Waging Heavy Peace by Neil Young

Neil Young is one of my favorite artists. Along with Bruce and Bob he certainly appears in the top three and at any one time he might well be at the top of my personal chart. Whether I am listening to Down by the River at about ten on a boozy night of my youth, or wandering through his mid seventies moment in time albums like Zuma. On the Beach or Tonight's the Night or enjoying his commercial period of Harvest and After the Gold Rush there is always a mood to be enjoyed in Neil's music.

As one of the refugees from the sixties I thought that he might well have some interesting stories to tell in this book. From Rod Stewart to Pete Townsend it seems writing an auto biography appears to be the thing to do for aging rock Gods these days. The Young book is a bit different. If you pick up this book expecting anything like a normal biography you will be sorely disappointed.

Young does not write in anything like a linear way. It is more like a conversation between friends. When Neil thinks of something he talks about it, in that way it truly is like you are sitting with an old friend, one memory leads to another, there is no pattern or straight line of thought.

In the book we hear much about Young's childhood in Canada and his formative years starting out in rock and roll in Toronto and the plains of Winnipeg. Young's parents divorced when he was young and while his Mother never forgave his father Neil did. He speaks with reverence for both his parents which in this era of " My parents are to blame for everything wrong in my life" is certainly a tribute to him and his upbringing. I did not realize that Neil's father Scott Young was a famous author, journalist, and sportswriter in Canada, being Canada however, he was most famous as the longtime studio host of Hockey Night in Canada. Imagine that.

That last sentence is much of how Young writes. Young will offer a memory often of his youth, or a friend that has passed on, and often after commenting on the vagaries and unpredictability of life will end his observation with a two word sentence such as " Life man. "

It is easy to see that Mr. Young is not that removed from his sixties youth. Old though he may be if he had his way it would still be all peace, love, and happiness. Perhaps that is not such a bad way to be.

Through the book Young tells us of many friends he has lost along the way. Most telling on his heart is clearly the loss of original Crazy Horse member Danny Whitten of an overdose but as one can imagine there are numerous losses along the way.

One cannot read the book without hearing, too many times, to be truthful, Young's fascination with getting the best sound out of music. Young has his own system he is trying to market that he feels will be a revolution in sound. Certainly we all know that the sound of MP3's and CD's is soul crushingly bad, but we also know that as superior as the sound of records was we are never going back to that format. I wish we would though, albums, the shape, size, liner notes, Young is right, they were a true art form. As that is not going to happen it is Neil's mission to have his system become the standard going forward so that listeners can hear the music as it is meant to be . It will be interesting to see if he makes progress, my guess is that he is just a little too idealistic to work with " the man" to see this take hold in a meaningful way. I am not sure that compromise is a word that is in his vocabulary.

In the book we hear much of about Young's many loves. We hear about his love with the actress Carrie Snodgrass and his longtime love his wife Pegi. Young's children, one of whom Ben is severely disabled are a big part of his life. Certainly having the financial resources has helped but he has made a strong and honorable effort to include his son in any and all parts of his life. The pride he speaks of when discussing his oldest sons, also moderately disabled, getting a job on his own at Home Depot and working there for years with pride, is heartfelt.

The other abiding passion for Young are his cars. A lover of classic cars he has a story for every car he owns and tells them well. Mr. Young also names his cars. An interesting example of Young's feelings for his cars is the story of a car of his he got in an accident with in 1975 that still remains in pieces, awaiting another restoration in his car barn. Young is a man of projects, as he says he starts many things and often has too many things awaiting a finish. This car, he insists, will be finished as well, after all he claims it has only been 35 years.

This book is not great. At times if one wants to be judgmental they will find plenty to judge. If one is a fan of Neil's work they will most likely enjoy the book. For me reading this book was like having a long conversation with my older brother. He too went through the ravages of the late sixties and early seventies, he fought his demons and had many ups and downs. In the end though he was a good man, a man who was simple in his tastes, and sure in his desire to do the right thing. He made plenty of mistakes, he owned up to them ane he grew his whole life.

He died a few years ago, much too young, for me reading Neil write like my brother talked felt more personal than the author probably intended.

Even so for me this book gets a big Thank you Neil.

Psychedelic Pill by Neil Young and Crazy Horse

This past Tuesday brought the release of a new album by Neil Young. Not just Neil Young however but Neil Young and Crazy Horse. For any knowledgeable fan of Young's music they know what this has meant in the past. It could mean some incredible recordings such as the famous Live Rust era recordings. It could also mean albums like a couple of the early nineties recordings which were forgettable at best.

While not being a complete washout this album leans to the latter. With eight songs stretched over two discs, and over eighty minutes the album is self indulgent in the extreme.

There are a couple of, if not gems, certainly worthwhile listens on the album. Born in Ontario is a silly little song about just that, where Young was born. More importantly the song Twisted Road is one of Young's best over the recent years. With nods to the first time he heard Dylan's " Like A Rolling Stone" and continued references to Hank Williams and especially The Grateful Dead the song is catchy and if nothing else will make one feel nostalgic.

Another success on the album is For the Love of Man a typical plaintive song from Young which while a nice song still has nothing in it to distinguish it from songs Neil has written ten times in his career.

What is most buzzed about on the album are the songs in which Young and Crazy Horse let loose and riff and riff and riff. Frankly for me, it is too much. For an artist that to me is at his best when he is giving us those incredible lyrics and unique voice I do not need to be reminded for twenty seven minutes as in the abominably long " Driftin Back" that Young and the boys can still jam.

A bit better but still a huge investment in time for what nuggets of joy are imbedded in them are " Walk Like A Giant," and " Ramada Inn." These are not bad songs, indeed some of the lyrics are clever and worth hearing but with these lyrics each being buried in sixteen minutes of guitar pounding solos it is a stretch.

The best that can be said of this album is that it is for Young enthusiasts only. Truthfully however that might be too welcoming as no one would call me anything but a huge fan of Young's music. Even so this is one Psychedelic Pill i do not see myself swallowing again.

Born and Raised by John Mayer

John Mayer is an interesting character. His first album from 2001 blasted him into the consciousness with his song No Such Thing. Perceptions of him as a pop singer quickly faded as he toured and released albums that proved his merit as a guitarist and writer of great songs.

Mayer of course has become known as a serial dater, perhaps white rock stardom's version of Derek Jeter as he has dated many of the most popular actresses and singers. Jennifer Anniston, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Taylor Swift to name just three. Swift even wrote her song " Dear John" about him an event that Mayer has called embarrassing.

Born and Raised, his most recent album proves once and for all that for all the fluff surrounding his public persona and dating life Mayer is a true artist. This album is a master work.

Quiet, reserved, lyrically and musically strong Mayer answers any question one might have about his talent and depth on this album. Well crafted pop songs, sing along if you like, but most of all songs that match.

The opening song Queen of California opens the album and shows a great deal of the influences Mayer has heard. Sounding like it comes from the early seventies and even referencing Neil Young's After the Goldrush in 1971 Mayer knows his history and open the album brilliantly.

Another song Shadow Days has the same feeling and groove. Singing of being able to finally let it go, and knowing that he is a good man with a good heart and that his Shadow Days are over. A self revealing song that is another song many of us can relate to. Of special interest to me was the Beatles sound in the instruments after the second chorus, Mayer shows all his history lessons.

For all the girls named Olivia in the world you finally have a song with your name in it. Mayer sings that Olivia is taken but that he needs something like Olivia. One assumes he could probably get her if he just sang her this song.

Born and Raised, the title song, is an instant classic. With it's harmonica again bringing Neil Young to mind, and a confessional air Mayer talks about " one of these days, I'll be Born and Raised and it's such as waste to grow up lonely." " Still has dreams, just not the same, they don't fly as high as they used to" Mayer sounds older than he is. Certainly much life has been lived by him in the last decade. This song might be the result of those years.

Walt Grace's Submarine Test, January 1967 starts with a Miles Davis like mini solo and then launches into a whimsical story song about just what it says, Walt Grace's submarine test. Still with the lyric " When your done with this world. you know the next is up to you" Mayer is talking about more than Walt Grace, he is talking about all of us making decisions about not just the next life but the rest of this one.


Whiskey, Whiskey, Whiskey again starts with the harmonica and tells of " trying to find the man I never got to be" and becomes another confessional of disappointment in the deal he made, not with the devil, but with himself. A great song.

John Mayer is not a pop star. He should be taken seriously after this album. This is a thoughtful, graceful, album that is certainly the high point of his career.

Americana by Neil Young

As most everyone knows Neil Young is on my list of great things. I believe Neil Young might be one of the best songwriters of his generation and his longevity is a testament to his ability to adapt and being willing to explore different musical styles.

Thanks to the good folks at Rolling Stone Magazine I was able today to listen to Young's new album Americana which will be released next month.

This album in which Young comes together with all the members of his famed Crazy Horse band is a theme album in which Young and his bandmates take a run at various songs from the American songbook. These are not the Rod Stewart, Paul McCartney standards albums we have recently seen but more from the traditional songs from pioneer days.

The first song released from the album has been Neil's take on Oh Susannah. Yes the same Oh Susannah that we all sang when we were kids. With Young and the bandmates it becomes a singalong for the rock era. When Young says he comes from Alabama with his b-a-n-j-o on his knee you cannot help but tap your foot and sing along. My kids with the exception of my oldest son have no affinity for Young but my daughter has complained that the song has stuck in her head as well.

As with all things Crazy Horse one has to decide just how much guitar jamming and soloing is too much but perhaps oddly these work well with most of the songs.

Another winning entry from the album is the song Travel On. The steady beat performed by Crazy Horse makes this another earwig that you cannot get rid of.

Not all the songs work, in fact much of the first side of the album is weak but this is made up easily by listening to the last half. After Travel On Young continues his fascination with birds by singing High Flying Bird as a blues song that could easily fit on his Everyone Knows This is Nowhere Album from forty years ago. Forty years ago, can you believe it?

Another splendid effort is Young's version of " She'll be Coming Around the Mountain" here titled Jesus Chariot. With a nasty electric back-beat and a strong backing vocal from members of the Horse this is not the version you sang when you were kids. It is strong with the mix of old, electric and a touch of Irish dirge. However it is the song works for me.

Young slows things down for his take on Wayfarin' Stranger performing the song in an electric Dylan way that again compliments the original.

It seems that all of the classic rock singers want to perform the Woody Guthrie classic This Land is Your Land. In recent years Springsteen and for example a great version by The Counting Crows have added to the long list of recordings. Young's version here while not the best song on the album certainly deserves to be held up as one of the better versions. I am just not sure if we need too much guitar solo on this song. Still the sing along section with the Horse and Neil's friends make this one a keeper.

The album ends as perhaps only it could with a rocking version of God Save the Queen. Neil Young, a Canadian citizen remember, singing God Save the Queen might be something you thought you never would here. Surprisingly it fits and with a single drum pounding the length of the song with a chorus helping Young makes you believe he would love to bow for the Queen.

All in all this is not a great album. While fun it is not a necessary album and proves little of what Young will be remembered for. Still some of the songs on this album are quite remember-able, certainly songs that stick in your head and Young should be commended for being willing to still take chances.

Surely this is better than 90 percent of the things you will hear this year. And of course we will never hear someone accusing Young of just knocking off another album off the assembly line. That in itself makes this album worth your time.

Four Strong Winds by Neil Young

This song appeared on the Comes a Time album. I first heard this...today...on the way to taking the kids to school. Love the Sirius.

Can anyone sing in the range Neil Young does. Listening to this song reminded me how much I hope to see him in concert and how great it would be were he to play Bangor. Neil Young is a legend and as such many of his songs that you have never heard are better than most you have heard over and over on the radio.

This song proves that.

Horses by Patti Smith

This album is from 1975. 36 years ago Patti Smith, who had been in NYC scene for onto a decade appeared with this album like few things before it.

Smith who is now in the middle of a renaissance of her career with music and books and writing for The New Yorker in the late sixties and seventies was palling around Robert Mapplethorpe.

This album is one I have heard referenced for years but never listened. I do not recall ever hearing any of the tracks on the radio even the more out there channels I have taken to listening to.

Still critic after critic quotes it's importance. Listening to it is an experience. The album opens with a version of Gloria that is, like everything Smith does, uniquely hers. The album is not sing along music. It is to me landscape music. It is background music.

None so much as the twin epic tracks Land and Birdland. I can hear these songs in unwritten movies in my mind at times where one stays up late in a darkened room and drinks or smokes by their lonely self. Staring at the red or green lights of the stereo and considering the depth of their despair or the ineffectual place they have in the world.

That might seem a stretch but what is not a stretch is Smith in her talk sing way paints a portrait like the poet/artist she clearly is.

Land, with it's constant references to Horses is where we get the album title. I have listened several times and cannot pretend to know what it is all about. I do know there are many references to rock and roll history and assume one could teach a course on the cultural landmarks referenced.

My favorite track is Birdland. Similar in scope to Land but with a jazzier background this IS one of the best songs you can hear to entertain your demons with. I have many times listened to Neil Young in the Everyone Knows This is Nowhere phase to comfort myself or acknowledge myself with alcohol and self medicate myself into calmness when life was too much. It seems clear to me that had I been exposed to Birdland in those days Patti Smith would have been on that Playlist as well.

Kimberly and Eligie are two more songs that are strongly reccomended but to be honest I need to hear them more.

In anycase this album is all it is promised to be. Art. It is art from a disjointed time to listen to in any disjointed time in your life.

Fantastic.

Neil Young- 3 new albums

Over the weekend I used some gifted itunes cards and purchased some new Neil Young music. I did not have any of this mid seventies albums and also found his 2005 Prairie Wind album to very good. Listening to Borrowed Tune from Tonights the Night, Ambulance Blues from the On the Beach and Barstool Blues from Zuma shows that Neil truly was the artist of the decade in the seventies. Of all of them I think On the Beach is the best album although Tonights the Night may be the most meaningful written for his fallen band members.

Neil surely lives in my Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Neil Young - Harvest and many more

As I write this I am listening to the Neil Young album Harvest for what is most likely what now numbers into the hundreds of times. The album which was considered the commercial peak of his success is a great album. A list of tracks is not necessary but certainly Lonely Boy, Heart of Gold, and Old Man are a good place to start. This past weekend we watched Neil who now is 64 appear on both the Haiti benefit and on Conan's last show on The Tonight Show. In the last 10 years Neil has put out more albums than any artist of his stature, as if he is racing against time. I have not purchased most of them and with radio now an unfriendly place to him I have not heard much of it either. I am sure all of it is music well worth hearing.

From his early albums Neil Young, Everyone Knows This is Nowhere and After the Goldrush I have come to treasure all Neil albums. Each one that I hear new is like going the excitement of a new album when we went to the store. Only this music when heard 30 years later is still timeless and to me as an 44 year old man current. The other evening an obscure early track titled I've Loved Her So Long came up on Random on the Ipod. It was like a bullet over the bow. An artist such as Neil has more great songs you have never heard than any contemporary artist.

My son tells me that he can tell if I am will like an artist, be they classic rock or contemporary, if they play a harmonica. It is a true fact. I do not think it is the harmonica, although I do love the sound, but certainly Bruce, Dylan, Petty and Neil do indeed all play the harmonica. Maybe it is the harmonica.

Today with a few minutes I looked on Amazon's MP# store to see what Neil albums I might have missed. With Neil there are some albums that are obscure because they are not as accessible, and some albums that are a little more obscure because they were not accessible to the " right people" at the time of their release. I have found a few of these from the mid seventies when Neil rejected the stardom of the Harvest era and has he said " drove into a ditch because you meet more interesting people there." Tonights the Night, On the Beach and more are albums I will be exploring soon.

If you do not like Neil Young, much like if you do not appreciate Dylan nothing I can say would make you appreciate it. However, if you have enjoyed some Neil in the past, explore much more. It is some of the best music ever made. Like perhaps no other artist this side of Dylan Neil has moved all over the map in the rock/country I refuse to be classified one way musical spectrum. It has been a ride well worth riding shotgun in.


Rating: Harvest 8.5