"This Wheel's on Fire": Neil Young w/ The Sadies on All-Canadian Tribute Album to The Band

Canadian Celebration of the Band
(Click to Zoom Cover)


Unfortunately, this is not a cruel joke.

This week comes the release of an all-Canadian tribute album which honors the Band. The album features Neil Young with The Sadies on "This Wheel's on Fire". Now does anyone see any seriously tragic irony here with this cover title in light of last week's events?!

Produced by former keyboardist for The Band Garth Hudson, the album features 18-tracks by a wide variety of Canadian artists from Neil Young, Blue Rodeo and the Sadies to Mary Margaret O'Hara, Bruce Cockburn and Chantal Kreviazuk, covering some of the Band's well known and lesser known tracks. Garth performs on each track, as well.

From an interview with Garth Hudson in Spinner by Jason MacNeil:

"We knew a few people in Canada, and kept contact with the folks up here, made a few calls and began to look at the internet [for] clips from various artists," Hudson says. "There were suggestions for us to definitely include this one or that one, and we did, so we had many names.

"There were more songs that we had put aside that I liked because of the musicality, because of the words, the sensibility or the humor," he says. "There are a couple [of songs] on this piece of work that mean a lot, so it was a unified spirit. It was as if we were all together at once in the same hall; a lot of the folks were in some way connected and knew each other... spiritually intertwined."

The record features many highlights, from the alluring performance O'Hara gives on 'Out of the Blue' to the spoken-word, barroom feel Cowboy Junkies give 'Clothes Line Saga.' Neil Young also teams up with the Sadies for 'This Wheel's on Fire,' one of three songs the Sadies appears on.

"It all came together very easily," Hudson says of the Young/Sadies collaboration. "I was privileged to watch Neil with Mr. Bob Young backstage in Toronto and London; the concerts in London and Toronto were amazing. And Neil's equipment is not the type you expect, it's not the usual. His amplifiers are very special, a combination of old and new technology. It's an amazing sound, a sound you can't get with digital electronics and digital gear."

For complete track listing, sample tracks, and more, see Amazon.com: Canadian Celebration of the Band.

(fyi - orders will Help Support Thrasher's Wheat. Thanks!)

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