Jazz Articles

Neil Young with Crazy Horse: World Record

by Doug Collette
December 10, 2022

In its own peculiar way, World Record is as confounding as the previous two albums by Neil Young with Crazy Horse. Yet it's far more compelling, this despite its comparably impromptu, borderline sloppy nature. This title might be heard as a progression from or an extension of Colorado (Reprise, 2019) and/or Barn (Reprise, 2021, except that the occasionally excessive air of spontaneity that permeates the material and the performances begs the question of how Rick Rubin contributed to this recording ...

Harvest 50th Anniversary Edition (CD/DVD)

by Doug Collette
December 3, 2022

To hear and see Neil Young express such deep-seated personal contentment near the end of his film Harvest Time is to understand more fully why he would go to some lengths to curate a box set of the album upon which the movie is based. While some of the content enclosed on the CDs and DVDs in the 50th Anniversary Edition of the 1972 album has been in unofficial circulation for awhile, immersion in the collection vividly depicts the vagaries ...

Tom Petty: An American Treasure

by Doug Collette
October 27, 2018

In a direct, no nonsense gesture the subject of this anthology would no doubt appreciate, the earliest inclusions on the 4-CD anthology An American Treasure illustrate how Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers forged their own style of songwriting and playing from Bob Dylan, the Byrds and the Rolling Stones. “Surrender," “Listen To Her Heart," and" You're Gonna Get It" and, in one of the rare appearances in this set of a trademark tune in readily recognizable form, “Breakdown" also clarify ...

Jimi Hendrix: Otis Redding - The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Historic Performances Recorded at the Monterey International Pop Festival

by C. Michael Bailey
July 23, 2017

A short time after purchasing my first long-playing vinyl album with my own money, one Joe Cocker: With A Little Help From My Friends (A&M, 1969), I purchased my first and second live recordings, Mad Dogs and Englishmen (A&M, 1970) and Otis Redding -The Jimi Hendrix Experience--Historic Performances Recorded at the Monterey International Pop Festival (Reprise, 1970). I bought all of these records at Osco Drug Store in the University Mall in Little Rock, Arkansas. It was summer and fall ...

Neil Young & The Promise of The Real: Earth

by Doug Collette
June 19, 2016

Ninety-plus minutes of performances recorded live on tour in 2015, then interspersed with sounds of the planet natural (birds and thunder) and manufactured (car traffic and trains), Neil Young's double-CD Earth documents his social concerns and the synergy he's developed with his most recent accompanists, Lukas Nelson and The Promise of the Real. A song selection spanning the rock icon's career, plus one unreleased number (an ode to the weed movement “Seed Justice" was originally and cryptically titled “I Won't ...

Neil Young: Le Noise

by Doug Collette
October 2, 2010

On Le Noise, Neil Young collaborates with famed producer Daniel Lanois (Peter Gabriel, {Bob Dylan, U2) and it's a fascinating experiment to be sure. Yet, to whatever extent this pair of like-minded Canadians are successful,they have outwitted themselves in an all too-obvious attempt (as with the play on words of the title) to present the artist as a lone voice trying to communicate amidst the noisy interference of contemporary culture. Given Young's credibility, they overstate the obvious. Even ...

Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers: Mojo

by Doug Collette
August 9, 2010

Given the earthy currents of electric blues coursing through this Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers album, right from the start of the wailing harp on “Jefferson Jericho Blues," Mojo is an appropriate title indeed. It should be no surprise the group hearkens to the late, great Muddy Waters, because anyone who's heard them live understands that this band knows its roots. But it is mildly shocking, at least, to hear an album totally bereft of the craftsman-like pop ...

Frank Sinatra: New York

by Mark Corroto
November 22, 2009

Frank Sinatra Sinatra: New York Reprise 2009

The true icons of American music, and there are only a few, include Louis Armstrong, Bob Dylan and Frank Sinatra. Their art changed the way we listen to music, and probably more important, their personal style made a deep impression on American culture. Of Armstrong, Dylan and Sinatra, it is without a doubt Sinatra, “Ol' Blue Eyes," who continues to be the epitome of style. ...

The Neil Young Archives Vol. 1 (1963-1972)

by Doug Collette
July 11, 2009

Neil Young's Archives project has been subject to so many delays, and rumors arising out of those delays, that its eventual release—as a 10-disc box set as well as in other formats—is almost an anticlimax. The project is, however, the work of a master singer, guitarist and songwriter who has studiously refused to look back or repeat himself during the course of his recording career. So let's instead say its eventual release is a delayed, or perhaps prolonged climax.

Neil Young: Fork in the Road

by Ian Patterson
June 18, 2009

It's been almost forty five years since Neil Young's first solo tour began one of the most remarkable careers in modern music. From a Woodstock-era folk-rock icon and introspective songwriter, to inimitable electric guitarist and godfather of grunge, few artists can match Young's substantial body of work for energy and quality. His live shows, whether with Crazy Horse, or solo, have always been electric, and his 2009 tour to promote Fork in the Road is proving that, at 64, he ...