Linda Ronstadt and Neil Young

Linda Ronstadt and Neil Young's careers briefly -- but beautifully brilliantly -- intersected back in the 1970s and continued until the late 1980's.

Early in her career, Linda Ronstadt sang backup vocals with James Taylor on Neil Young's #1 song "Heart of Gold" from the multi-platinum album "Harvest". Later, Ronstadt opened for Neil Young's 1973 "Time Fades Away" tour.

Linda Ronstadt covered Neil Young's "Birds" (from album After the Goldrush) on her 1972 self titled album. (See video above) Also, Ronstadt, with Nicolette Larson, sang on Neil Young's 1977 album, American Stars 'n Bars, with Linda Ronstadt on the tracks "Old Country Waltz", "Saddle Up the Palomino", "Bite the Bullet", "Hold Back the Tears", and "Hey Babe".

Linda Ronstadt also sang backup vocals on Neil Young's "Hanging on a Limb" and "The Ways of Love" on Freedom. (Thanks Jeff G.!)

In Neil Young's auto-biography "Waging Heavy Peace", he discusses Linda Ronstadt. In an interview with Linda Ronstadt on Hudson Union | YouTube she is asked about working with Neil Young. In this clip, Linda Ronstadt discusses how Neil Young's epilepsy condition impacted him. Her comments are even more heartfelt given Linda's own situation.



(More interviews with Linda Ronstadt on Hudson Union | YouTube.)

From an interview with ultimateclassicrock.com on Ronstadt opening for Neil Young's 1973 "Time Fades Away" tour:

Linda Ronstadt: “Neil and I first met at the Troubadour, I think.

But we did the Johnny Cash Show together and he was recording, so he asked me to come along and sing harmonies. James Taylor was doing the same show and James came along and we recorded on 'Heart of Gold' and 'Old Man' for the Harvest album. It was a great record and friends of mine were playing on it. Kenneth was playing drums, so we were there all night long. We came out the next morning and it was snowing. I remember singing all night long and never getting bored.

I love Neil’s music.

As a club act, we weren't really ready for Madison Square Garden, but we did our best.

Larger venues ended up becoming a persistent issue. They did a pretty good job of trying to make it all work. But in those hard, huge cavernous spaces, it’s hard to do really, really quiet, subtle music. You need a small theater for that.

You know, when you’re finished with your show, you just want to get out of there and go home and do something else. It was good exposure for me. It really helped the record. In time, everyone developed a deep sense of camaraderie, as well.

I stayed every night for his [Neil Young] show, which was almost two hours long. He had great players. He had Kenneth Buttrey for part of that tour playing drums, [and] Tim Drummond.

It was really a great band.”

In Neil Young's auto-biography "Waging Heavy Peace", he writes that Linda Ronstadt once warned her protege Nicolette Larson not to get involved with him because "He doesn’t live in the real world". (Incidentally, Larson ignored Ronstadt’s advice and had her biggest career hit with the song Neil wrote for her “Lotta Love”.)

Linda Ronstadt : Love is a Rose (In Concert - Atlanta 1977)

From Linda Ronstadt on her best albums: “I’ve got a huge jukebox in my brain” by Tom Pinnock:

Linda Ronstadt: There were a lot of great writers around then [early 1970's].

California is like a big lens, people would come from other places and California would focus them. A guy like Bernie would come from Florida, or Glenn would come from Michigan, or Don from Texas, and by the time they got to California the Californian sensibility would put its own little spin on things. Then it would be broadcast to the world.

Neil Young is another one – I still think he’s one of the best guys that ever came out of rock’n’roll, he’s just brilliant.

Linda Ronstadt - Live In Hollywood

Linda Ronstadt & Nicolette Larsen w/ Neil Young
American Stars & Bars sessions

Linda Ronstadt and Neil Young [purportedly & unconfirmed] Riding Horses

Also, see Linda Ronstadt and Neil Young (Updated - January 05, 2020).

More on Neil Young's Musical Influences.

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"Thrasher": Now Playing on Movie Night | NYA

"Thrasher" is now playing on Movie Night in the Hearse Theater | NYA.

Directed by Bernard Shakey, the video of the song "Thrasher" is from the feature film "Rust Never Sleeps with Crazy Horse" and will be running until: 3:00pm, March 2nd, 2019.

Get your popcorn!

For more on our "Thrasher" first hand experiences, read all about it at The Philadelphia Stories from The Man in The High Tower (Theater): Neil Young Solo @ Upper Darby, PA - Sept. 30 & Oct 1,2018.

And remember -- always carry the essential “ 'Thrasher' Request Fold Up Sign".
Don't leave home without it.

The Essential “Thrasher” Request Fold Up Sign

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9 Years Ago: Neil Young Performed at Olympics Winter Games Closing Ceremony

Neil Young
"Long May You Run"
Vancouver Olympics Closing Ceremony: Winter Games 2010
PHOTO by Getty
9 years ago today, Neil Young performed at the Olympics Winter Games Closing Ceremony in Vancouver, Canada.

9 years ago today Neil Young performed "Long May You Run". #ClosingCeremony #Vancouver2010 pic.twitter.com/TfgDLaT2Im

— Olympics (@Olympics) February 28, 2019

Neil Young performed "Long May You Run" for the Vancouver Olympics Closing Ceremony: Winter Games 2010. As snow gently drifted down from above, Neil strolled about with his harmonica rack and Martin guitar.

60,000 inside Vancouver stadium. Millions on the TeeVee box.

One harmonica. One guitar.

One man.

Following Young's performance, the cauldrons were extinguished and the torch arms retracted, bringing a symbolic coda to the Olympics finale.



Nearly universally, Neil Young at Olympics Closing Ceremonies was considered to be the broadcast highlight based on reviews and commentaries we saw here and here.



Neil Young Extinguishes Olympic Flame
"We've been through some things together
With trunks of memories still to come"

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Engineering the Sound: Neil Young’s ‘Harvest’ | Enmore Audio

An extensive examination of the recording of Neil Young’s ‘Harvest’ at
Engineering the Sound: Neil Young’s ‘Harvest’ | Enmore Audio by Luka Osborne.

In the clip above from 1971, we see Neil Young recording with the London Symphony Orchestra the song "A Man Needs a Maid" with producer Jack Nitzsche.

Definitely worth checking out if you have never seen before.

More on Neil Young’s album ‘Harvest’.

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PRESALES TUESDAY: 2019 Europe Tour of Neil Young + Promise of The Real

2019 Germany Tour: Neil Young + Promise of The Real
via Neil Young Archives

UPDATE:

NYA update: Presales start 2/26 at 5 p.m. CET (just over 12 hours from now) for Dresden 7/2, Berlin 7/3, Mannheim 7/5, Munich 7/6, Antwerp 7/9 and Amsterdam 7/10.

(Thanks Babbo B.!)

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In January, Neil Young announced that he is planning a concert tour of Germany this summer with + Promise of The Real, per Neil Young Archives.

Then, earlier this month, an announcement that the 2019 Germany Tour has been delayed, according to a response to a Letter to the Editor on NYA Times-Contrarian: "Announcements are coming as soon as we finish checking out the sponsors and making sure they are OK with us. We notice some banks and want to see what they invest in."

Now, on NYA T-C, comes word that in July, Neil Young + Promise of the Real will perform in Dresden, Berlin, Mannheim and Munich in Germany, followed by Antwerp, Belgium and Amsterdam, Holland.

Ticket presales begin on Monday, Feb 25th on NYA.

Also, in response to another question on NYA Times-Contrarian, Neil Young is also planning a solo tour of Europe next winter: "We are looking at the possibilities of NYA solo shows in London and throughout all Europe. This has been difficult with everyone else looking for big paydays and out door festivals for me in the summer. We may just come back in the winter.

Loving our NYA solo shows, we are continuing our investigation!!"

More on Neil Young + Promise of The Real and Neil Young Solo concerts.

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Neil Young "Restored" In New Woodstock Documentary

Woodstock: 3 Days of Music, Peace & Love

Neil Young is to be "restored" in a new Woodstock documentary.

In an interview with Warner Bros executive Bill Gerber in After 11 Years Pushing ‘A Star Is Born’, Producer Bill Gerber Is Restoring Neil Young In New Woodstock Documentary | Deadline by Mike Fleming Jr.:

One of them solves the lingering mystery of the absence of Neil Young in Woodstock, the 1970 Michael Wadleigh-directed documentary. Young will be seen in a new docu that Gerber is producing as a companion piece to the original, and the singer is reunited onscreen for the first time with ex-bandmates David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash. Gerber is hard at work on a documentary that will be released within a re-release of the 1970 Michael Wadleigh-directed documentary chronicle of – sorry, Live Aid, Queen and Freddie Mercury — the most famous and infamous mass rock concert in history. Woodstock’s 50th anniversary arrives in August and Warner Bros is finalizing rerelease plans.

“The film has new interviews and is also the Young Men With Unlimited Capital story of John Roberts and Joel Rosenman, these two young guy who started Woodstock as a capital raise to build a recording studio,” Gerber said.

“There is also material no one has ever seen. Neil Young was not in the movie for a variety of reasons, until now. There is unseen footage of Janis Joplin and performance footage that hasn’t been seen. There are some great stories, like how Nelson Rockefeller was going to send in the National Guard to shut the festival down. Roberts and Rosenman had family in finance and banking and they got on the phone with the governor and pleaded with him to call off sending in the National Guard on that first Saturday.

Otherwise, the festival never would have happened.

And it would seem that's Neil Young's feelings towards that "helicopter day" only seemed to harden over the years. A quote from biographer Jimmy McDonough's Shakey has been bouncing around the blogs driven by a look at the flip-side of Woodstock in The Globe and Mail:

“Woodstock was a bullshit gig. A piece of shit. We played fuckin’ awful. No one was into the music. I think Stephen [Stills] was way overboard into the huge crowd. Everybody was on this Hollywood trip with the fuckin’ cameras. They weren’t playin’ to the audience as much as to the cameras…I could see everybody changing their performances for the fucking camera and I thought that was bullshit. All these assholes filming, everybody’s carried away with how cool they are…I wasn’t moved.”

In an interrview on Howard Stern Radio in 2014, Neil Young said about Woodstock:

“I didn’t like the fucking cameras, they didn’t have to be on stage. They’re cameras, ‘Hello! Use your zoom, dickhead!”

“Who cares? It doesn’t matter, I was there, I saw it. Who gives a shit? I couldn’t care less.”

More on Woodstock: The Day After with CSNY.

Also, see Tales of Jimi Hendrix and Neil Young at Woodstock.

Also, more on whether it was all just a hippie dream?

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A Thousand People In The Street: 'For What It's Worth' Captured Youth In Revolt | NPR

Stephen Stills & Richie Furay - Buffalo Springfield
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, 1967
CBS Photo Archive/CBS via Getty Images

A very good overview of the song 'For What It's Worth' by Stephen Stills with The Buffalo Springfield.

Podcast A Thousand People In The Street: 'For What It's Worth' Captured Youth In Revolt | NPR by Danny Hajek.



Podcast includes interviews with witnesses on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, CA in November 1966, radio news coverage call ins, a Marine who served in Vietnam, as well as Buffalo Springfield band manager Richard "Dickie" Davis.

Protesters gather outside Pandora's Box on Nov. 12, 1966

As legend has it, Stills, disturbed by the images of police brutality from that night, wrote "For What It's Worth" in 15 minutes. Band manager Richard "Dickie" Davis was in the studio when Buffalo Springfield recorded the song.

"It was recorded in one night: vocals, overdubs, bass track, all that was done in one night," Davis says. For all that momentum, however, Stills was afraid of how the band might be typecast if the song did catch on.

"That name, 'For What It's Worth,' is the most 'aw, shucks' kind of name," Davis says. "Like, 'Oh yeah, well, here's my opinion, you don't have to listen to it.' ... He was worried about it defining the group and he didn't want that to happen."

But it did: "For What It's Worth" became an enduring hit. Whether one hears it as about the Vietnam War or the Sunset Strip, the song was for the young people caught on the front lines.

"The song was about the times," Davis says. "The protests for the Vietnam War were in play right then, and they were on Stephen's mind just as much as anything else. The song was written about the Sunset Strip, but it's bigger than that.

Freedom: Sunset Strip, Los Angeles, CA - November 1966
For what it's worth...

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