Category Archives: Neil Young

Great albums, Leonard Cohen, List, Neil Young

Best albums of 2012: number 6 to 10

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6. Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Psychedelic Pill

@ first listen this immediately felt like vintage Neil Young… and it still does, especially on the 3 best songs: Ramada Inn, Walk like a Giant and Driftin’ Back. The lenght of these 3 songs combined lands at about 60 min! Long guitar driven songs where Crazy Horse holds the fort while a liberated Neil Young shines in this wonderful noisy landscape. These songs are not as good as the classics Cowgirl In The Sand & Down By The River, but they are close… Ramada Inn is closest.

The other songs on the album are much weaker, but who cares… we got 60 bloody minutes in Neil Young & Crazy Horse heaven!

-Egil

Highlights:

  • Egil: Ramada Inn, Walk like a giant and Driftin’ Back
  • Hallgeir: Ramada Inn, Walk like a giant and Driftin’ Back

 

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7. Bill Fay – Life is people

“There are miracles in the strangest of places”

I didn’t know who Bill Fay was until I heard Life is people, but I’ve since read myself up on this so called “cult-artist”, his music is wonderful. This album is long overdue and it is a great come-back record. Bill Fay’s first album since 1971!..and it is only his third proper release.

This is spritual music, music full of wisdom and serene honesty. It’s as if Van Morrison and Randy Newman decided to make music together. The album is loaded with strong melodies and meditative lyrics.

…and Jeff Tweedy guests.

Melodic, spiritual and a fantastic come-back

– Hallgeir

Highlights:

  • Egil: Never Ending Happening, There is a Valley, Jesus Etc & The Healing Day
  • Hallgeir: The Healing Day, There is a valley, The Coast no man can tell and Jesus,  Etc.

 

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8. Leonard Cohen – Old Ideas

I’ve got no future, I know my days are few
(from “Darkness”)

Mortality, Death & loss mixed with Warm Humor….

I love to speak with Leonard
He’s a sportsman and a shepherd
He’s a lazy bastard
Living in a suit….
(from “Going Home”)

Yearning, spirituality, love, lust, and this heavenly voice (He was 77 when recording the album) that still makes me shiver, his brilliant live-band helps out, this is a Leonard Cohen in top form.

-Egil

Highlights:

  • Egil: Darkness, Going Home & Show Me The Place
  • Hallgeir: Going Home, Anyhow and Darkness

 

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9. Iris Dement – Sings the Delta

“I stopped in the church to pray
it was the middle of the day
and I don’t even know if I believe in God”
– The Kingdom has already come (Iris Dement)

“Iris’s songs talk about isolated memories of life, love and living.”
– John Prine

What a return after 16 years! It is the same theme, love, family, religion, hard life and memories, but Iris Dement it at the top of her game. And her game is at the highest level. The songs are often dark and about death, but at the same time they are achingly beautiful.

Dark traditional country, beautifully sung.

– Hallgeir

Highlights:

  • Egil: The Night I learned how not to pray, Sing the Delta & Before The Colors Fade
  • Hallgeir: The Night I learned how not to pray, Sing the Delta and Morning Glory

 

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10. Calexico – Algiers

Don’t wanna be alone for long
I don’t wanna be on this dark road alone

I read somewhere that Calexico’s music was labeled Tex-Mex Noir, that captures my view on their music to the point. I think Calexico is having a very good period as a band, all albums from 2003’s Feast of Wire have been great. Calexico has relocated to New Orleans for this record, but the band still deftly mixes Americana, mariachi, country, jazz and indie rock to create something instantly recognisable. Thankfully, it sounds like Calexico.

Algiers’ sonic landscape is fascinating, they still manage to evoke a distint feeling of space and place, I get transported to that little bar on the Mexican border, I can still taste the tequila.

Music with a stong sense of place, and they get better and better.

– Hallgeir

Highlights:

  • Egil: Fortune Teller, Epic, Sinner In The Sea
  • Hallgeir: Epic, Fortune Teller and Para

Link to the complete LIST

Music Calendar, Neil Young, Rock

Today: Danny Whitten died in 1972, 40 years ago

“I am not a preacher, but drugs killed a lot of great men.”
– Neil Young (liner notes Decade)

Danny Whitten died 18 November 1972, 40 years ago

Daniel Ray Whitten (May 8, 1943 – November 18, 1972) was an American musician and songwriter best known for his work with Neil Young and Crazy Horse, and for the song “I Don’t Want To Talk About It“, a hit for Rita Coolidge, Rod Stewart and Everything but the Girl.

Songwriter Neil Young, fresh from departing the Buffalo Springfield, with one album of his own under his belt, began jamming with the Rockets and expressed interest in recording with Whitten, Molina and Talbot. The trio agreed, so long as they were allowed to simultaneously continue on with The Rockets: Young acquiesced initially, but imposed a rehearsal schedule that made that an impossibility. At first dubbed “War Babies” by Young, they soon became known as Crazy Horse.

Nils Lofgren – Beggar’s Day (Eulogy for Danny Whitten):

Recording sessions led to Young’s second album, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, credited as Neil Young with Crazy Horse, with Whitten on second guitar and vocals. Although his role was that of support, Whitten sang the album’s opening track “Cinnamon Girl” along with Young, and Whitten and Young played guitar on “Down by the River” and “Cowgirl in the Sand.” These tracks would influence the grunge movement of the 1990s, and all three songs would be counted among Young’s most memorable work, continuing to hold a place in his performance repertoire to this day.


As did so many other rock musicians in the late 1960s, Whitten began using heroin and quickly became addicted. Although he participated in the early stages of Young’s next solo effort, After the Gold Rush, Whitten and the rest of Crazy Horse were dismissed about halfway through the recording sessions, in part because of Whitten’s heavy drug use. Whitten performs on “Oh, Lonesome Me”, “I Believe in You”, and “When You Dance I Can Really Love”. Young wrote and recorded “The Needle and the Damage Done” during this time, with direct references to Whitten’s addiction and its role in the destruction of his talent.

Continue reading Today: Danny Whitten died in 1972, 40 years ago →

Neil Young, video of the day

Video of the day: The Barr Brothers – Don’t Let It Bring You Down (Neil Young)

The Barr Brothers cover Neil Young’s “Don’t Let It Bring You Down” for a Fuel/Friends Music Blog Chapel Session from MeadowGrass Music Festival at La Foret in Black Forest, CO 5/27/12.

Read more at the very good music blog I am fuel, You are friend and see more video and hear more songs form the session.

– Hallgeir