I am not often in the mood for Tonight’s the night. It is too bleak and depressing, all about dead friends. The overall feeling of the album is as black as the cover. Rest in peace Bruce Berry and Danny Whitten.
Often an album is greater than the sum of its parts. For this album it is quite the opposite. The overall feeling I get is mostly sadness or maybe it is melancholy? But, there are some great songs on there nevertheless.
The first studio album after the huge success of “Harvest” has always been a sore toe to me. I missed it when I started to listen to Neil, and then it was not released on cd for a very long time. I have felt that it has been underappreciated by me, and my feelings of guilt is real. Because I really like it. It’s a stellar album.
The whole album has a dreamy feeling. The lyrics are great with the title track in the front row. The world is turnin, I hope it don’t turn away.
Bootlegs have always been a big part of my love for Neil. He has always been good at playing songs in different versions. It may be with different bands, in different genres or moods, performed acoustic or electric and so on. One of the holy grails of Neil boots was “The Joel Bernstein Tapes”. It was a private tape of favourite performances of the acoustic solo parts of The Neil Young and Crazy Horse tour late 1976 recorded from the mixing desk by sound technician Joel Bernstein.
In his Archives Performance Series these old live shows are released in chaotic order. It is a joy to be still alive to be able to experience all these releases. I love it and I give Neil two thumbs up for his generosity. And “Songs for Judy” is one of the better.
In October 1973 Neil Young released the live album “Time fades away”. It was the follow up to the smash hit album “Harvest” from the year before. But as always with Neil he did not pick the easy path and followed “Harvest” up with a similar album. Instead he offered a live album with eight unreleased songs. They were premiered during the Neil Young and the Stray Gators tour following “Harvest”. I have always found “Time fades away” a curiosity more than great. Yeah man, I love it but the songs are somewhat abrasive. Now Neil has released another live-album from the same tour.
This is a way too early album review of Neil’s new album “Colorado”.
Earlier this year news came from Neil Young’s excellent web site that he was going to re-release and expand the 1990 album “Ragged glory” including 40 minutes of unreleased material. A double LP of studio material from the session that brought us one of Neil’s very best albums. I was ecstatic. But we seasoned fans of Neil Young are used to waiting and thus, we are still waiting.
This is such a diverse album with a range of different styles, yet it feels very cohesive. It is the strangest thing. Cohesion via diversity? It all connects in a beautiful way. All the songs feel like they belong. Almost all anyway…
Purple words on a grey background
This is the very first Performance Series to see the light of day. It was released back in 2006, and it’s a glorious vinyl record. Neil and Crazy Horse live at Fillmore East, New York, in March 1970. Neil is joined by the second line-up of Crazy Horse with Danny Whitten, Billy Talbot, Ralph Molina and added Jack Nitzsche on piano. This brief early 1970 tour was the last tour with Danny Whitten who tragically died in 1972.
Continue reading “Neil Young – Live at the Fillmore East (2006)”
