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''Tupelo Honey'' is the fifth studio album by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison. It was released in October 1971 by Warner Bros. Records. Morrison had written all of the songs on the album in Woodstock, New York, before his move to Marin County, California, except for "You're My Woman", which he wrote during the recording sessions. Recording began at the beginning of the second quarter of 1971 at the Wally Heider Studios, San Francisco. Morrison moved to the Columbia Studios in May 1971 to complete the album. The namesake for the album and its title track is a varietal honey produced from the flowers of the tupelo tree found in the Southeastern United States. The album features various musical genres, most prominently country, but also R&B, soul, folk-rock and blue-eyed soul. The lyrics echo the domestic bliss portrayed on the album cover; they largely describe and celebrate the rural surroundings of Woodstock and Morrison's family life with then-wife Janet "Planet" Rigsbee. ''Tupelo Honey'' received most of its success in America; it charted at number 27 on the ''Billboard'' charts and in 1977 it was certified gold by the RIAA. It failed to reach any of the European or other world-wide charts. The album yielded two hit singles, the hymn-like title track, as well as the R&B-flavored "Wild Night". The third released single, "(Straight to Your Heart) Like a Cannonball", was less successful and did not enter the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. The album received mostly positive reviews from music critics at the time of its release, but Morrison's biographers were less favorable towards it in later years. ==Background== Prior to the ''Tupelo Honey'' recording sessions, Morrison had recorded demo tracks in Woodstock for an upcoming country-and-western album. Some of the tracks planned for this album would appear on ''Tupelo Honey'', but other more traditional country songs like "The Wild Side of Life", "Crying Time" and "Banks of the Ohio" were later deleted. Morrison decided to move from Woodstock when the lease on his house expired and the landlord wanted to move back in. He explained to Richard Williams in ''Melody Maker'' that the release of the documentary film, ''Woodstock'', in 1970 had altered the quaint character of the community: "Everybody and his uncle started showing up at the bus station, and that was the complete opposite of what it was supposed to be." In April 1971, before he began recording on the planned album, Morrison and his family moved to Marin County, California, where his wife Janet Planet had family living close by.〔 Morrison's guitarist at the time, John Platania, told biographer Steve Turner that Morrison "didn't want to leave, but Janet wanted to move out West. He was manipulated into going." The Morrisons' new home was in a rural setting situated on a hillside close to San Francisco amid redwood trees. With the move, Morrison abandoned the idea of a full country album and exchanged some of the intended material for songs he had written earlier. At this point in time, Morrison was under pressure by Warner Bros. Records to produce chart singles and two albums within a year.〔 His previous album, ''His Band and the Street Choir'', had been released in November 1970. In an interview with journalist Sean O'Hagan in 1990, he described this period as being in contrast to the laid back atmosphere pictured on the album cover: "When I went to the West Coast these people (musicians he had been working with in Woodstock ) weren't that available so I had to virtually put a completely new band together overnight to do (Honey'' ). So it was a very tough period. I didn't want to change my band but if I wanted to get into the studio I had to ring up and get somebody. That was the predicament I was in."〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Tupelo Honey」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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