Comment of the Moment: "Songs For Judy" - Next Neil Young Album

Behind The Scenes w/ Cameron Crowe and Joel Bernstein
NYA Times-Contrarian

The Comment of the Moment is from the yesterday's post on "Songs For Judy" Cover + Tracklist: Next Neil Young Album by Mike/Expecting To Fly:

The Joel/Cameron article in NYA Times-Contrarian brings me back to the very first time I saw Neil Young in concert during that November 1976 tour with Crazy Horse.

By 1976, my enduring admiration for Neil Young had already been firmly established. I started in 1970 with After The Goldrush, my first Neil Young album purchase. I quickly after that got all of the previous solo albums, Buffalo Springfield, and CSNY. Acquiring Harvest, the Journey Through The Past movie soundtrack (plus watching the movie in a theater), then on to the thrilling experiences of listening to Time Fades Away, On The Beach, Tonight’s The Night, and Zuma. What a ride that was. I was deeply into all of those albums. I had heard some things that gave me some idea of what Neil was like live. I had Four Way Street and cassette copies of the 1971 bootlegs Live at the BBC and Dorothy Chandler Pavilion show. But I had never seen Neil live. That changed on November 6, 1976.

The Balch Fieldhouse at the University of Colorado in Boulder was a basketball arena and I was able to get a general admission ticket to this show which was about 80 miles away from where I was living at the time. The experience of the November 6, 1976 turned out to be a profound event for me.

In a broad description, the show consisted of 18 songs, eight solo acoustic tunes followed by a ten song electric set with Crazy Horse. The show was incredible to me in every way. Neil had a profound stage presence. His personality held the audience and the power of the music drove through everyone. I know Neil had played thousands of live shows by that time, but I felt like all of us, Neil, CH, and the audience were part of something huge and important. I was totally amazed not only at the number of unreleased songs Neil and the band played but also the incredible intensity of how very good these new songs were. I loved the songs that I was familiar with (I had his complete catalog at the time) but these new ones were as good or better as the ones I knew. The new ones for me included the acoustic opener Campaigner and the electric opener Country Home and also Human Highway, Pocahontas, Too Far Gone, Bite The Bullet, Lotta Love, and the absolutely blistering Like A Hurricane (I am so glad my first experience with that song was a live show!)

The full setlist thanks to Tom Hambleton’s Sugar Mountain site was:

1) Campaigner
2) Human Highway
3) After The Goldrush
4) Pocahontas
5) Too Far Gone
6) Old Man
7) A Man Needs A Maid
8) Sugar Mountain
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9) Country Home
10) Don’t Cry No Tears
11) Down By The River
12) Bite The Bullet
13) Lotta Love
14) Like A Hurricane
15) Drive Back
16) Cinnamon Girl
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17) Homegrown
18) Cortez The Killer

Looking at that setlist, I am struck at how many of those songs have propelled Neil Young live shows through his career up to the present. I was very fortunate to have attended the May 1 NYCH show in Fresno, California this year and he played many songs that I experienced at that first show of mine including Country Home, Don’t Cry No Tears, Too Far Gone, Cinnamon Girl, Cortez The Killer, and Like A Hurricane.

At that show this year I was very much transported back to that November 6, 1976 show and the immense experience of being a Neil Young admirer and fan for 48 years.

Thanks so much for the memories by Mike/Expecting To Fly! That's really so cool that you were there for the November 1976 concerts. It's sounding like we're in for an acoustic Christmas with "Songs For Judy"!

Btw, check out Albums in Order Series by longtime Rustie Mike "Expecting 2 Fly" Cordova's reviews of Neil's entire back catalog.

More on "Songs For Judy" Cover + Tracklist: Next Neil Young Album and Joel Bernstein Tapes and "Songs for Judy".

She Could Drag Me Somewhere Over The Rainbow...
Judy Garland & Jimmy Durante
(Thanks Ralf @ Rusted Moon!)

Or as Judy asks: "How's the business, Neil?" At this point, probably too far gone...

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