Musician John Payne, who played flute and some saxophone on the album, also calls in to the show explain what making it was actually like. Geils Band’s Peter Wolf to Morrison’s childhood out-of-body experiences to the editing of his then-girlfriend Janet Planet to the general madness of Boston in 1968. On our Rolling Stone Music Now podcast, Walsh broke down the unlikely backstory of one of the greatest albums ever made – with influences ranging from the J. Walsh’s excellent recent book Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968 reveals, Morrison actually conceived the album in - of all places - Boston, Massachusetts, where he was essentially hiding out after leaving behind the record deal that yielded “Brown Eyed Girl” the previous year.
If the mystic wanderings of Van Morrison’s 1968 masterpiece Astral Weeks have any geographic setting at all, it’s their creator’s native Belfast, and, of course, the viaducts of his dreams.
