Arriving swiftly on the heels of
Moving on Skiffle,
Accentuate the Positive is certainly a kissing cousin to its 2023 companion: it's another spirited revival of a style that a young
Van Morrison held dear. Despite being titled after the
Johnny Mercer &
Harold Arlen standard,
Accentuate the Positive isn't an ode to the Great American Songbook. It's nominally a celebration of the early days of rock & roll, an era that did see various styles, attitudes, and demographics mingle, so
Morrison's decision to punctuate classics by
Chuck Berry,
the Everly Brothers,
Little Richard, and
Chuck Willis with pop tunes, country hits, and jump blues isn't far afield: all this music was part of the early explosion of rock & roll. Besides,
Van Morrison has never been a rockabilly cat, he's a blues shouter and he plays precisely to those strengths here, leading his band through lively and loving readings of rock & roll oldies, never apologizing for the unabashed nostalgia of the entire enterprise. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine