Comment of the Moment: Joel Bernstein Interview & The Laurel Canyon Scene

Laurel Canyon Documentary: In The Making and Call For Material

Our Comment of the Moment is from "Joel Bernstein Interview | The Bob Lefsetz's Podcast" by Greying Rider: 

Thank you so much for this. 

I've always loved Joel's work and to hear him talk about his life is wonderful. There is something about the way he (like Nils and Cameron) was accepted at such a young age by Joni, Elliot, Neil, Graham and the whole Laurel Canyon scene that I struggle to get my head around. But it points to how kind, constructive and hard working all these people were. 

It is sometimes easy to assume people got into the scene by just being in the right place at the right time, though the way Joel talks about how much time he spent on learning Joni's songs and mastering photography shows how you need to have a driving passion. 

Often, one makes one's own luck in life.

Thanks so much for the Comment of the Moment Greying Rider!

Glad you enjoyed the  "Joel Bernstein Interview".  Talk about being in the right place, at the right time?!  It does seem that the whole 60's Laurel Canyon scene really was like traveling into another dimension.

More on the legendary 1960's Laurel Canyon scene ...

Photographer Henry Diltz, with his iconic photograph of Crosby, Stills and Nash 1969 debut album cover is featured prominently in the exhibit at the Grammy Museum exhibit "California Dreamin': The Sounds of Laurel Canyon, 1965 - 1977"

Also, see:

• Laurel Canyon Documentary: In The Making and Call For Material
• Laurel Canyon Exhibit at Grammy Museum: California Dreamin' Explores Music Scene in the ’60s, ’70s
• Neil Young Lyrics Analysis of song and album "On The Beach"
• Gary Burden: 1933 - 2018

More on Laurel Canyon in the 1960's is the definitive analysis of what was happening there and making it very CLEAR ... Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon: Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops & the Dark Heart of the Hippie Dream by David McGowan.

peace   

---

---

Joel Bernstein Interview | The Bob Lefsetz's Podcast

Joel Bernstein
San Francisco, April 9, 2018
Photographed by Joshua Ets-Hokin

Joel Bernstein is interviewed on The Bob Lefsetz's Podcast:

"Photographer Joel Bernstein has tales that boggle the mind, like accidentally shooting the cover of Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush" as a high school student...you'll love his stories!"

After The Gold Rush by Neil Young

(Click photo to enlarge)

 

The After The Gold Rush LP cover is a solarized print of slightly out of focus photograph by Joel Bernstein of Neil Young walking past a building on the campus of the New York University School of Law. The art direction and design is by Gary Burden. 

More on Joel Bernstein @ https://joelbernstein.com/.

Also, see 

• Joel Bernstein Interview: The Story Behind Neil Young's Album "Songs for Judy"
• Joel Bernstein and The Archives

Also, see GALLERY OPENING: Two Takes On Neil Young by Joel Bernstein & Henry Diltz.

Uncropped photo used for cover of After The Goldrush with Graham Nash in foregroundGALLERY OPENING: Two Takes On Neil Young by Joel Bernstein & Henry Diltz
Photo by Joel Bernstein

 Also, see Discovering After the Gold Rush: The Story Behind The Album Cover

"After the Gold Rush" by Neil Young 

 Discovering After the Gold Rush: The Story Behind The Album Cove 

---

---

Neil Young Owned "HARVEST MOON" LP METAL ACETATES (DMM Reference Discs) | eBAY

Neil Young Owned "HARVEST MOON" LP METAL ACETATES (DMM Reference Discs) | eBAY(Click photo to enlarge)

 

In case you're looking for that last minute holiday gift for your favorite Neil Young fan, here might be the exact item you're looking for!

Up for auction on eBay (thanks Johnny Q!), Neil Young's personal DMM (direct metal mastering) copper Album Reference Discs for his 1992 album Harvest Moon.

DMM was a record mastering technology whereby a copper disc was cut instead of a lacquer acetate, allowing two steps to be eliminated from the record pressing process.

These two single-sided copper plated metal discs measure nearly 1/2" wider than a conventional album, and weight a few pounds each. They were cut at Masterdisk in New York City on September 10, 1992 (Harvest Moon was released November 2 1992.) Numerous record stampers were made directly from these copper discs, which were then sent to Neil Young. The original box from Masterdisk is included.

While not intended to be played on a turntable, the discs function like a record, and can be played.

The provenance is best explained by the included letter of authenticity from longtime Neil associate Joel Bernstein:

This letter is to authenticate two single-sided DMM Album Reference Disks (the equivalent of DMM metal acetates) of Neil Young's album Harvest Moon, with Masterdisk labels, dated 9/10/92.  These discs belonged to Neil Young, who gave them to me.

I photographed Neil Young for the first time at his first East Coast show with Crazy Horse, at the Bitter End in New York City, in February 1969. I went on to work with Neil extensively, as both his and CSNY’s tour photographer, and shooting him for eighteen of his album covers (including After The Gold Rush, Harvest, Time Fades Away, Tonight’s The Night, Decade and Rust Never Sleeps) plus numerous other official projects including publicity, advertising, songbooks, posters, et al. On various tours from 1973-1993, I also worked with Neil as his guitar technician; and served as his archivist for 20 years, researching and presenting him with every source for audio, artwork and text used in his massive box set Archives Vol. 1  1963-1972.

During the course of working for Neil, he gave me various acetates, test pressings, set lists and other memorabilia. Neil knew I was a collector and he wasn’t, so once he was done with things like this, instead of throwing it away, he often gave it to me. 

Sincerely, 

Joel Bernstein

 

Letter of Authenticity by Joel Bernstein

Don't be denied!

As you may recall, earlier this month "One of the rarest records in the world": NEIL YOUNG UNRELEASED TRANS TEST PRESSING w/ UNRELEASED EXTRA TRACK | ebay.

 

More on Neil Young's archivist Joel Bernstein.

 

Joel Bernstein
San Francisco, April 9, 2018
(see Joel Bernstein Interview: The Story Behind Neil Young's Album "Songs for Judy)

---

---

Joel Bernstein Interview: The Story Behind Neil Young's Album "Songs for Judy"

Joel Bernstein
San Francisco, April 9, 2018
Photographed by Joshua Ets-Hokin

Neil Young's long time archivist and photographer Joel Bernstein played a very key role in the recent album release "Songs For Judy".

Bernstein taped the November 1976 concerts and created a mix cassette with fellow fan Cameron Crowe. The cassette eventually evolved into the album release 42 years later. From an interview with Joel Bernstein in The Philadelphia Inquirer by by Chuck Darrow:

You were Neil’s guitar tech on the “Songs for Judy” tour. What were the circumstances of your capturing it on tape?

Joel Bernstein: I thought, ‘I really want to have a souvenir of this tour. So, I’m going to bring my Uhr cassette deck and get a PA feed and record these shows. It’s for me. It’s never going to become a bootleg album or something. It’s just so I can remember how cool it was.'

So I recorded 16 shows out of the 25 we did — it was a short tour, all in November.

Some people might assume the “Judy” of the title is Judy Collins. But it turns out it is a far more iconic Judy.


Joel Bernstein:We finished the tour [with two shows] in Atlanta, and Neil and the band were celebrating the end of the tour and had imbibed something and were pretty out there.

Neil hallucinated during the first show. The [spoken segment on the album] is him describing to the audience of the second show what had happened to him on stage during the first show, when he looked down into the orchestra pit and hallucinated Judy Garland standing there looking up at him.

So we decided to call the album Songs for Judy.

Full interview with Joel Bernstein in The Philadelphia Inquirer by by Chuck Darrow.

Also, more on Joel Bernstein and The Neil Young Archives.

---

---

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
----
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
---
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...

---

---

"Songs For Judy" Cover + Tracklist: Next Neil Young Album

"Songs For Judy" by Neil Young

RELEASE DATE: Nov. 30 (Pre-Orders only)

Last week, we posted about Next Neil Young Album? "Songs for Judy" (aka Joel Bernstein Tapes) and now a tracklist has been posted to NYA Times-Contrarian.

From John Hanlon's Notebook on NYA Times-Contrarian, Hanlon wrote that Neil Young is preparing to release a new archival album titled "Songs For Judy". A double album, "Songs For Judy" will feature 23 songs from the acoustic sets of the November 1976 "Crazy Horse" tour.

"Songs for Judy" Tracklist

via NYA Times-Contrarian

(Click photo to enlarge)

Tracklist via NYA Times-Contrarian:

“Songs For Judy Intro” – Atlanta, GA – Nov 24 (late show)
“Too Far Gone” – Boulder, Colorado – Nov 06
“No One Seems To Know” – Boulder, Colorado – Nov 07
“Heart Of Gold” – Fort Worth, Texas – Nov 10
“White Line” – Fort Worth, Texas – Nov 10
“Love Is A Rose” – Houston – Nov 11
“After The Gold Rush” – Houston – Nov 11
“Human Highway” – Madison, Wisconsin – Nov 14
“Tell Me Why” – Chicago – Nov 15 (late show)
“Mr. Soul” – New York – Nov 20 (early show)
“Mellow My Mind” – New York – Nov 20 (early show)
“Give Me Strength” – New York – Nov 20 (late show)
“A Man Needs A Maid” – New York – Nov 20 (late show)
“Roll Another Number” – Boston – Nov 22 (late show)
“Journey Through The Past” – Boston – Nov 22 (late show)
“Harvest” – Boston – Nov 22 (late show)
“Campaigner” – Boston – Nov 22 (late show)
“Old Laughing Lady” – Atlanta – Nov 24 (early show)
“The Losing End” – Atlanta – Nov 24 (late show)
“Here We Are In The Years” – Atlanta – Nov 24 (late show)
“The Needle And The Damage Done” – Atlanta – Nov 24 (early show)
“Pocahontas” – Atlanta – Nov 24 (late show)
“Sugar Mountain” – Atlanta – Nov 24 (late show)

(Thanks to Ken N., who got the track list pretty close!)

UPDATE: "Campaigner", recorded November 22nd, 1976 at Boston’s Music Hall, has been just released as the first "single," album due Nov. 30. (Thanks Babbo!)

Neil Young
Hammersmith Odeon, London, 28th March 1976 (Setlist via sugarmtn.org)

There are fascinating "Notes About The Recordings" by Cameron Crowe and Joel Bernstein. (Thanks Wardo!)

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

NEIL YOUNG – SONGS FOR JUDY
Some Notes About The Recordings

by Cameron Crowe and Joel Bernstein

August 12, 2018

via Warner Bros. Recording

Here's a comment from post Next Neil Young Album? "Songs for Judy" (aka Joel Bernstein Tapes) by Richard B.:

This is easily one of the very best unreleased Neil Young tapes out there.

As any dedicated Neil fan has probably heard these already,they will not be surprised by how amazing this tape is. For those ,who I dare say,are lucky enough so that their release will be your first time hearing these tracks,well,stand back because these are all mind blowingly (word?) great.

Much like the Beatles White Album acoustic demos that are also right around the corner, these live tracks focus on the acoustic side of things and both releases are absolute must haves,for hardcore and casual fans alike. Such is their quality and importance.

Looks like it's gonna be an acoustic Christmas this year.

Thanks Richard! Yes, it's sounding like we're in for an acoustic Christmas!

So who was Judy? That would be Judy Garland -- of course - from the epicly important and essential "Wizard of OZ".

Witch Glinda (The Good Witch) & Dorothy (Judy Garland)

Recall what Witch Glinda (The Good Witch) says to Dorothy (Judy Garland):

"You don't need to be helped any longer.
You've always had the power to go back to Kansas."

So remember, just use your power and the force will be with you.  And we'll see you when you get home. (Also, see The Wizard of OZ ... or What Really Happened to America.) You've always had the power, may the force be with you, be the rain, walk like a giant, tell the truth, hack the matrix, & LAOL.

More on 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...

---

---

Neil Young's Handwritten Setlist: 1983 “Solo Trans” Tour, 1st Show

Neil Young – Handwritten Setlist /1st Show 1983 “Solo Trans” Tour
via Record Mecca

Neil Young's handwritten setlist for the 1st Show on the 1983 “Solo Trans” Tour (see 1983-01-05, Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, Santa Cruz) reveals some interesting, last minute song changes.

The handwritten by Neil Young setlist of songs includes “Comes a Time”, “Don’t Let It Bring You Down”, “Cowgirl in the Sand” and “My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)”, while scratching out "My Boy", "Ready for the Country" and others.

From the letter of authenticity from longtime Neil Young associate and archivist Joel Bernstein via Record Mecca:

“This letter is to authenticate Neil Young’s handwritten preliminary setlist for his January 5, 1983 show at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium. This was the first show of his 1983 Solo Trans Tour.

I photographed Neil Young for the first time at his first East Coast show with Crazy Horse, at the Bitter End in New York City, in February 1969. I went on to work with Neil extensively, as both his and CSNY’s tour photographer, and shooting him for eighteen of his album covers (including After The Gold Rush, Harvest, Time Fades Away, Tonight’s The Night, Decade and Rust Never Sleeps) plus numerous other official projects including publicity, advertising, songbooks, posters, et al. On various tours from 1973-1993, I also worked with Neil as his guitar technician; and served as his archivist for 20 years, researching and presenting him with every source for audio, artwork and text used in his massive box set Archives Vol. 1 1963-1972.

During the course of working for Neil, he gave me various acetates, test pressings, set lists and other memorabilia. Neil knew I was a collector and he wasn’t, so once he was done with things like this, instead of throwing it away, he often gave it to me. This is from my personal collection.

Sincerely,
Joel Bernstein

More on Neil Young's 1983 “Solo Trans” Tour.

Also, more on Joel Bernstein and Neil Young's Archives.

Letter of Authenticity by Joel Bernstein
via Record Mecca

---

---

Looking Back at Two Takes: Joel Bernstein & Henry Diltz

Neil Young
Broken Arrow Ranch ~1971
Photo by © Henry Diltz
(via BLENDER GALLERY)

From last year's Two Takes On Neil Young by Joel Bernstein & Henry Diltz exhibit, a look back at the BLENDER GALLERY's collection.

Music photographers Henry Diltz and Joel Bernstein exhibited limited edition prints of legendary musician Neil Young at BLENDER GALLERY, Sydney Australia.

Having been friends with Neil Young for many years, both Henry Diltz and Joel Bernstein have captured Neil Young in his most intimate moments as an artist and performer. Both photographers are also musicians, which has given them special access and sensitivity to Neil's visual persona.

See more at BLENDER GALLERY.

---