After The Gold Rush

ONE OF THE CLASSIC MASTERPIECE ALBUM FROM NEIL YOUNG.

I spent my student days listening to Neil Young and Joni Mitchel on vinyl. I lost out on the records in the divorce. The replacement CD went in a fire. So now I am retired, settled in a cottage, and I've re-bought Neil Young. All I need is some sort of machine to play it on, a woodburning stove, a cat, and some joss sticks, and I will be settled.

If there`s a more immaculate album out there, I want to hear it.This was the 1970 follow-up to Neil`s incredible second record, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, and he did it again - then again with Harvest, On The Beach, Tonight`s The Night, Zuma...what a stunning run of inspired brilliance.Tell Me Why is a catchy opener, and you know from the off you`re in good hands.The title track is so famous now that I`m not going to go into its beauties, but boy do you have a treat if you`ve yet to hear it. Even Dolly Parton`s covered this one.Ony Love Can Break Your Heart is one of those NY songs that you tend to forget about till you hear it again, and go "Aaah, yes!". Lovely.The mighty Southern Man is a cutting condemnation of racism and segregation in the South, with a terrific atmosphere to it, abrasive and urgent. It got an equally memorable - and outraged - response in Lynyrd Skynyrd`s great anthem Sweet Home Alabama. Apparently, Neil was happy to be mentioned in one of their songs. (I don`t know if Neil and the late Ronnie Van Zant ever met, but I like to think of wry smiles, a clap on the back, and a shared Jim Beam or two.)Till The Morning Comes is a pleasing brief interlude ending "Side One" (ah, those were the days)."Side Two" opens with a tender slowed-down version of Don Gibson`s country classic Oh Lonesome Me. It fits Neil like a glove.Next comes what is for me, along with Southern Man and the title track, the album`s masterpiece, the edgy, mid-tempo Don`t Let It Bring You Down, with its guardedly optimistic refrain:"Don`t let it bring you down, it`s only castles burningFind someone who`s turning, and you will come around"The verses set up sorrow, the chorus turns to joy. It`s all too short at a whisker under three minutes but a great song nevertheless. (Most of these songs are shorter than I remember them, but the upside is they leave you wanting more.)Birds is a delicately lovely song, sung to piano backing, with heavenly harmonies on the chorus. Surprised this hasn`t been covered more often.When You Dance...is a wonderful NY rocker, I Believe In You another superb slow song, yearning and keening as only Neil can.Cripple Creek Ferry is another snippet of a song to finish this 35-minute classic.With its perfect front & back covers - they looked so much better on the LP foldout sleeve - and in remastered sound, this is as essential as rock ever gets."There was a band playing in my headand I felt like getting high..."

And another album that I'd had from release date on vinyl and thoroughly worn out....that I'd finally got to the point where a CD replacement was essential.Falling onto the front door mat early one saturday morning I put the CD into the player, donned a set of cans and transported myself back in time because this invoked all the sentiments of the period including America coming to grips with racism, the end of the hippie dream et al. Yes, indeed, this album is certainly synonymous with the times but notwithstanding, it has also stood the test of time in that this batch of songs is as fresh today as the first time I heard them and I am not really a Neil Young fan! Not a great lover of his whiny thin vocal or his stuttering guitar solos - BUT, taken as a whole this is one very powerful and emotive album that deserves repeated listenings even some 40 years on be it the pinnacle of Southern Man or the evocative Only Love Can Break Your Heart, this album gets under your skin and embeds it's tunes and lyrics into your cortex so that whenever you hear the opening lines of Cripple Creek Ferry, After The Goldrush and 'Til The Morning Comes, you can't but help joining in with the singing....certainly whiles away many a boring car journey.Iconic and class - and if it's not in your collection along with the contemporary Deja Vu from Crosby Stills Nash & Young - shame on you!

One of the great benefits today is you can pick up some great remastered albums at no great expense and certainly to my ears they are a lot better than much of the manufactured music around at the moment; the thing with Neil Young is its still in a way current as he still tours and performs his music to bigger audiences than ever. I never got round to buying this album till now - a great pity. No really poor songs here, it includes a lot of styles and some absolute classic songs like the rocky and direct Southern Man, the exquisite Don't let it bring you down to the beautiful Only Love can break your Heart. Neil Young's music more than most has stood the test of time. The remaster seems to provide a great sound and at a great price certainly recommended and up there with Harvest and Live Rust as a great album.

If 'Everybody Knows This Is Knowhere' was the first step in Young's one take only approach to recording, this album embraces the concept like no other, along with a punk style contempt for accomplished musicianship and fussy production. On this album Neil stripped away all the studio tricks, he even asked young Crazy Horse guitarist Nils Lofgren to play piano on the title track. When Lofgren said he didn't play piano, Young assured him it didn't matter. Incredibly the simplicity of the keyboards on the track suits the song perfectly.But regardless of the production values, the quality of the songs show remarkable artistic growth and it is easy to see why it achieved classic status. You can also understand why Stephen Stills, David Crosby and Graham Nash were a bit miffed at the sheer quality of some of the music; Young was a quarter of CSNY at this time, yet nothing he contributed to that band would have made the final cut on 'Goldrush'.If I could change anything about thits record it would be to add harmonica to the mix. Some of the songs are crying out for it like a thirsty man cries out for water, yet the only track it was used on was 'Oh Lonesome Me', (very appropriately) and this as far as I am aware was the instrument's debut on a Neil Young record. But 'Harvest' was just around the corner, and the 'Dylan-Kit' was about to have its moment in the sun. Goldrush may not have been his biggest selling record, or even his best, but this was Neil's contribution to the high table of rock classics.