15, 1976, at the conclusion of the bar tour, he went into Village Recorders in Los Angeles and overdubbed the vocals. Young was on vocal rest at the session and only able to whistle the vocal melody. Guitarist Frank “Poncho” Sampedro had just joined the band at this point, but he only plays the Stringman organ on this one. 29, 1975 at Young’s Broken Arrow Ranch when the group was rehearsing for their Northern California Coastal Bar Tour. Things take a dramatic turn on Chrome Dreams at this point, when Crazy Horse enters the picture for “Like a Hurricane,” one of the only songs on the album that casual fans are likely to recognize. “Laden with my own feelings of love and survival, the recording stands alone in my work for its audio vérité style, a live sketch of a massive production number with only the highlights presented, fragments of parts, the sound of the fire, the underwater sound created by vibrato.” “ the story of a salmon swimming upstream,” Young wrote in Waging Heavy Peace.
The only song he cut that December is “Will to Love,” which he recorded at home in front of a cracking fireplace.
#Pocahontas neil young unplugged full#
By the time he took the stage at the Winterland Ballroom to play with the Band at their Thanksgiving farewell show, he had a nose full of cocaine and a deep desire to head back home and relax for the holidays. He spent the bulk of the year traveling the world on tours with both Crazy Horse and the Stills-Young Band, and headed into the studio during rare off time to lay down the new songs that were pouring out of him at a furious clip. In nearly every case, you’re hearing the song the first time it was captured on tape.Īs anyone that’s seen The Last Waltz knows, Young was completely fried by the end of 1976.
Nearly all of the songs came out over the next few years on American Stars ‘n Bars, Comes a Time, and Rust Never Sleeps, but Chrome Dreams caught them in their rawest, most intimate form. Unlike American Stars ‘n Bars, which veers wildly from wild Crazy Horse jams to tender ballads and experiments in country rock, Chrome Dreams is largely focused on acoustic recordings. “In many ways,” Young biographer Jimmy McDonough wrote in his 2002 Young biography, Shakey, “ Chrome Dreams is a more powerful collection than the haphazard collection of American Stars ‘n Bars.” The original Chrome Dreams leaked out years later as a bootleg drawn from the ’77 acetate, and many fans felt he had made the wrong choice. Only his most devoted followers knew that the title was a reference to Chrome Dreams, an entirely different album he had put together in 1977 before shelving it in favor of American Stars ‘n Bars. If it avoided some of his best-known folk and country material, it did contain a few crowd-pleasers, and it brought up several forgotten tunes for reconsideration.Sixteen years ago, in 2007, Neil Young puzzled quite a few people when he released a new album called Chrome Dreams II. Unplugged was a low-key Neil Young performance that emphasized the consistency of his work over time and the repetition of certain lyrical themes and musical tendencies. But all were melodic and inviting, especially the selections from Harvest Moon, including the title tune, which featured a broom as a percussion instrument. Soul" and "Like a Hurricane," and were given new treatments others were obscure or even previously unrecorded ("Stringman"). The songs were wistful, midtempo reflections on stardom, love, and the passage of time.
#Pocahontas neil young unplugged series#
And a 14-song set that on record seemed a random selection from across his career made more sense on video, as Young began with a series of early songs, accompanying himself on guitar and harmonica, then moving to keyboards and gradually bringing other musicians on-stage to augment the sound. Yet his casual appearance and introspective demeanor served to focus attention on his music. Young was anything but videogenic in his leather jacket, Harley Davidson T-shirt, jeans, and boots, sitting hunched over his guitar, often scowling as he turned his face, hooded with unruly, grey-flecked hair and partially covered by a week-old stubble, to the microphone.
This 73-minute tape ran seven minutes longer than the album, the extra time consisting of applause, guitar tuning, and a few scattered asides ("Aw, it's nothin', really," Young said, for example, after an audience member called out, "Thank you, Neil"). Taped on February 7, 1993, and first broadcast on MTV on March 10, Neil Young's Unplugged appearance was released as a home video to coincide with the release of an audio CD version.
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