Carnival of Soul

Van Morrison is wasting no time making as much music as he can, as often as he can. More impressive still, he is doing so 56 years after making his recording debut, sustaining a career that has seen him profoundly inspire everyone from Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and Cassandra Wilson to Bob Seger, Counting Crows and Ray LaMontagne.

When the Irish music legend’s three October Southern California concerts were announced in late April, they were billed as “in support of his recent album, ‘The Prophet Speaks’.” Released in late 2018, “Prophet” was — remarkably — Morrison’s fourth new album to come out in a span of just 18 months.

But when the 74-year-old singer-songwriter performs here Tuesday at North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre, “Prophet” may be old news, at least to him.

That’s because, his new album, “Three Chords & The Truth,” is set to be released on Oct. 25. And where “Prophet” followed the template of his two previous albums — “Roll with the Punches” and “Versatile” — in mixing his songs with various blues, jazz and R&B chestnuts by other artists, “Three Chords & The Truth” features 14 new Morrison originals.

His seemingly tireless work pace mirrors the sentiments he expressed in “Raincheck,” a standout song from Morrison’s under-rated 1995 album, “Days Like This.” The lyrics to “Raincheck,” find him declaring I won’t fade away, I won’t fade away / I don’t fade away, I don’t fade away / Unless I want to …

Only one track has thus far been released from “Three Chords,” which will be the 41st studio album of his solo career. Titled “Dark Night of the Soul,” the song is a slow-burning reflection on the hard-earned life lessons that come only with the passing of time. Musically speaking, “Dark” sounds as if it could have fit comfortably on such classic Morrison albums as 1970’s “Moondance” or 1971’s “Tupelo Honey.”

For almost any other performer, releasing a new song that evokes their repertoire of half a century ago suggests they are in a state of artistic stasis and bereft of new ideas, content to churn out pale replications of their past glories.

Celtic Soul man

Morrison, happily, is the rare exception.

That’s because the stirring stylistic template he carved out in the late 1960s and early 1970s — a singular and instantly distinctive blend of folk, blues, jazz, rock, R&B, country, gospel and traditional Irish music, dubbed “Celtic Soul” — has always had a timeless quality.

His best songs sound earthy and worn, fresh and vital, of their time (and before and after it), sometimes all at once. His best albums from any decade are captivating. Like few of his contemporaries, his entire body of work has a through line that unifies both his most and least distinguished pieces.

Morrison has, of course, refined and reconfigured his aural blend over the years. He has done so for better and sometimes for worse.

His 1987 album, “Poetic Champions Compose,” is drenched in smarmy, smooth-jazz affectations and has the bland pop-production sheen that was de rigueur throughout much of that decade. His 1993 album, “Too Long in Exile,” is wildly uneven, as are some of his other releases.

But one listen to his strongest albums — from 1968’s “Astral Weeks” and 1974’s “Veedon Fleece” to 1983’s “Inarticulate Speech of the Heart” and at least a dozen more released before and since — reaffirms Morrison is in a class all his own. Make that a persnickety, if not outright cranky, class of his own.

One of music most notorious curmudgeons, Morrison shuns the spotlight when he’s not on stage and has long regarded stardom as an albatross bolted to his neck. His relationship with his fans — who he keeps at great distance — has been difficult, much like Morrison himself.

By turns cosmic and contrary, enlightened and grumpy, he sings of mystical quests and salvation one moment, then lashes out at slights (real or imagined) the next.

The first verse of “In the Garden,” a song from his 1986 album, “No Guru, No Method, No Teacher,” begins Copycats ripped off my words / Copycats ripped off my songs Copycats ripped off my melody. Then, in a swift and unexpected turn, he sings It doesn’t matter what they say / It doesn’t matter what they do / All that matters is my relationship to you.

Morrison’s best songs address spiritual faith and matters of the heart with equal passion. He delivers some of his lyrics in a stream-of-consciousness style — at times approximating incantation — unique in popular music.

Since leaving his first notable band, the blues-rocking Them, he has collaborated with an unusually broad array of artists. They range from John Lee Hooker, Bob Dylan and former San Diego vocal sensation Gregory Porter to Solomon Burke, jazz organist/trumpeter Joey DeFrancesco and gospel music giant Mavis Staples, who opens Morrison’s Tuesday San Diego concert.

‘It was the standard’

Morrison’s approach to recording, especially in recent years, harks back to an earlier era when songs were mostly cut live in the studio with a minimum of fuss and overdubs. It’s an approach that lets songs breathe, rather than be over-thought and over-done until what made them special in the first place has been slicked up, diluted or lost altogether.

“It was like this when I started,” Morrison told the New Yorker last year, describing his no-frills recording approach. “This is the way jazz and blues artists worked back in the day, the way that country-and-western artists worked. It was the standard.”

Morrison has set an enduring standard of his own. But like Dylan, with whom he toured in 1998 on a memorable triple-bill with Joni Mitchell, the quality of his concerts can vary wildly from year to year and night to night.

I still vividly recall how transcendent Morrison was at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland several decades ago. I also recall how disengaged he seemed during much of his 2010 San Diego Civic Theatre concert, with a band that sounded under-rehearsed and ill-suited to the nuances and spur-of-the-moment twists and turns that characterize Morrison’s best live performances.

That Civic Theatre concert was his first area concert since 1973. Morrison’s performance Tuesday at North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre will be his first San Diego concert since that show at the Civic nine years ago.

His latest band is a two-woman, five-man ensemble. It features Jay Berliner, the veteran jazz and pop guitarist who was featured on Morrison’s 1968 “Astral Weeks” album and re-joined him in 2008 for a pair of Los Angeles concerts that were recorded and released as “Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl.”

While Berliner is back in the fold, Morrison has in recent years turned away from something that had been a constant for much of his life — smoking. To hear him tell it, his singing has improved notably as a result of his kicking his nicotine habit. Recent reviews suggest he is performing with more vocal gusto as a result.

What Morrison does not do, as all but his most casual listeners have long been aware, is perform hits-dominated sets (although he typically includes at least a few of his best-known songs at each concert). Following his muse has long been Van Morrison’s modus operandi, and — to paraphrase the title of his incandescent 1974 live double-album — it’s clearly too late to stop now.

Van Morrison at a glance

Born: George Ivan Morrison on Aug. 31, 1945

First hit: “Gloria,” which he wrote when he was 18 and recorded in 1964 with his then-group Them. It became an instant garage-band classic.

First solo hit: “Brown Eyed Girl” (1967)

First classic album: “Astral Weeks” (1968)

Best-known songs: “Gloria,” “Brown Eyed Girl,” “Tupelo Honey,” “Moondance,” “Into the Mystic,” “Caravan,” “Whenever God Shines His Light On Me,” “Summertime in England,” “Have I Told You That I Love You”

Most inspired full-length collaboration: His sublime 1988 album with The Chieftains, “Irish Heartbeat”

Least inspired full-length collaboration: His ho-hum 2000 album with Linda Gail Lewis (the sister of Jerry Lee Lewis), “You Win Again”

Nicknames: “Van the Man,” “The Belfast Cowboy”

Awards and honors: Inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1993 and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2003; four songs inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame; two Grammy Awards as a solo artist, one for his 1997 collaboration with blues pioneer John Lee Hooker, “Don’t Look Back”

Family: Twice-divorced; one daughter, Shauna Morrison, who performed at the 2018 edition of San Diego’s annual Gator by the Bay festival

Van Morrison, with Mavis Staples

When: 7 p.m. Tuesday

Where: North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre, 3050 Entertainment Circle, Chula Vista

Tickets: $49.50-$260.50, plus service fees;

Online: livenation.com