Live at Massey Hall 1971

Neil Young's archives discover new masterpieces

There can be no better thing for those who love XX century rock music than to be Neil Young's fan. Probably nobody else on this planet can gladden admirers like he does. His artistic prolificacy simply has no limits. During his entire long time career he released a huge number of albums, his solo works alone amounts to tens and he played with other bands too. So there is absolutely nothing astonishing to know that he's got piles of recorded material that has never been officially released somewhere in the attics of his house. Neil Young started his Archive Albums Series composed of these very records in November 2006 with his Live At Fillmore East and now only four months later he continued it with his old/new concert record Live At Massey Hall 1997. Unlike its predecessor where Young appears with a rocking line up of his then band Crazy Horse this album is completely acoustic. Switching from acoustic guitar to grand piano he presents public with versions of his new songs, which later will become classic rock hits.    

Live At Massey Hall 1971 is a completely acoustic album

The album will be interesting for any Neil Young's fan not only because this is a rare record but as many songs here haven't gone through the final editing and remain in so to say intermediate condition between their birth and the album's variant. Thus, for example, a well-known song Old Man received a little bit more sorrowful tone, and a piano version of his hit Heart Of Gold stands as a part of another great track A Man Needs A Maid. There are few songs that were laid on a shelf before they appeared on official albums, for instance a minor key Love In Mind from Time Fades Away or stripped version of See The Sky About To Rain from On The Beach. Young didn't forget to play such hits from his recent for that time album After The Gold Rush as Tell Me Why and Dont't Let It Bring You Down. There are two songs that can be fined only on this record, these are a small country ballad Bad Fog Of Loneliness, which was penned by Young specially for the upcoming concert with Johnny Cash and atypical for his songs but still pretty attractive Dance, Dance, Dance which was played to cheer up the audience. Live At Massey Hall 1971 is a classic old school unplugged, and it has a really qualitative sound in this respect, a sounds engineer managed to achieve an effect of close presence as if Young was playing somewhere near, not on a big scene. It is worth to do justice to the people in the audience who were trying to be attentive and were giving rare noses while Young was playing.

Live At Massey Hall 1971 could be released 36 years ago

To picture the meaning of this concert in Neil Young's career more precisely we'll have to make a short journey into history. In 1966 Neil Young left his Canadian homeland to make a big rock'n'roll future in Los Angeles where he founded his band Buffalo Springfield and started his solo career. In the January of 1971 he came back to Toronto being a star already and demonstrated to everyone how much he has grown as a songwriter and a performer during two concerts at Massey Hall. This album is a full version of a second one. Live At Massey Hall 1971 may be called a triumph of a local boy comeback. The public welcomes Young really hearty even despite that he plays mostly new songs, in fact, the entire atmosphere of the concert is domestic and friendly, Young speaks with the audience a lot, cracks inoffensive jokes but still never forgets about the main thing and performs the songs with unbelievable sincerity, concentrating on every tiny phrase. Many of the songs, which were played on this concert for the first time have entered Young's album of 1972 Harvest that became one of the most successful ones in his career. This concert turned out to be so bright that Neil Young's producer was literally begging him release the record as a double LP but Young never found time to listen to it and dived into work at his upcoming album instead. But nothing passes in vein, even 36 years after Live At Massey Hall 1971 sounds much more than interesting. And the fact that Young was only 25 at that time arouses even stronger admiration with the giftedness of this truly great musician.