Some songs featured on "His Band and the Street Choir" were first recorded for the albums "Astral Weeks" and "Moondance". Morrison rewrote and rearranged them for release on "Street Choir" because the recordings for his new album featured different personnel and instrumentation. The songs on the album, which "Rolling Stone" reviewer Jon Landau believes have a free, relaxed sound to them, borrow from various music genres; the simple lyrics lack the complexity popularly expected from Morrison's work. According to "Pitchfork" journalist Stephen Thomas Erlewine, "Street Choir" eschewed "Moondance"s jazz influences in favor of "soul and gospel, using folk almost as an accent", all the while possessing a "heavy R&B kick". AllMusic contributor Jason Ankeny believed that, without the "overt mysticism" of the singer's previous two records, it was "simply Morrison's valentine to the rhythm and blues that inspired him".