Neil Young - 2018 - Roxy: Tonight's The Night Live (HDtracks) [[email protected]]
Artist: Neil Young
Roxy: Tonight's The Night Live (HDtracks)
Format: 18 × File, FLAC, Album, Remastered, 24bit 96kHz (HDtracks)
Producer: Neil Young, David Briggs
Release Date: April 20, 2018
Recorded: September 20-22, 1973 at The Roxy, Los Angeles California
Label: Reprise
Genre: Rock, Folk Rock, Classic Rock, Roots Rock, Soft Rock, Country Rock
Duration: 53:09
Neil Young:
Wikipedia:
Neil Percival Young, OC OM (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian singer-songwriter and musician, producer, director and screenwriter. He began performing in a group covering Shadows instrumentals in Canada in 1960, before moving to California in 1966, where he co-founded the band Buffalo Springfield together with Stephen Stills and Richie Furay, and later joined Crosby, Stills & Nash in 1969. He released his first album in 1968 and has since forged a successful and acclaimed solo career, spanning over 45 years and 35 studio albums, with a continuous and uncompromizing exploration of musical styles. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame website describes Young as "one of rock and roll's greatest songwriters and performers". He was inducted into the Hall of Fame twice, first as a solo artist in 1995, and second as a member of Buffalo Springfield in 1997.
Young's music is characterized by his distinctive guitar work, deeply personal lyrics and characteristic alto or high tenor singing voice. Although he accompanies himself on several different instruments, including piano and harmonica, his idiosyncratic electric and acoustic guitar playing are the defining characteristics of a varyingly ragged and melodic sound.
While Young has experimented with differing music styles throughout a varied career, including electronic music, most of his best known work is either acoustic folk-rock and country rock or electric, amplified hard rock (most often in collaboration with the band Crazy Horse). Musical styles such as alternative rock and grunge also adopted elements from Young. His influence has caused some to dub him the "Godfather of Grunge".
Young has directed (or co-directed) a number of films using the pseudonym Bernard Shakey, including Journey Through the Past (1973), Rust Never Sleeps (1979), Human Highway (1982), Greendale (2003), and CSNY/Déjà Vu (2008). He has also contributed to the soundtracks of films including Philadelphia (1993) and Dead Man (1995).
Young is an environmentalist and outspoken advocate for the welfare of small farmers, having co-founded in 1985 the benefit concert Farm Aid. He is currently working on a documentary about electric car technology, tentatively titled LincVolt. The project involves his 1959 Lincoln Continental converted to hybrid technology as an environmentalist statement. In 1986, Young helped found The Bridge School, an educational organization for children with severe verbal and physical disabilities, and its annual supporting Bridge School Benefit concerts, together with his ex-wife Pegi Young (née Morton). Young has three children: sons Zeke (born during his relationship with actress Carrie Snodgress) and Ben, who were diagnosed with cerebral palsy, and daughter Amber Jean who, like Young, has epilepsy. Young lives on his ranch near La Honda, California. Although he has lived in northern California since the 1970s and sings as frequently about US themes and subjects as he does about his native country, he has retained his Canadian citizenship. On July 14, 2006, Young was awarded the Order of Manitoba, and on December 30, 2009, was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.
Roxy: Tonight's The Night Live:
AllMusic Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine:
Compiled from a series of gigs in September 1973, Roxy: Tonight's the Night Live captures Neil Young & the Santa Monica Flyers just after they recorded the epochal Tonight's the Night. It would be another two years before Tonight's the Night hit the stores, the label sitting on the record because it was too dark and murky. On-stage, these same songs straighten themselves out and, in the process, get a touch lighter. On Tonight's the Night, it often appeared as if Young and his crew learned the songs as they recorded them, but on Roxy, the Santa Monica Flyers have the changes under their belts and are really in the mood to have a good time. For anybody who has bought into the dark mythos surrounding Tonight's the Night, it's startling to hear Neil and his band joking around on-stage and treating this as an Irish wake, not an occasion for mourning. As such, it's almost a necessary addendum to Tonight's the Night, since it illustrates how Young's music continually evolved.
Pitchfork Review by Erin Osmon:
In 1973, Neil Young played the inaugural show at the Los Angeles club, The Roxy. The reissued recording captures a night that turned his famously bracing album into something warmer and vibrant.
Walk the city blocks of Los Angeles and imagine its bohemian yesteryear, when strung-out sex parties and impromptu jamborees emanated from the storefronts and bungalows. Neil Young’s foothold in the musician circles of Topanga, Laurel Canyon, and Hollywood are well documented. Further proof of his contribution to the cultural fabric of Los Angeles is that he consecrated some of the city’s most celebrated clubs. A new reissue of live performances from his celebrated diamond in the rough, Tonight’s The Night—released in conjunction with Record Store Day—aims to recapture the intrigue tied up with Young’s tenure in L.A. in the early 1970s.
When the now-famous nightclub The Roxy flung open its doors in West Hollywood in September 1973, Young and his band, the Santa Monica Flyers, were invited to be its inaugural live act. They were fresh out of a makeshift recording studio in Hollywood, where Young, pedal steel player Ben Keith, multi-instrumentalist Nils Lofgren, and the Crazy Horse rhythm of bassist section Billy Talbot and drummer Ralph Molina had been recording live jam sessions. These hours in the studio also served as a musical wake for two friends who’d recently died, Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten and roadie Bruce Berry. Young meditates on the loss in its namesake opener: His friend had overdosed on heroin and cocaine, and Young identified too acutely with the tragedy: “Out on the mainline,” as he put it.
Young and the Flyers spent the summer months of 1973 playing through their grief, forming the bones of what would become Young’S 1975 album Tonight’s The Night. They worked from 11 p.m. until sunrise, cruising—or flying, if you will—down Santa Monica Boulevard to sleep off the daylight hours at the Sunset Marquis hotel. When they hit The Roxy with the brand new songs they’d been rehearsing for months, the group was a lockstep machine that propelled, for example, “Tonight’s the Night,” “Albuquerque,” and “Tired Eyes” from insular meditation on death and its trappings to an amped-up catharsis to adoring fans. In the studio, Tonight’s the Night was imposing and dark, it sliced through the speaker like a razor. Live, though, these songs from Young’s famous “Ditch Trilogy” become warmer, more vibrant and alive. It’s a testament to Young’s indelible songwriting that a slight alteration in speed or sound can change the emotional tenor of his songs, and it's what makes this reissue a worthy addition for both avid Young collectors and casual fans.
Roxy - Tonight’s the Night Live imbues the songs with the spirit of a specific place in time, at the Sunset Strip’s newest digs, where Young’s soon-to-be label boss David Geffen was a face in the crowd. Young tips his hat to Geffen specifically in a chatty interlude included between “New Mama” and “Roll Another Number (For the Road),” and there are other improvised bridges like polka mainstay “Roll Out the Barrel,” which the audience audibly digs via claps and whoops. That a group of people could be so jubilant about songs they’d never heard before is unfathomable in today’s firehose of festival reunions, but it speaks to the magnitude of Young’s pull in 1973.
The existence of alternative studio versions of Tonight’s the Night have long been the subject of much speculation among Young scholars. While this release won’t scratch that itch, it is still a perfect time capsule back to a wilder L.A., featuring nine songs from the original album played in a different order and in a more joyful spirit. "Walk On," from Young's 1974 album On the Beach, appears too. If the original recordings of Tonight’s the Night are a honey and hash-soaked lamentation, Roxy - Tonight’s the Night Live is a salve for such palpable tragedy in the grand tradition of a live communion.
Tracklist:
01. Intro (0:43)
02. Tonight's The Night (6:56)
03. Roll Out The Barrel (0:52)
04. Mellow My Mind (3:11)
05. World On A String (2:43)
06. Band Intro (1:23)
07. Speakin' Out (6:37)
08. Candy Bar Rap (0:31)
09. Albuquerque (3:51)
10. Perry Como Rap (0:17)
11. New Mama (2:29)
12. David Geffen Rap (0:36)
13. Roll Another Number (For The Road) (4:48)
14. Candy Bar 2 Rap (0:20)
15. Tired Eyes (7:03)
16. Tonight's The Night (Pt. II) (6:38)
17. Walk On (3:38)
18. Outro (0:34)
Personnel:
Neil Young - Guitar, Harmonica, Piano, Primary Artist, Producer, Vocals
David Briggs Producer
Ben Keith - Pedal Steel Guitar, Slide Guitar, Vocals
Nils Lofgren - Guitar, Piano, Vocals
Ralph Molina - Drums, Vocals
Billy Talbot - Bass
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