My buddy Will turned me on to this CD shortly after it dropped in 2006, & it's been my favorite Neil Young album ever since. This live set (taken from headlining shows on March 6th & 7th, 1970) is the source of "Come On Baby Let's Go Downtown" on Tonight's the Night. From the beginning, the live recording is rawer & more exciting than the studio versions on Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, from which half of these songs are taken. Guitars are more distorted, voices are hoarser, the whole band is competing to be heard over each other in the smoky club. The vocal harmonies on the opening track "Everybody Knows This is Nowhere" sound sedate & poppy on the studio version; here they are aggressive & confrontational. Neil Young is often cited as one of the forefathers of punk & grunge, but you don't really hear it in the studio albums until you listen to something like this. (I've never had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Young in concert but Tod, the owner of this blog, has. Perhaps he'll use the comment section to chime in & back me up.)
As a result of this, to quote Deep Purple, "everything louder than everything else" approach, rhythm guitarist Danny Whitten's backing vocals often drown out Neil's leads, especially on the first 2 tracks. Legendary Laurel Canyon scene producer Paul Rothchild (The Doors) helms the boards here, & the result is a robust live mix. There's no subtlety to it--everything is right up front. Danny's voice, showcased on his original song "Come On Baby Let's Go Downtown" (an ode to scoring drugs that is harsher in hindsight given Whitten's death by heroin misadventure) is a husky baritone like Steppenwolf's John Kay, so it's not surprising that Young's fragile, wavering tenor gets lost behind it. On the other hand, Young gets a fine vocal showcase in "Down by the River," where, again, I prefer his vocals to the studio version. The added crunch to the guitars & the live sense of urgency give the ascending pre-chorus an epic quality that doesn't come across as well on the album.
"Down by the River" is one of 2 extended jams here, along with "Cowgirl in the Sand." On both, Whitten holds down 2 crunchy chords for most of the runtime (12 minutes & 16 minutes, respectively) while Neil indulges in, let's say *medicated* solos that are more interested in searching the fretboard for interesting tones than they are in impressing you with technique. If you love Young's lead playing, these 2 tracks are a full-course meal, with lots of meditative repetition & tasteful amounts of whammy bar work. Personally, I like him better as a songwriter than as a guitarist, so the jams get a bit tiresome, but in the right headspace I can zone out & let the fuzz wash over me.
Although I like plenty of Young's records, I'm being honest when I say this is my favorite album of his. Vivid, hallucinatory & soul-searing, I think these songs were meant to be heard live, & if I try hard enough, I can pretend I'm standing in a puddle of beer on a March night in Manhattan 1970, fresh from hearing a Miles Davis set & ready to get my mind re-blown. You know, like it should be.
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