"Have I Told You Lately" b/w "Contacting My Angel"
Released: June 1989
"Whenever God Shines His Light" b/w "I'd Love to Write Another Song"
Released: November 1989
"Orangefield" b/w "These Are the Days"
Released: December 1989
"Coney Island" b/w "Have I Told You Lately"
Released: January 1990

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Chicago Tribune
Encyclopedia of Popular Music
The Rolling Stone Album Guide
The Village Voice	A−

Avalon Sunset is the nineteenth studio album by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison. It was released in 1989 by Mercury Records to both commercial and critical success.

On 9 January 2008, Avalon Sunset was reissued and remastered, featuring an alternative take of "Whenever God Shines His Light" and a version of "When the Saints Go Marching In" with additional lyrics by Morrison.

This album was recorded in England at Woodhall Studio, Eden Studio, Olympic Studio, Westside Studio, and Townhouse Studio. It marked the first appearance with Morrison of Georgie Fame, who played the Hammond organ and also provided backup vocals and helped direct the band. Morrison and Fame would work together for most of the nineties.

The all new songs were rehearsed in two days and then recorded in another two days. Arty McGlynn (the guitarist) remarked about the band's feelings when the sessions ended "we still don't know if it's an album, or maybe a demo for an album." Morrison's reliance on spontaneity was evident on "Daring Night" where he can be heard calling out chord changes "one-four, one-four" (Gmaj to Cmaj) to Roy Jones near the song's ending. The album was previewed at a private concert at Ronnie Scott's club on 24 May 1989.

On Avalon Sunset, Rob Sheffield wrote, Morrison sang about God and love in a scat-influenced style, set against a musical backdrop of mellow folk rock. According to Donald Clarke, the album combined "religiosity and Celtic feeling, a sort of superior New Age music".

The album opens with "Whenever God Shines His Light", issued as a successful single that charted at #20 in the U.K. and was a duet with Cliff Richard. "Contacting my Angel" is actually about a woman's presence not the more heavenly kind. On "I'd Like to Write Another Song" the singer conveys a feeling that writer's block seems to make living not worthwhile and makes a subtle joke by saying if he could only write another song: "In poetry I'd carve it well / I'd even make it rhyme/" but then doesn't by pairing it with "mind".

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Wikipedia