NEIL YOUNG : SONGS FOR JUDY

 

  1. Songs For Judy Intro
  2. Too Far Gone
  3. No One Seems To Know
  4. Heart Of Gold
  5. White Line
  6. Love Is A Rose
  7. After The Gold Rush
  8. Human Highway
  9. Tell Me Why
  10. Mr. Soul
  11. Mellow My Mind
  12. Give Me Strength
  13. A Man Needs A Maid
  14. Roll Another Number
  15. Journey Through The Past
  16. Harvest
  17. Campaigner
  18. Old Laughing Lady
  19. The Losing End
  20. Here We Are In The Years
  21. The Needle And The Damage Done
  22. Pocahontas
  23. Sugar Mountain

Label : Shakey Pictures

Release Date : November 30, 2018

Venue : various locations USA

Recording Date : November 1976

Length : 79:13

Review (AllMusic) : Neil Young had a turbulent 1976. Still digging himself out of the dark period that produced his "Ditch Trilogy" - the weird, gnarled records he made when he decided to steer away from the middle of the road that was a possible tributary from the success of "Heart of Gold" - Young began to see a new dawn on Zuma, a 1975 reunion with Crazy Horse. Not long after its release, Young reunited with his old Buffalo Springfield bandmate Stephen Stills to record Long May You Run, an album credited to the Stills-Young Band, but this union proved to be short-lived. Young ditched Stills a month into their tour, headed back to California to record an acoustic album called Hitchhiker, which he decided not to release. Instead, he took Crazy Horse out that November, acting as his own opening act via an acoustic set that preceded the electric blowout. Released 42 years after that November jaunt, Songs for Judy collects 23 highlights curated by journalist Cameron Crowe and photographer Joel Bernstein, who tagged along on the tour. Bernstein recorded the concerts for his own pleasure and that provides the source material for Songs for Judy. What's striking about these performances is how loose and relaxed - even happy - Young seems. A far cry from the haunted, hazy Hitchhiker, Songs for Judy is spry and sly, the songs sounding charged and muscular even when they're sung with no greater support than an acoustic guitar (and, on occasion, an organ). Young cracks jokes and sings with vigor, alternating between staples from his songbooks and test-driving new tunes. Among the latter is "White Line," which later showed up on 1990's Ragged Glory, and "No One Seems to Know," which sees its first official release on this album. That alone makes Songs for Judy of interest for Young diehards, but what really makes this collection worthwhile is how these robust performances put the lie to the notion that acoustic Neil is sad, sensitive Neil.

Review (Pitchfork) : Collecting two-dozen highlights from 1976 solo sets, this candid document finds the singer sorting through old standards and almost-lost classics at a particularly restless moment. Songs for Judy captures Neil Young at his mercurial peak, writing songs too fast to release and scrapping albums too fast to remember. In November 1976, on a tour backed by the reunited Crazy Horse, he opened with solo acoustic sets at his buzzed and intimate best. Sanctioned photographer and taper Joel Bernstein and teenage rock journalist Cameron Crowe sorted through recordings of that run, compiling a 20-plus-track mix that, when leaked and bootlegged, eventually came to be known as The Bernstein Tapes. Long circulated among fans, it is perhaps the definitive document of Young in his archetypal solo acoustic guise. Restored to pristine warmth for the launch of Young?s own Reprise imprint, Shakey Pictures, and his recent archival venture, the new sequence makes Young?s surreal ramble about spying Judy Garland in the front row the introduction instead of a stoned interruption midway through (good), uses it for a title (meh), and perhaps captures an ideal performance that balances old favorites with Young?s latest work. For a musician as impulsive and forward-looking as Young, nostalgia has long been an equal presence. Songs for Judy includes many of Young?s core standards, represented on live albums in virtually every decade since, from a yearning version of ?Harvest? to the insistent drive of Buffalo Springfield?s ?Mr. Soul? and a dreamy ?After the Gold Rush,? dedicated to ?all the freeways here in Texas.? But the heart of Songs for Judy is the palpable sense of Young in motion. Three months before these shows, he?d quit a tour with Stephen Stills, departing on his bus in the middle of the night, leaving a trail of dust and a telegram that read, ?Funny how some things that start spontaneously end that way.? With Young turning 31 midway through the performances captured here, Songs for Judy has more starting than ending, featuring plenty of songs that would?ve been unfamiliar to the audiences hearing them. (That goes for the subtle organ tease of the then-unreleased ?Like a Hurricane? hidden at the start of ?A Man Needs a Maid,? too.) Some of his best new material during this period would remain unfamiliar except to serious fans, demos and outtakes scattered to the winds. Several tunes show up from Hitchhiker, recorded that summer but unissued until last year, like the dreamy breakup number ?Give Me Strength? (virtually abandoned after the tour) and the incandescently Richard Nixon-humanizing ?Campaigner? (buried near the end of the retrospective, Decade, released a year later). ?Too Far Gone? presages alt-country but would stay in the vaults until 1989?s Freedom, the distant piano lament ?No One Seems To Know? until now. ?It seems every time I tried to record this song, someone stepped in and stopped it,? he says by way of introducing ?Human Highway,? the proposed title track from a never-finished Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young album. Here, accompanying himself on scrappy banjo, Young turns in the best of the officially released versions, Young?s fatigue bolstered by brightness. For good reason, the heroism of being a weary and high dude with an acoustic guitar has faded some since the mid-1970s. Still, Young?s musical presence is one of goofy but deep companionship and hushed moods; it?s ideal for late nights, lonely or otherwise. The cliches about getting wasted and hung-up come early and often (?Too Far Gone? and ?Roll Another Number?), and the lyrics sometimes fall far short of profound, but vibeyness is Young?s well-established superpower. ?The moon is almost full/except for stars,? he sings on ?Give Me Strength,? not totally making sense but illuminating a melody that slides past like a glowing night. Lyrics are well and good, and Young has written great ones, but Songs For Judy is a reminder that?even for a singer/songwriter?success can have as much to do with the rest of it: the settings, the recordings, the performances, the feels. Recorded during the decadent pre-punk ?70s, and released in the terrifying post-capitalism 2010s, Songs for Judy now feels like a concept album whose concept is just as far out as prog rock, if less flashy and more soothing. It?s a high fantasy of meadows and moons and canyons, of shows that start after midnight, of possessing or creating enough space to let Neil Young play some quiet songs for you.

Review (Muziekkrant Oor) : Van weinig musici zijn er zoveel liveplaten verschenen als van Neil Young. Songs For Judy is het zestiende offici?le podiumalbum en dan zijn er nog tig bootlegs. We klagen niet, want de Canadees is live nogal eens een attractie. Songs For Judy is een 22 liedjes tellende compilatie van akoestische soloversies die in november 1976 in diverse Amerikaanse steden zijn opgenomen. Songs For Judy begint desastreus, met veel geleuter van Young. Hij heeft het over Judy Garland die hij backstage was tegengekomen. De Amerikaanse zangeres/actrice is de Judy uit de titel van een Americana-album met veelal bekende composities en het niet eerder regulier verschenen No One Seems To Know, dat goed op Journey Through The Past had gepast. Het is een van de stukken waarin Young zich bedient van een piano. De meeste liedjes speelt hij met een akoestische gitaar en geregeld een mondharmonica. Mellow My Mind doet hij met een banjo. Hofleverancier met vier tracks is Harvest, een van ?s mans topplaten. Notoire Young-adepten zullen ongetwijfeld Songs For Judy aan hun collectie toevoegen, al was het maar vanwege No One Seems To Know. Voor minder hartstochtelijke fans biedt deze geschikte verzameling veel luistergenot met nummers als het trieste The Losing End en het controversi?le Campaigner. Na het intensere Roxy: Tonight?s The Night Live is Songs For Judy de tweede bonafide liveplaat van Young in 2018.

Review (Heaven) : Decennia lang zwierven de vele live-opnames van Neil Young in het illegale circuit van bootlegs. Successievelijk krijgen de opnames een legale plek gekregen in de offici?le catalogus van Reprise/Warner Brothers, het label waarop het muzikale oeuvre van onze held een halve eeuw geleden voor het eerst verscheen. Songs For Judy is een mooie aanvulling op albums als Hitchhiker, Roxy: Tonight's The Night Live, Live At The Fillmore East en Live At Massey Hall. Na een korte toespraak tot het ongeduldige publiek deelt Young aan het begin van dit album mee dat hij bij zijn vorige concert actrice/zangeres Judy Garland in de zaal zag zitten. Neil vertelt dat ze een rode jurk en rode lipstick droeg en dat ze de bladmuziek van Somewhere Over The Rainbow in haar hand hield. Dat Judy Garland op dat moment al tien jaar overleden was, zegt iets over Young?s geestesgesteldheid en gevoel voor humor in die periode. De aan deze Judy opgedragen liedjes speelde Young tijdens zijn vele soloconcerten in 1976. Zichzelf incidenteel begeleidend op piano en banjo vormen vooral zijn karakteristieke zangstem en dito gitaarspel de hoofdmoot van de liedjes op dit album. Het publiek dat aan het begin van het concert smeekt om vertolkingen van zijn meest bekende songs, wordt op zijn wenken bediend. Naast een royale selectie van overbekende nummers als Mr. Soul, After The Gold Rush, Tell Me Why en The Needle And The Damage Done speelt Young het nooit eerder legaal op een plaat uitgebrachte No One Seems To Know, waarmee de samenstellers een nieuw nummer toevoegen aan de formele catalogus van de Canadese bard. Wordt vervolgd.