3/10/2023 0 Comments Neil young harvestLike in ‘Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing,’ which is 3/4 time. There was always a different tuning and Neil was also really good at using various time changes. He kept starting and stopping and trying other chord changes that most musicians wouldn’t go to. “It was one of those things where you walk in and Neil had his jumbo acoustic 12-string guitar and he’s halfway through a song that turned out to be ‘Expecting to Fly.’ It’s pre-cassette days and it’s like he doesn’t want to forget where he’s at in this song. “As the second Buffalo Springfield album began I went up to Neil’s cabin in Laurel Canyon,” continued Denny Bruce. Stephen and I did a lot of that unison singing that we picked up from the Beatles but then there was a lot of experimentation.” We liked the Beatles with John and Paul singing harmony. “The individual members brought their own take on what was being presented to the song. Soul’ with everybody singing and it sounded best with Neil,” underlined Furay. The first album and some of the second, you can hear the cohesiveness was a group effort, there was not the possessiveness of ‘this is my song, or this is my baby, and I’m singing it because I wrote it.’ Early on there was this ‘what does this sound like with you singing?’ I know we tried ‘Mr. “We were always comfortable singing someone else’s song early on. There were a lot of people being used other than the five of us. “That album at Gold Star represented the five of us together in the studio. “The band was that first album and it was never captured again,” ventured Buffalo Springfield co-founder and guitarist/singer, Richie Furay in my 2000 interview. “During 1967, Neil and Buffalo Springfield started to move away from Gold Star recording studio where they did their first album, to do Buffalo Springfield Again at Sunset Sound with engineers Bruce Botnick and Jim Messina. “In 1966 Jack took me to one of the Rolling Stones’ Aftermath sessions at RCA studios in Hollywood he was working on where Andrew Loog Oldham was producing. “Neil also indicated to us that he wanted to create a musical and lyrical mix of the Stones and Dylan,” stressed Bruce. Neil loved imagery as much as songwriting and performing. Neil would constantly talk to Jack about his work with the Rolling Stones, Sonny Bono, and Jackie DeShannon. Records, performers like Ian & Sylvia, and he loved Dylan. See, in Winnipeg we had BBC Radio and I heard them.’ “Neil was doing guitar stuff, and always trying to make his guitar a little bit different, and he said, ‘Do you know where that sound is coming from, Denny?’ I responded, ‘I know it’s not the Ventures.’ And he said, ‘Close, Hank Marvin, the guy in the Shadows. “Jack liked to hang out at the of Charlie Greene and Brian Stone on Sunset which were always open all night just to see if anybody was really going to show up. Neil was always interested in my opinion about all things pop. Neil and I had a casual friendship and he was a true fan of music. After performing Neil would go to his apartment still wide awake and write songs. The Whisky, Gazzarri’s, and smaller places. I saw Buffalo Springfield play all the local clubs. “I first met Neil in 1966 when he was living in an apartment at the Commodore Gardens in Hollywood. “In 1965 I was staying at Jack Nitzsche’s house in the Hollywood Hills after he split with his wife, Gracia,” remembered Denny in a 2015 interview we conducted. Bruce was an A&R man for Vanguard and Blue Thumb Records, co-owned Takoma Records, and is currently co-owner/CEO Benchmark Recordings. Bruce eventually had a distinguished career managing and producing such acts as Magic Sam, Leo Kottke, John Hiatt, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, John Fahey, Charles Bukowski, Michael Bloomfield and T-Bone Burnett. In 1965, Denny Bruce was the drummer for Frank Zappa’s earliest incarnation of the Mothers of Invention and was a Sunset Strip regular. I saw Neil Young and Crazy Horse debut in June of 1969 at Doug Weston’s Troubadour in West Hollywood, and Young’s 1971 solo concert in Los Angeles. I witnessed Buffalo Springfield on stage during December 1966 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium and The Hollywood Bowl in April 1967. Their voices are housed in my 2015 book Neil Young: Heart of Gold. Over the decades I’ve interviewed essential musicians, arrangers, engineers, producers and singers who initiated the commercial environment for Young’s Harvest: Denny Bruce, Jack Nitzsche, Richie Furay, Don Randi, Johnny Cash, Linda Ronstadt, and Elliot Mazer. Details will be announced by his record label Reprise later this year. This month, February 2022, Neil Young will celebrate Harvest with a 50th anniversary edition. Neil Young’s Harvest at Age 50 By Harvey Kubernik Copyright 2022 Please note that an official 50th anniversary release of Harvest is scheduled for later this year.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |