Remembering Van Morrison’s Moondance Album

I was listening to one of my favorite albums the other day Van Morrison's 'Moondance' and realized once againt that this is a great album.
Taking a look back to March of 1970 when it was released and some of what the critics had to say.
According to Rolling Stone magazine review. Van Morrison's music cannot really be imitated, because, what one hears is not style, but personality. Van's powers are clear: his strong gift for melody, his ability to move freely within virtually any sort of contemporary instrumentation, his verbal magic as inventive and literate as Bob Dylan's, and most of all, the authenticity of his spirit.
He opens the album with "And It Stoned Me," a tale of boys out for a day's freedom, standing in the rain with eyes and mouths open, heads bent back: "Oh, the water, let it run all over me..." The sensuality of this song is overpowering, communicated with a classical sort of grace.
A review from Billboard in the spring of 1970 had this to say. Van Morrison's new masterpiece should cure the public of its previous oversight with a more commercial entry, still rich with the soul/folk nuances of this sensitive lrish song surrealist. "Stoned Me," "Caravan" and "These Dreams of You" should bring this unique musical personality to rock and folk lovers.
Here's the opening track.

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