and paired up with a team of collaborators that included Chris Farlowe, Georgie Fame, Jeff Beck, Paul Jones and Jason Rebello.

“From a very early age, I connected with the blues,” Morrison said in a statement. “The thing about the blues is you don’t dissect it–you just do it. I’ve never over-analysed what I do; I just do it. Music has to be about just doing it and that’s the way the blues works–it’s an attitude. I was lucky to have met people who were the real thing–people like John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Witherspoon, Bo Diddley, Little Walter & Mose Allison. I got to hang out with them and absorb what they did. They were people with no ego whatsoever and they helped me learn a lot.

“The songs on Roll With The Punches–whether I’ve written them or not–they’re performance oriented,” Van continued. “Each song is like a story and I’m performing that story. That’s been forgotten over years because people over-analyse things. I was a performer before I started writing songs and I’ve always felt like that’s what I do.” Roll With The Punches is available for pre-order here.

Van Morrison will play HersheyPark Stadium in Hershey, Pennsylvania on September 10 as part of the Outlaw Music Festival. From there, Morrison visits Nashville on September 14 and has four shows set for California in October. The performer then heads to the U.K. for a series of dates that spans November 6 through December 5.

Roll With The Punches Tracklist

1. Roll With the Punches (Van Morrison & Don Black)
2. Transformation (Van Morrison)
3. I Can Tell (Bo Diddley & Samuel Bernard Smith)
4. Stormy Monday/Lonely Avenue (Stormy Monday–T-Bone Walker/Lonely Avenue–Doc Pomus)
5. Goin’ To Chicago (Count Basie & Jimmy Rushing)
6. Fame (Van Morrison)
7. Too Much Trouble (Van Morrison)
8. Bring It On Home To Me (Sam Cooke)
9. Ordinary People (Van Morrison)
10. How Far From God (Sister Rosetta Tharpe)
11. Teardrops From My Eyes (Rudy Toombs)
12. Automobile Blues (Lightnin’ Hopkins)
13. Benediction (Mose Allison)
14. Mean Old World (Little Walter)
15. Ride On Josephine (Bo Diddley)