Neil Young - Live At Carnegie Hall 1970

Bootleg
Neil Young is a prolific Canadian singer-songwriter who has been releasing records since the 60s.

In the winter of 1970, Neil Young went on his first solo, unaccompanied tour. He had already toured with Crazy Horse backing him, and as part of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, but this was the first time he went out on his own. It was also at a time when his career was starting to really go somewhere, after his time with CSNY and the recent success of his third solo album, After The Gold Rush. He was becoming seriously popular. The tour has been widely bootlegged, and recently (2007) a concert recording from Toronto's Massey Hall was released as part of his Archives series. However long before this release Neil Young fans had been sharing recordings of concerts from this tour.
This is one of them, from one of his performances at Carnegie Hall in New York City, in early December 1970. The sound quality might not be quite as good as the official Massey Hall release, but it doesn't really effect the quality of the experience, the whole concert being performed solo on acoustic guitar and piano. Caught at an exciting time in Young's career, the songs come from his Buffalo Springfield days and his first three solo albums, plus "Helpless" and "Ohio" from his tenure with CSNY... and a few then-unreleased songs. These are "Old Man", which would be released on his next album (1972's Harvest), plus a few that wouldn't see release until many years later ("See The Sky About To Rain" came out in 1974, "Wonderin'" didn't see release until 1983, and "Bad Fog Of Loneliness" remained unreleased until the Massey Hall album). All twenty one songs are given new life through these stark solo arrangements, and the recording just makes for more evidence of Neil Young's genius as a songwriter.

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3 comments:

Bimatoprost said...

Thanks for this great post! keep sharing such a nice expreience

iggy said...

What a terrific blog you have put together. Thanks so much for sharing. I have already found a lifetime's worth of magnificent music, not the least of which is Sir Douglas and James Carr - wish they could have recorded together. All the best to you,

Iggymo

Anonymous said...

I was at this show. Fantastic.
Sitting about 5 rows in front of me were Jack Nicholson, Art Garfunkel, Ann-Margaret and Candace Bergan all obviously taking a break from filming their movie "Carnel Knowledge".