Tag Archives: Neil Young

November 12: Happy 69th birthday Neil Young

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“I have so many opinions about everything it just comes out during my music. It’s a battle for me. I try not to be preachy. That’s a real danger.”
-Neil Young

“It’s bettet to burn out than to fade away”
― Neil Young

“If you follow every dream, you might get lost.”
― Neil Young

Continue reading November 12: Happy 69th birthday Neil Young

August 19: Neil Young and Crazy Horse released Greendale in 2003

greendale_cover

Greendale is the name of an album, movie and graphic novel by Neil Young. As the twenty-seventh album by Neil Young, Young and Crazy Horse’s Greendale, a 10-song rock opera, is set in a fictional California seaside town. Based on the saga of the Green family, the “audio novel” has been compared to the literary classics of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town and Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio for its complexity and emotional depth in exploring a small town in America.

Greendale combines many themes on corruption, environmentalism and mass media consolidation. The album, concert, film and DVDs have produced a vast divergence of critical opinion ranging from being called “amateur” to being voted as one of the best albums of 2003 by Rolling Stone magazine music critics.

Falling from above:

The CD was originally released with a DVD of live “Neil-only” acoustic performance of the Greendale material from Vicar Street, Dublin, Ireland. In 2004, the CD was released with a new DVD containing a live performance of Neil Young and Crazy Horse. A DVD-Audio version was also released, with both Advanced Resolution Stereo and 5.1 Surround sound mixes, and a video of “Devil’s Sidewalk” from the film. In late 2004, the feature-length DVD with actors lip-synching the material was released.

Continue reading August 19: Neil Young and Crazy Horse released Greendale in 2003

August 12 in music history

August 12: Happy 65th Birthday Mark Knopfler (read more)

…. Actually we are soul mates. As far as guitar playing goes he never steps all over with fancy licks. Yeah, Mark was incredible. He helped make this record in a thousand ways, not only musically, which in itself would have been enough. Brilliant guy, I can’t say enough about him.
~Bob Dylan (Talking about Knopfler part in the making of “Infidels” – July 1983 to Martin Killer)


The most celebrated British guitar hero to emerge in the 1970s and ’80s, Mark Knopfler rose to fame as the leader of Dire Straits, and his songwriting and incisive guitar work played a decisive role in making them an international success story. At a time when punk and new wave were making technique for its own sake seem irrelevant, and metal was taking the guitar solo in noisier and unpredictable directions, Knopfler’s clean but dexterous picking proved there was still room for traditionalism and chops in mainstream rock & roll.
~Mark Deming (allmusic.com)

 Mark Knopfler

 August 12: The late Buck Owens was born in 1929, 85 years ago (read more)

I like Buck Owens’ songs, he’s alright.
~Bob Dylan (to Nat Hentoff, autumn 1965)


And I said, ‘Why not? It’s the truth! Why can’t I say I’m a Beatles fan?’ I used to get criticized for that.
~Buck Owens


I’d like just to be remembered as a guy that came along and did his music, did his best and showed up on time, clean and ready to do the job, wrote a few songs, and had a hell of a time.
~Buck Owens

 buck-owens
 Porter Wayne Wagoner (August 12, 1927 – October 28, 2007) was a popular American country music singer known for his flashyNudie and Manuel suits and blond pompadour.In 1967, he introduced then-obscure singer DollyParton on his long-running television show, and they were a well-known vocal duo throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s.Known as Mr. Grand Ole Opry, Wagoner charted 81 singles from 1954–1983. He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2002.  porter_wagoner
 August 12: Bob Dylan: The 8th and last New Morning recording session in 1970 (read more)

This is a quirky album, from a Dylan not pointing a way for anyone, but from a great artist remaining at his work knowingly in the face of not being creatively on top form in the phenomenal way he had been in the period 1964–68.Warm and abiding, it sounds better and better as the years go by.
~Michael Gray (The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia

 bob dylan new morning
 Old Ways is the fourteenth studio album by Canadian musician Neil Young, released August 12, 1985. Young refers to this album in interviews as Old Ways II, as he had originally planned to release a country album titled Old Ways in 1983. Geffen objected to this, asking Young for a “rock ‘n roll” album, which Young would give them in the form of Everybody’s Rockin’. Old Ways I would have contained many still-unreleased songs, one of which was “Depression Blues”, which appeared on Young’s Geffen-era compilation Lucky Thirteen.  Oldways

Spotify Playlist – August 12

August 8 in music history

August 8: Bob Dylan: Another Side Of Bob Dylan (album) (read more)

“Tom Wilson, the producer, titled it that,” [Another Side of Bob Dylan] “I begged and pleaded with him not to do it. You know, I thought it was overstating the obvious. I knew I was going to have to take a lot of heat for a title like that and it was my feeling that it wasn’t a good idea coming after The Times They Are A- Changin’, it just wasn’t right. It seemed like a negation of the past which in no way was true. I know that Tom didn’t mean it that way, but that’s what I figured that people would take it to mean, but Tom meant well and he had control, so he had it his way. I guess in the long run, he might have been right to do what he did. It doesn’t matter now.”
~Bob Dylan (to Cameron Crowe Sept. 1985)


“His writing and control of atmosphere on songs like ‘To Ramona’ and ‘Spanish Harlem Incident’ come across as early flashes of the creative explosion that he was to go through in 1965–66. A great minor album, and his last solo album until the 1990s.”
~Michael Gray (The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia)

 another side of Bob Dylan
 August 8: Neil Young released “Like A Hurricane” in 1977 (read more)This brilliant song (one of his best) was recorded on November 29, 1975 @ Broken Arrow Ranch, Woodside CA.
It was released as a single on August 8, 1977 & included on the album American Stars ‘n Bars (1977).-
Neil Young – Lead guitar and lead vocals
Frank “Poncho” Sampedro – Stringman synthesizer and background vocals
Billy Talbot – Bass guitar and background vocals
Ralph Molina – Drums and background vocals
Produce by Neil Young, David Briggs & Tim Mulligan.
 Neil Young Like A Hurricane
 August 08: Webb Pierce was born in 1921 (read more)

Webb Pierce was one of the most popular honky tonk vocalists of the ’50s, racking up more number one hits than similar artists like Hank Williams, Eddy Arnold, Lefty Frizzell, and Ernest Tubb. For most of the general public, Pierce — with his lavish, flamboyant Nudie suits — became the most recognizable face of country music..
~Stephen Thomas Erlewine (allmusic.com)

 Webb+Pierce

Joseph Arrington, Jr. (August 8, 1935 – August 13, 1982), better known as Joe Tex, was an American musician who gained success in the 1960s and 1970s with his brand of Southern soul, which mixed the styles of country, gospel and rhythm and blues.

Born in Rogers, Texas, and raised in Baytown, Tex’s career started after he was signed to King Records in 1955 following four wins at the Apollo Theater. Between that year and 1964, however, Tex struggled to find hits and by the time he finally recorded his first hit, “Hold What You’ve Got”, in 1964, he had recorded thirty prior singles that were deemed failures on the charts. Tex went on to have four million-selling hits, “Hold What You’ve Got” (1965), “Skinny Legs and All” (1967), “I Gotcha” (1972), and “Ain’t Gonna Bump No More (With No Big Fat Woman)” (1977).

Tex’s style of speaking over the background of his music helped to make him one of the predecessors of the modern style of rap music.

 joe tex
 David Howell Evans (born 8 August 1961), more widely known by his stage name The Edge (or just Edge), is an Irish musician, songwriter and singer best known as the guitarist, keyboardist and vocalist of the rock band U2. A member of the group since its inception, he has recorded 12 studio albums with the band as well as one solo record. As a guitarist, The Edge has crafted a minimalistic and textural style of playing. His use of a rhythmic delay effect yields a distinctive ambient, chiming sound that has become a signature of U2’s music.  The_Edge_360_Tour_Foxboro_2009

Spotify Playlist – August 08

Neil Young and Crazy Horse and Waterboys Bergen August 1 2014 a report – videos

neil Young bergen 2014 4

 What a night it was!

We, me and my wife Kathrine, drove up to Bergen in warm and sunny weather and the forecasts said that was the way it would be at the venue in the evening as well. The fucker in control of the weather should get a beating. We’ve never been so soaked in our entire lives, and we’ve lived in Bergen for more than 7 years (yeah, I know, we should know better than to trust the weather forecasts in Bergen).

Neil Young selfie 2014

We wouldn’t be wetter if we jumped into the fjord (I tried to hold my mobile-phone still, but to no avail, it rained too hard!).

waterboys_bergen_2014

Waterboys were great, it is always hard to play second fiddle, but they did a good set. If it was a stand-alone gig, with more Waterboys fans it would’ve been a night to remember. Today they were “warm-up” to the main attraction. Mike Scott knew this and at a point he said:

“Normally I play a guitar-solo at this point, but not before Neil Young, do you think I’m crazy?”

When they started Glastonbury Song the heavens opened, at first I was thinking that a guy with a hose stood behind us and soaked us in water, but then I realized that the gods had flushed the skies. We were wet to our underwear in two minutes.

The Waterboys set list:

1. The Whole of the moon
2. We will not be lovers
3. I’m still a freak
4. The Pan within
5. A girl called Johnny
6. Low down in the broom
7. Raggle Taggle Gypsy
8. Mad as the mist and snow
9. Glastonbury song
10. Fisherman’s blues

Neil Young & Crazy Horse

Neil Young & Crazy Horse came on and played Be the rain (not played live in about ten years), it was so fitting, and it seemed like a thing he decided there and then, but I know that the song had been rehearsed at sound check earlier on the tour.  That doesn’t matter, we became the rain, his message soaked in, the stage was set.

We had tickets for last years cancelled show, and we jumped at the opportunity when new a new show was announced. Last years show was cancelled when Frank «Poncho» Sampedros broke his hand. Last night “Poncho” had a great shirt on, it depicted an X-Ray of a hand flipping us the finger.

This night we got the environmental-cowboy Neil Young , he was a rabid preacher and a true force of nature, and he did a tremendous job! We got the guitar wall and we got the tender protester, Neil Young gave us his best.

The highlights of the evening for me was, Love to burn and Tonight’s the night.

Tonight’s the night:

In addition to being a preacher and a guitar-god he did two acoustic numbers, a beautiful Blowing in the wind that drifted into a very good Heart of gold. All good, in fact, all great!

neil young bergen 3

Heart of Gold:

Last I saw Neil Young he gave us a greatest hits set and it was superb, last night he chose more carefully. The Concert had a theme, this time Young had an agenda, he has an important message: we need to save our earth! No less. And it was just as good. He has a treasure-chest of songs, and many of the songs that are kind of underwhelming on record, comes to life in a live setting.

Continue reading Neil Young and Crazy Horse and Waterboys Bergen August 1 2014 a report – videos