The Eternal Kansas City

"The Eternal Kansas City"
Single by Van Morrison
from the album A Period of Transition
A-side	"The Eternal Kansas City"
B-side	"Joyous Sound"
Released	1977
Recorded	Autumn 1976/early winter 1977
Genre	Folk rock, R&B, gospel
Length	5:26
Label	Warner Brothers
Songwriter(s)	Van Morrison
Producer(s)	Van Morrison
Van Morrison singles chronology
"Gloria" (1974) "The Eternal Kansas City" (1977) "Joyous Sound" (1977)

"The Eternal Kansas City" is a song by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison. It was the key song on the 1977 album, A Period of Transition,^[1] and was his first single released since "Gloria", in 1974.

Biographer Howard DeWitt believes that the song makes the listener feel as if in a church, because of the "mystical choir", featured at the beginning of the song: "Excuse me do you know the way to Kansas City?". "Then an almost jump arrangement makes 'The Eternal Kansas City' an excellent rhythm and blues influenced song."^[2]

Johnny Rogan describes the song as "The only song on the album where there was evidence of Morrison's mysterious majesty, it blended the lily-white sound of Anita Kerr Singers with strong gospel overtones."^[3]

Dr John on the song

Dr John, arranger and musician on A Period of Transition, describes the song as being:

The song that Van got the whole album hooked up around. It was a real deep thing for him to focus on. It goes from a real ethereal voice sound to a jazz introduction and then into a kind of chunky R&B.^[1]

Personnel

• Van Morrison: vocal
• Ollie E. Brown: drums
• Marlo Henderson: guitar
• Jerry Jumonville: alto saxophone
• Reggie McBride: bass
• Joel Peskin: baritone saxophone
• Mac Rebennack (Dr. John): piano
• Mark Underwood: trumpet
• Carlena Williams, Paulette Parker, Candy Nash, Toni McVey: backing vocals

Notes

References

• Hinton, Brian (1997). Celtic Crossroads: The Art of Van Morrison, Sanctuary, ISBN 1-86074-169-X
• DeWitt, Howard A. (1983). Van Morrison: The Mystic's Music, Horizon Books, ISBN 0-938840-02-9
• Rogan, Johnny (2006). Van Morrison: No Surrender, London:Vintage Books ISBN 978-0-09-943183-1