Neil Young News
In 2004 Rustie, Mike "Expecting 2 Fly" Cordova posted a series of articles on his experience listening to all of Neil Young's albums in chronological order. Here is one in the series. For a complete listing, see Albums in Order reviews.
Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 14:51:36 -0800 (PST) Between the previous album Long May You Run (LMYR) and the next one, I
experienced one of those major quantum shifts that lifted
my regard for Neil Young and his music to stratospheric
levels; I attended a Neil Young and Crazy Horse concert.
Thanks to Tom Hambleton, here are the details of my first
show.
This was such a fundamentally important event in my
experience following Neil and his music that I must
mention a few things before talking about the next album.
Before I went to the show, I had no idea what he would
play or what it would be like. Most artists play some
songs from their most recent album, Neil played none.
Instead, he played 3 songs from the glorious Zuma album, a
few other classics and lots and lots of new songs which
were as good or better than anything in his recorded
catalog. This not only solidified a feeling I had that the
songs Neil submitted for LMYR were not the best he had but
I also became aware that Neil Young was sitting on lots of
great new material. (Little did I suspect that while all
the songs I heard would eventually be released, that it
would take 14 years for them all to come out on record.)
Based on what I heard at the show, I expected the next
album to be like Zuma only better.
Early the next summer, I was on break from school
travelling with a girlfriend, visiting relatives, when
American Stars 'N Bars finally came out. So I bought it,
but couldn't play it right away; frustrating, very
frustrating. I loved the cover art though. I saw that name
from ATGR, Dean Stockwell, this time credited with the
art. I loved that raunchy pic of passed out Neil's face on
the floor taken from a perspective UNDER the floor that
features the look up the bar girls skirt and the pretzel
contortioned Neil inside and reading that Neil's horse was
named Melody. I remember being at my grandparents' house
in Ogden, Utah when I finally got to play it on their tiny
record player. I was surprised by the country sound of
side one and my first impression of this album was that it
was all over the place musically. When I finally got it
into my stereo for some proper listenings, I came to
appreciate side one. I love the looseness of it; I read
later that no one in the band knew these sessions would be
on a studio release. Linda Ronstadt is great on this right
down to the little giggle before Saddle Up The Palomino. I
like all the songs on side one very much. Side two is like
a completely different album and features some of the best
songs in Neil's career.
I had heard and liked Emmylou Harris's harmony vocals on
Dylan's Desire and was pleased to see she sang with Neil
on Star Of Bethlehem. Good song, though I still don't
completely understand it. Count me among those that think
Will To Love is fantastic; I love the
stretched-almost-to-breaking metaphor and find the lyrics
and the delivery mysterious and sensual and romantic. Like
A Hurricane comes on like a hurricane after the gentleness
of the ending of "Will To Love". There was nothing like seeing Neil
on stage with the Horse playing this song with fans
blowing his hair around while he and the band created
musical magic. I like the studio version of LAH very much
but even so it was a shadow of my experience of hearing
this song for the first time live. Homegrown was a bit of
a throwaway tune, I thought, but it's kind of rockin',
kind of fun.
I love this album, I love to listen to it, but I must say
I was expecting Neil to change the world of music forever
on the next album after the concert I had attended and
instead had to be satisfied with just a very listenable
and fun record.
I very much enjoyed listening to American Stars 'N Bars
today.
Mike - Expecting To Fly
From: Mike Cordova
To: rust@rustlist.org
Subject: Albums in order: American Stars 'N Bars
For more of Expecting To Fly's reviews, see the Albums in Order series.
Neil Young Archives - Thrasher's Wheat
Neil Young Albums Reviews