Click on image to buy from Amazon.Com

The 12-track live album, A Treasure includes songs – 5 of which are previously unreleased – recorded during Young’s 1984 and 1985 U.S. tours without the support of an album, or Young’s then record label due to unique and unusual circumstances. Among those, “Grey Riders” will be the first track serviced to radio. A Treasure features Young’s onstage work with some of the greatest artists in the history of Country music, including the late, great Ben Keith on steel and slide guitar and Rufus Thibodeaux on fiddle, along with living legends Spooner Oldham and Hargus “Pig” Robbins on piano, Tim Drummond and Joe Allen on bass, Anthony Crawford on mandolin & guitars and Karl Himmel on drums, among many others.

A Treasure is Young’s first release since last year’s Grammy and Juno Award-winning album, Le Noise. The live album captures this iconic artist during a fascinating time in his career, when he was facing criticism and lawsuits from his then current record company for exploring a more traditionally country sound. “You can call me erratic,” Young said when asked at the time about his tendency toward musical shape-shifting, “but I’ve been consistent about it, consistently erratic.” Always celebrated for his musical versatility, A Treasure, is akin to a sonic time capsule, instantly transporting the listener to the time and place when it was made. “I love this record,” Young says. “I hadn’t heard these takes in 25 years, but when we unearthed them co-producer Ben Keith said, ‘This is a treasure.’”

Part of what makes A Treasure so compelling is the musical contributions of The International Harvesters, with whom Young was playing at the time. Many of them were already paragons within the country music world and their notoriety has only grown in the years since. “I just love to hear those guys,” Young says. “They’re all country music legends.” Those behind the scenes also made significant contributions to A Treasure’s sonic potency. Tim Mulligan mixed and mastered the tracks. At the time these songs were recorded, Bob Sterne was the tour manager, Tim Foster ran the stage, and Larry Cragg was in charge of the band’s instruments.

A Treasure will be released in several formats, including standard CD, vinyl (180gm and 140gm), digital download with and without videos, and as a deluxe CD/Blu-ray package. The Blu-ray version will feature a curated selection of video that lends context and imagistic power to the tracks. “I like to look at these old live videos and listen to what I think are the best versions of these songs,” Young says. “It’s fun to see what we looked like when we were playing it then.”

* Denotes Previously Unreleased Track

1. *Amber Jean (9/20/84) Nashville Now TV – Nashville, TN
2. Are You Ready For The Country? (9/21/84) Riverbend Music Center – Cincinnati, OH
3. It Might Have Been (9/25/84) Austin City Limits TV – Austin, Texas
4. Bound For Glory (9/29/84) Gilleys Rodeo Arena – Pasadena, TX
5. *Let Your Fingers Do The Walking (10/22/84) Universal Amphitheater Universal City, CA
6. Flying On The Ground Is Wrong (10/26/84) Greek Theater – Berkeley, CA 7. Motor City (10/26/84) Greek Theater – Berkeley, CA
8. *Soul Of A Woman (10/26/84) Greek Theater – Berkeley, CA
9. Get Back To The Country (10/26/84) Greek Theater – Berkeley, CA
10. Southern Pacific (9/1/85) Minnesota State Fair – St. Paul, MN
11. *Nothing Is Perfect (9/1/85) Minnesota State Fair – St. Paul, MN
12. *Grey Riders (9/10/85) Pier 84 – New York City, NY

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Review

Appreciating all the many facets of Neil Young over the years has been a challenging musical adventure. Its common currency that he hit a “difficult patch’ in the 1980s with his label effectively disowning him and more than the odd misstep along the way. His defense at the time has nonetheless stood him in good stead over the years for despite all the tangents taken he has admitted, ” I’ve been consistent about it, consistently erratic.” On the surface why Young’s dalliance with country music through the album “Old Ways” caused the Geffen label such a problem appears odds. Young had released a similar album in 1980 with “Hawks and Doves” and Elvis Costello had successfully released “Almost Blue” his traditional country excursion in 1981. Yet Young’s recording came on the back of a number of commercial failures not least the horrible vocoder experiment “Trans” and a frayed relationship with the label which saw Geffen’s patience just about worn out. Young being Young and one of the world great professional contrarian’s alternatively raised a large middle finger to them and carried on regardless going out on the road with the The International Harvesters in 1984 and 1985, playing venues like the Minnesota State Fair. This band was the cream of Nashville musicians and by any standards a much more accomplished set of players than Crazy Horse “the best bar band in the world”. The outfit included slide guitarist Ben Keith, bassists Tim Drummond and Joe Allen, fiddle player Rufus Thibodeaux, drummer Karl Himmel, and piano players Spooner Oldham and Hargus “Pig” Robbins. These guys give greater depth to the rather underpowered country of “Old Ways” which is transformed in this recording into something with more vitality and verve.

“A Treasure” is an archive recording that contains 12 songs five of which are new, two of which bookend the album. “Amber Jean’ is first up which is a lovely ode to his daughter that could have happily fitted on “Comes a Time”. Alternatively closer “Grey Ryders” is like a country version of “White lines” and really rocks with the superb fiddle of Thibodeaux driving it on. As Young’s angry guitar burst through this could have fit on “Ragged Glory’. In between we get a range of great songs, including a pile driving cover of “Are you ready for the country”, the loose swinging country blues of “Soul of a woman” and the fabulous rocking “Southern Pacific” where you can almost feel the movement of the train. There are straight country songs here which for this reviewer is a joy since Young is a master of genre and “Let your fingers do the walking” which would a brilliant opener to a Texas honky tonk dance. He also transforms the old Buffalo Springfield number “Flying on the ground is wrong” into a lovely country lament and it is one of the albums big standouts. Young of course flirted with support for Ronald Reagan at the time and “Motor City” captures his mood of homeland values with an anti Japanese car import song which states that there are “already too many Toyota’s in this town” to considerable audience applause.

For those who didn’t like the “metal folk” of last years excellent “Le Noize” this will be far more familiar Neil Young territory but with enough variation and top notch country sounds to satisfy old and new devotees. It’s clearly been a hidden treasure and shines a new and more favourable lens on a phase of the great mans career that has been rather cavalierly written off until now. Overall its is an excellent addition to the Young canon. – Red on Black, Amazon.Com Customer Review

Advertisement

Vampire Ascending

by Lorelei Bell

Sabrina Strong is a Touch Clairvoyant who knows a secret. She knows her mother was turned into a vampire when Sabrina was ten. Now that she is grown up, a powerful magnate in the Chicago business world hires her to reveal the identity of who relentlessly murders vampires in his ultra-modern stronghold of a hotel. [Read More...] – Including an excerpt of the first chapter.

Vampire Ascending is now available at Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble, and any other good bookstore.

Okay, I thought, I just write a little bit about Ralph McTell and “his song” and add the lyrics. As it turns out, it is not his song, and there are several versions of the lyrics including what I believe to be a Ralph-McTell-specific version, because none of the lyrics I found online exactly match his version.

But let’s start from the beginning…

Ralph McTell, born Ralph May in Farnborough, Kent, England on December 3rd, 1944, and raised in Croydon, is an English singer-songwriter and acoustic guitar player who has been an influential figure on the UK folk music scene since the 1960s.

Ralph McTell is best known for the song Streets of London, which has been covered by well over two hundred artists around the world.

McTell’s guitar playing has been modeled on the style of the USA’s country blues guitar players of the early 20th century, including Blind Blake, Robert Johnson and Blind Willie McTell. These influences led a friend to suggest that he change his professional name to McTell as his career was beginning to take shape.

Hesitation Blues is a popular song written by Billy Smythe, Scott Middleton, and Art Gillham (aka “The Whispering Pianist”). The three men were involved in the music publishing business in St. Louis, Missouri. About 1914 they joined a band and went to Los Angeles. They passed their traveling time making up verses to a traditional tune. When they returned to St. Louis the trio went their separate ways. In 1915 Billy Smythe published their musings as “Hesitation Blues” but not crediting Art Gillham. A dispute over the credits was resolved a few years later when Art Gillham and Billy Smythe began writing other songs as a team with the sheet music stating “by the writers of Hesitation Blues.” During time the song was covered by a great number of artists including Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin, and the before-mentioned Ralph McTell. Versions of the lyrics vary widely, though the refrain is usually mostly consistent with the original. The song is a jug band standard and is also played as blues and sometimes as western swing.

The following are the original lyrics as recorded by Art Gillham in 1925. Very few of the lyrics seem to have survived to current versions:

Hesitation Blues

by Billy Smythe, Scott Middleton, and Art Gillham

I’m going down to the levee, take a rocking chair
The blues don’t leave me, go rocking with them there
Baby how long, how long I have to wait
Can I get you now, or must I hesitate

I had a sweet mama, so bashful and shy
When she [moves] her underware she plugs the needle’s eye
Baby how long, how long I have to wait
Can I get you now, or must I hesitate

A doctor’s in love with my girl they say
I got her eating apples just to keep him away
Baby how long, how long I have to wait
Can I get you now, or must I hesitate

I’ve met girls on railroad trains and on big river boats
But my good woman got what makes a goodmule eat his oats
Tell me honey, tell your papa, how come you make him do like you do?
Can I get you now, or must I hesitate

Well you must love your neighbours, what the good book say
But that don’t mean to love her, when her husbands away
Baby how long, how long I have to wait
Can I get you now, or must I hesitate

When I got home last night, I wasn’t there at all
I looked through the trash, another mule in my stall
Baby how long, how long I have to wait
Can I get you now, or must I hesitate

I’ve got [ham in my knees], I may be awful dumb
But I got more ideas of loving than Wrigley has gum
How long, how long I have to wait
Can I get you now, or must I hesitate

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust
I got a black haired mama that the rain can’t rust
Tell me honey, tell your papa, how come you do things things like you do?
Can I get you now, or must I hesitate

I was born down in Georgia, I was raised in Tennessee
When I get hesitation blues, my mama takes them away from me
How long, how long I have to wait
Can I get you now, or must I hesitate

Advertisement

Boiled Peanuts

A Novel by John Patrick Doyle

A Peeping Tom Goes Nuts Over A Blind Girl

Paul Kirk is a librarian and one of his town’s quirkier residents.  In a childhood home lacking parents (his mother dying of MS and his father an alcoholic) Paul had imagined himself a member of the neighboring family. Now in his late twenties, Paul vicariously participates in the households of his community. His peeping-Tom proclivities express his awkward need for social bonding.

Then Paul meets Bronwyn, a counselor who is lovely, independent and blind. She has inherited her Aunt Phyllis’ house and is newly arrived in town. When Paul first sees Bronwyn at church, he knows he wants to be part of her life. As the mystery of Aunt Phyllis unfolds, Bronwyn and Paul become more deeply involved as they learn about Phyllis’ secrets and how they relate to Bronwyn and her past, but Paul’s peeping ways may ruin it all. [Read more...]

Boiled Peanuts is available through Amazon.Com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble, and any other good bookstore.