"Walking To New Orleans" - Neil Young on React Now

Neil Young covering Fats Domino's "Walking To New Orleans"

Last night, Neil Young performed two songs on the React Now hurricane Katrina benefit.



The first song was "This Old Guitar" with Emmylou Harris.




The final song of the broadcast was a cover of Fats Domino's "Walking To New Orleans". And Neil appeared rather angry and impassioned in his delivery.

It has been quite a weekend with Neil's performance of "When God Made Me" on "Shelter From the Storm: A Concert for the Gulf Coast" on Friday night.



MTV appears to be attempting to redeem itself after the network's abhorrent failure and abysmal travesty with the Live 8 broadcast in July. MTV is hosting video streams of last night's performances.

The Los Angeles Times' music critic Robert Hilburn highlighted the performances of three of the over 50 performing artists from the weekend: Kanye West, Alicia Keys and Neil Young.

Neil Young: "This rock 'n' roll treasure's heartfelt rendition of John Lennon's "Imagine" was, for many, the highlight of the Sept. 11 telethon, and he was just as moving this time around — first by singing his new, spiritually tinged "When God Made Me" on "Shelter," then the wistful "This Old Guitar" on MTV.

"When God Made Me" felt especially timely. It's a rich, philosophical song about humility; Young's own "Imagine" if you will, in that the song rejects the notion that God plays favorites or that dissent is unpatriotic.

In the closing verse, Young sang:

"Did he give me the gift of voice
So some could silence me?
Did he give me the gift of vision
Not knowin' what I might see?"

Looking like Cash as he stood at the microphone dressed all in black, Young came across as a symbol of all that is good and true in American music. It made sense for MTV to ask him to close the telethon.

His song was another showstopper: one of Fats Domino's biggest hits, "Walking to New Orleans."

Too bad only one of the telethon audiences got to see it."

And over on the The Pop Culture Petri Dish we have the question: Define Irony. "Isn't it ironic that Lynyrd Skynyrd (fronted by Kid Rock) performed "Sweet Home Alabama" while sharing the MTV React Now telethon bill with Neil Young?" If you're having trouble with why this might be ironic, then see why Lynyrd Skynyrd doesn't need a southern man around anyhow.