TW Song of The Moment: "Married Man" - Neil Young & The Bluenotes

Earlier today, we posted on Neil Young's Song Of The Moment: "Heart of Gold".

Now, here is the Thrasher's Wheat Song Of The Moment: "Married Man" by Neil Young & The Bluenotes.

Congrats N & D!

Neil Young & Daryl Hannah March for ERA on January 20, 2018

Neil & Daryl Tying The Knot (Metaphorically?!)
Still from Film PARADOX (2018)

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Neil Young's Song Of The Day: "Heart of Gold" + 1971 Interview

Neil Young's Song Of The Moment for 8-24-18 is "Heart of Gold".

The "Song Of The Moment" feature on Neil Young Archives site also contains Neil's message and the video above.

The video interview of Neil Young is from what is known as the 1971 Dutch documentary unreleased film by Wim Van der Linden which has circulated over the decades. Shot primarily on Neil Young's Broken Arrow ranch shortly after it's purchase by the "rich hippie", the film contains the famous scene which inspired the song "Old Man" about the California rancher who can not fathom how a 25 year old musician could make such a purchase.

The "Old Man" Louis Avala & Neil Young
1971 Dutch documentary film by Wim Van der Linden
More on the Neil Young's song "Heart of Gold" (analysis, lyrics, interviews, film, videos + more).

i want to live. I want to give.

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Billy Talbot Lends A Musical Hand To Eliza Blue

Eliza Blue and Billy Talbot

A very moving story from Crazy Horse's bassist Billy Talbot and his assistance to South Dakota's Eliza Blue.

From Twin Cities folkie Eliza Blue found Neil Young's bassist at home on the prairie | Star Tribune by CHRIS RIEMENSCHNEIDER:

When she moved from the Twin Cities to ultra-rural South Dakota seven years ago, Eliza Blue figured her music career would quite literally be put out to pasture.

“One of the problems out here is simply finding someone to play music with,” said the banjo- and guitar-picking singer/songwriter, who now lives in Bison, S.D., among cattle, sheep, chickens, her rancher husband and their two toddlers.

You can imagine her surprise, then, when she heard murmurings that a certain rock legend had bought a place nearby — then multiply that surprise exponentially when, two years later, that rock legend wound up producing and collaborating on her new album.

“I figured he’d only live here super part time, and would mostly keep to himself,” Blue remembered in a phone call last week from Bison. “Never would I have thought I’d wind up at his house making my record.”

Her new neighbor is none other than Billy Talbot, bassist for Neil Young’s Crazy Horse. After more than four decades serving in one of rock’s most legendary backing bands, the 74-year-old music vet wanted to get away from California and relocated to the Bison area, where his wife has roots.

Frame from "Song Without Words" by Eliza Blue w/ Billy Talbot

Talbot set up a recording studio in a barn and proceeded to make a solo record, for which he recruited Blue. When it came time for her own album, Blue recounted, “I had to work up the courage to ask him.”

“I had just had my first child and didn’t really plan to tour or promote the record. So I asked Billy, ‘Could I maybe come over one day and you just press play?’ I figured I’d make just some raw, basic recordings.”

His response was a firm no: “If we’re going to do it, let’s do it right,” she recalled Talbot telling her. “Let’s make a real record.”

The result is “South Dakota, 1st of May,” which Blue is promoting with a release party Saturday at the Aster Cafe featuring her pals in the old-school folk trio Corpse Reviver.

Even from 500 miles away, Blue still considers herself part of the Twin Cities music scene: “Minneapolis is still the nearest big city to me.”

True to Talbot’s word, the album is much more than just a modest acoustic affair, loaded with lush, Daniel Lanois-style ambient twang and ruggedly rootsy tones behind Blue’s warm, earthy voice. They recorded it piecemeal over several months, working out a creative process that melded their distinct backgrounds.

“Billy is obviously a rock ’n’ roll guy,” Blue said in humorous understatement, “and I’m obviously more acoustic.” Add a third collaborator (and neighbor), Jack Hughes, whom she said is more into pop music, “and we really came up with something interesting, a record we can all say we’re happy with.”

The songwriting, though, is all Blue’s and draws heavily from what was clearly a dramatic lifestyle change, going from a touring musician and Twin Cities resident to settling outside a town with a listed population of 333.

Full interview @ Twin Cities folkie Eliza Blue found Neil Young's bassist at home on the prairie | Star Tribune by CHRIS RIEMENSCHNEIDER. (Thanks HtH!)



Simply delightful.

Also, see more on Neil Young & Crazy Horse's bassist Billy Talbot.

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Gov't Mule Covers Neil Young's "Down By The River": Huber Heights, OH - 8/21/18

Gov't Mule's final encore song on Tuesday night was a cover of Neil Young's "Down By The River".

The 13+ minute version with Magpie Salute was at the Rose Music Center Huber Heights, OH on 8/21/18.

Also, see Gov't Mule and Blackberry Smoke's Charlie Starr cover Neil Young's "Cortez The Killer" at Asbury Park, NJ’s Stone Pony Summerstage on August 12, 2016. Plus, "Southern Man" by Gov't Mule @ Blue Hills Bank Pavilion on 8/13/16.

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Neil Young's "Song of the Moment": "Are You Ready The Country?"

Neil Young's "Song of the Moment" is "Are You Ready The Country?" with the Stray Gators from the "In the Barn" footage shot on September 26, 1971.

The "Song of the Moment" is a daily feature on the Neil Young Archives. Neil seems to be digging into the "Barn Sessions" recorded on his Broken Arrow Ranch for the Harvest album. We posted recently on Neil Young Remembers "The Innocence": WORDS with a playback of the "Words" song in a field on his ranch Broken Arrow filmed by cinematographer David Myers.

The Stray Gators, 1971
Tim Drummond, Jack Nitzsche, Neil Young, Kenny Buttrey, and Ben Keith
Broken Arrow Ranch, September 1971
Photo by JOEL BERNSTEIN
(Click photo to enlarge)
More on In Memory of The Stray Gators: Gone But Not Forgotten.

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Neil Young Remembers "The Innocence": WORDS

In Neil Young's latest posting on NYA Times-Contrarian, he looks back to a playback of "Words" in a field on his ranch Broken Arrow in 1971.

The interview is by David Myers, the cinematographer for the films "Journey Through The Past", "Rust Never Sleeps" and "Human Highway". Neil remembers "the innocence I possessed".

Which reminds us of those days leading up to NYA Volume #1 in 2009. Here's some NYA trivia on the "Behind The Barn" interview from Archives Guy:

On the "Behind The Barn" interview that would be the late great David Myers shooting with LA Johnson on sound plus another guy whose name escapes me right now.

As a piece of arcane trivia, when the surround mix was created for the interview, we located the spot behind the barn where Neil had been lying and set up 5 Neumann mics in a surround array. Then we placed two big PA speakers where the original truck had been and played Words thru them at full stun.

This created a natural surround recording, bouncing off the hills just like in the original moment. The new recording was mixed with the original interview to create the same experience for the listener that Neil had.

Have a nice weekend...and go listen to that Barn Interview!!

-Archives Guy

Thanks Archives Guy! And thanks to all those guys out by the truck at the ranch that day ... Ben, Jack, Tim, Kenny, and David.

And here's a 2008 version of Words (Between the Lines of Age).

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Aretha Franklin: An Appreciation

Aretha Franklin: 1942 - 2018

Aretha Franklin -- "Queen of Soul" -- passed away this week.

Here's an appreciation by Jim McKelvey.

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Aretha Franklin: An Appreciation

Have been thinking all week about that fifteen minute interview I was given with the Queen Of Soul, Aretha Franklin, that lasted three and a half hours. Interviewing everyone involved in her music career from the gospel days to Columbia Records to Atlantic Records on to Arista was just a thrill
over an entire year before I was given the chance to talk to Aretha.

As many people who know me realize I'm sort of a junkyard dog when I get a good idea and follow it to the end. Must have been turned down twenty times, over the course of the year to interview Aretha, and it got to the point where I had interviewed her entire immediate family at length.

As I was driving down I-96 on the way to her secret apartment, near Cobo Hall, I decided I needed a gift and pulled off the expressway taking the next exit. There was a very nice wine shop right off the exit and I went in to find the manager of the store stocking the shelves just after lunch. Told him I had an interview in thirty minutes with Aretha and needed a sort of gift to break the tension of an interview.

Really not sure if this was a synchronicity or if a guardian angel stepped right into my life to help but it was magical.

"Wow, did you come to the right place! You aren't going to believe this but if you look to your right on the wall there that is a picture of Aretha standing right at the counter where you are last week. I know exactly what she wants and I'll put it in the same fancy bag I gave her with the Godiva
chocolates she really likes," the manager told me. "You are going to be in like Flint with her today my friend."

So when Aretha met me at the door of her apartment we stood there for a few minutes and I told her the story before even entering. Then she lifted her arm to show me that the hair on her arm was standing on end and she told me she had goosebumps. She hated interviews, as everyone knew, but she said something to the effect that she felt like that was a sign this was going to be alright.

Traci Jordan was her publicist from Clive Davis' Arista Records and she sat in the corner about twenty feet away from where we conducted the interview on my dear friend David Brogran's Walkman Pro tape recorder (with some great stereo mics). So every fifteen minutes for over three hours Ms. Jordan would say "wrap it up, it has been fifteen minutes," and each time Aretha would wave her off.

After I filled two ninety minute Maxell XLII tapes Aretha turned the tables on me and started asking me questions about what I thought of her singing a duet with Dolly Parton and how she had passed her fear of flying class at Metro Detroit's airport but just didn't want to tour that way anymore. The
final test for Aretha was to go down the runway and reach one hundred and twenty-five miles an hour where the plane becomes airborne. She loved performing but like most musicians it was the touring that took it right out of you.

One suggestion I had was to buy a club in downtown Detroit and just play there. If you can't go to the people have the people come to you I told Aretha. Have heard she had done something like that recently but not sure how far she got.

We really bonded that day back in 1987 and I'm getting misty eyed just thinking about it. It honestly feels like a family member died today for me, RIP dear Aretha and boy does the choir in heaven have a soloist now. What a family reunion she is having right now. Honestly, I feel like she has just shed her mortal body to let her eternal everlasting body out and what a powerful soul returns to source this day.

Will never forget the personnel invitation I got from her to attend her three day recording session at her father's church that she produced herself and that duet she did that evening with Mavis Staples, wow! She made sure I had a reserved spot right up front not ten feet away from where she sang all three nights.

That invitation from Aretha and later a telegram out of the blue from B.B. King to attend an all day Jackson Prison "two show concert" I sure wish I would have saved. Clearly, not a very good archivist but do have a pristine recording with Aretha I just transferred to digital.

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Thanks Jim for the fine appreciation of Aretha.

What a remarkable story and we hope your interview finds the wider audience and r-e-s-p-e-c-t it deserves.

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