random album review #1...
album: Neil Young
artist: Neil Young
released: January, 1969
The Emperor of Wyoming
The Loner
If I Could Have Her Tonight
I've Been Waiting For You
The Old Laughing Lady
String Quartet From Whiskey Boot Hill
Here We Are In The Years
What Did You Do To My Life?
I've Loved Her So Long
The Last Trip To Tulsa
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This is one of the most underrated albums by a major recording artist. Neil has a lot going on here on his first time out on his own. Anybody who has read the epic "Shakey" knows he essentially was "on his own" by the time Buffalo Springfield were recording their second album, Buffalo Springfield Again. By then, Neil was recording Expecting To Fly with Jack Nitzche and without any other members of the band.
This is a transition album of epic proportions. On the one hand, there are songs that sound like they could have appeared on the last Buffalo Springfield album Last Time Around, specifically If I Could Have Her Tonight, Here We Are In The Years, I've Been Waiting For You and What Did You Do To My Life. Heavy fuzzed and phased electric guitars, in the 1967-1968 Buffalo Springfield style. On the other hand, there are songs that form the cornerstone of Neil's 'new'-at-the-time sound; The Loner, The Old Laughing Lady, I've Loved Her So Long. These contrasting styles of his own signature grungy electric sound established clearly on The Loner and his spare, acoustic style exemplified by The Old Laughing Lady put Neil Young firmly on his own original ground. With The Loner, he broke away from the fuzz-phased electric signature sound established and (over) used by his partner in crime Stephen Stills during their stint in Buffalo Springfield. The electric guitar in Buffalo Springfield's Bluebird is the ultimate example of that tone and overall sound - Rock And Roll Woman, Questions and Special Care are also worth mentioning for the best of that guitar sound. With The Loner, he established the sound he would explore with incredible, almost feverish supernatural results on Cinnamon Girl, When You Dance I Can Really Love, Down By The River and Southern Man.
And then there is the other signature sound - soft, spare and profound. The blueprint songs on this album, The Old Laughing Lady and I've Loved Her So Long would lead - almost instantly, within months - to masterpieces such as Helpless, I Believe In You, Only Love Can Break Your Heart, Tell Me Why, Birds, Don't Let It Bring You Down and After The Gold Rush. To top it all off, there's also the nine and a half minute closing song, the trippy acoustic adventure known as Last Trip To Tulsa, which has got to be the penultimate Neil stream of consciousness song - other than, of course, the beloved metaphorical Will To Love. After not hearing that album in its entirety in several years, I have to say that was a fun listening experience...I think it is time to put on After The Gold Rush.
2 comments:
Songs like "I've Been Waiting for You", "Loved Her So Long", and "Here We Are Now In the Years" have some tortured guitar solos, beautiful melodies and sounds. "Last Trip to Tulsa" is Neil at his most paranoid and rambling.
I always loved the raw feel of this album. Funny how Neil has tried to distance himself from this one.
It's strange, but I came to this record after hearing Harvest, After The Gold Rush and Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, and I only listened to it a few times before heading back to the above mentioned records - but then one night at a party in London I put it on as the moon was going down behind the Regents Canal late into the night and a friend and I just marvelled at the sound of this record, ranging from stark acoustic beauty to Springfieldesque rock and roll to pure out there psychedelic folk - it's a record I still listen to a lot and it makes me realise just how good Neil and Jack were together ...
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