Neil Young has released another live CD. This time out it's not with Crazy Horse, it's a document of the summer tour featuring Jim Keltner, Ben Keith, Spooner Oldham, Duck Dunn, Astrid Young (Neil's sister), and Pegi Young (his wife). This, to me, is sort of a continuation of Neil's SILVER & GOLD mindset, that is, the work reflects a strong turn toward family. It's no surprise that it's subtitled "Friends and Relatives." With his wife part of his live show, he moves into an alignment with Bruce Springsteen and (pre-1998) Paul McCartney. To the best of my knowledge, this is Pegi's debut as a performer with Neil. Maybe she's done some singing at the Bridge concerts (which, of course, she organizes).
As you'll read in all of the reviews, Neil has chosen some good surprises from his catalog "Cowgirl in the Sand," "Walk On," "Peace of Mind," "Motorcycle Mama" (!). This is a good album overall (in spite of the fact that one of the backing vocalists has a bit of a pitch problem), but two of the cuts really make it worthwhile. He has resurrected "Words" from the HARVEST album. Here it lasts 11 minutes and is probably my favorite thing he's done since "Natural Beauty" on HARVEST MOON. You can tell that the phrase, "Between the lines of age," resonates much more strongly with him these days--no surprise there. The new version has its own urgency and is quite orchestrated--strong dynamics and some great guitar playing. The other winner is "Tonight's the Night." It's very free-form since Neil leaves lots of extra space in some of the verses or repeats lines here and there, while lap steel fills from Ben Keith make the song bluesier than ever. It works really well -- a simple but effective way to make the story fresh again.
Of course it's still quirky Mr. Young ("just think of me as one you never figure") and he's elected to include an eight-minute version of "All Along the Watchtower" to close the album (!). Well, anyway, the two winners make the set essential for Neil Young fans.
Originally posted to SteveForbert.com in January 2001.
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