What’s Wrong With This Picture? (2003)

What’s Wrong With This Picture? (2003)

This 2003 entry into Van’s voluminous catalog is beautifully written and arranged, but so willfully anachronistic as to beg the question of whether Morrison truly wished that music had stopped entirely in 1962. The slow burning, six-minute title track is a gorgeously curated piece of white soul – profoundly lovely, but nearly too familiar in its Everly-Brothers-meet-Mose-Allison execution. Meanwhile, a mid-tempo version of the standard “Saint James Infirmary” feels almost completely perfunctory – fun for the singer no doubt, but lending next to no new insight to this much performed chestnut. What IS great is the spirited collaboration with Lightnin’ Hopkins “Stop Drinking”, which ambles gamely into this otherwise staid occasion with the irascible charm of the neighborhood hobo spiking the punch. What’s wrong with this picture is there ain’t a lot more of that!