It's Too Late to Stop Now (1974)

It's Too Late to Stop Now is a 1974 live double album by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison. It features performances that were recorded in concerts at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, California, the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, and the Rainbow in London, during Morrison's three-month tour with his eleven-piece band, the Caledonia Soul Orchestra, from May to July 1973. Frequently named as one of the best live albums ever, It's Too Late to Stop Now was recorded during what has often been said to be the singer's greatest phase as a live performer.

Volumes II, III, and IV of the album were released as a box-set in 2016, also including a DVD.

Tour and performances

Noted for being a mercurial and temperamental live performer, during this short period of time in 1973, Morrison went on one of his most diligent tours in years. With his eleven-piece band, The Caledonia Soul Orchestra, which included a horn and string section, he has often been said to have been at his live performing peak. The tour was a dynamic musical journey for both Van Morrison and the band. "He wasn't looking to repeat himself. He wanted to create a new show every night." said Jef Labes. Van was changing his phrasing with each performance and would be directing the band with hand gestures onstage. "We could take the songs anywhere Van wanted to take them" said guitarist Platania "Every performance of each song was different". The alternate recordings of songs on the various volumes from the 2016 box-set prove his point.

Morrison said about touring during this period:

"I am getting more into performing. It's incredible. When I played Carnegie Hall in the fall something just happened. All of a sudden I felt like 'you're back into performing' and it just happened like that...A lot of times in the past I've done gigs and it was rough to get through them. But now the combination seems to be right and it's been clicking a lot."

Evidence of his newly invigorated joy in performing was on display during the ending of the over-ten-minute-long dynamic performance of "Cyprus Avenue". When an audience member shouts out, "Turn it on!", Morrison good-naturedly replies, "It's turned on already." At the very end he finished the concert with a final heartfelt, "It's too late to stop now!" giving the album its title (this line first appeared on the song "Into the Mystic").

The concert performances were described by Erik Hage as "sequences of a young soul lion whipping the crowd into a frenzy and then stopping on a dime—teasing out anticipation, rushing, receding, and coaxing every drop out of his band."

Guitarist John Platania says "He had a funeral for a lot of his old songs on stage. With Caledonia, he really got off on performing. There was definitely joy getting onstage at that point. That was a wonderful time for everybody. It was really like a family. Ordinarily, with rock 'n' rollers, jazzers and classical musicians in the band, you'd think it was a three-headed serpent but everybody got along famously."

The performances on the live album were from tapes made at the beginning of the tour in Los Angeles and also in Santa Monica and London. Marco Bario, who attended the opening night concert at The Troubadour, said in Playgirl: "he was exceptional. The mood was right, the audience was receptive, and the music left no comparisons to be made. It was the finest opening night performance by a consummate musician that I have ever witnessed."

The London concerts were the first time he had appeared in that city since performing with Them, six years earlier. The two concerts at the Rainbow Theatre in London were referred to as "the rock event of the year" by critics according to Ritchie Yorke in his biography. The 24 July 1973 London Rainbow concert was the first BBC simulcast broadcast simultaneously on BBC 2 television and Radio 2 stereo so that viewers with strategically sited loudspeakers could enjoy "stereo TV". The broadcast took place on 27 May 1974.

Music

The album mixes songs that inspired Morrison's own musical development, together with some of his own compositions, and allied to a backing band and orchestra (The Caledonia Soul Orchestra), The album performances were reviewed by Myles Palmer of the Times as demolishing "all barriers between the soul, blues, jazz and rock genres". The songs chosen went back to his days with Them with versions of "Gloria" and "Here Comes the Night". His first solo hit "Brown Eyed Girl" was performed but not included on the album until the reissue in 2008. M. Mark called the album "an intelligent selection of songs that draws on six of Morrison's records and five of the musicians he learned from." These musicians were Bobby Bland ("Ain't Nothing You Can Do"), Ray Charles ("I Believe to My Soul"), Sam Cooke ("Bring It On Home to Me"), two songs by Sonny Boy Williamson II ("Help Me" and "Take Your Hands Out of My Pocket") and a cover of a Willie Dixon song, "I Just Want to Make Love to You", which was popularized by Muddy Waters.