Maybe because the tease for Neil Young’s unveiling of recordings from his personal treasure trove has gone on for so long, and expectations are so high, the first installment in the series, last year’s Live At The Fillmore East was a bit of a disappointment.
Recorded in 1970, it’s a solid set, to be sure, featuring prime time Crazy Horse, but it’s short on both revelation and running time, clocking in at only 40 minutes. Live At Massey Hall, a solo acoustic set performed at the Toronto venue where Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie made history in 1953, is something else entirely.
Recorded in January of 1971, during the early flush of the Canadian native’s solo career but before Harvest boosted his commercial stature — and before he began veering eccentrically all over the stylistic map — it fully captures a very particular artist at a particular time and place.
In contrast to the crusty road warrior seen and heard in Heart Of Gold, Jonathan Demme’s terrific 2006 documentary, the 1971 model Young is mellow, self-effacing and amusingly spaced-out. “This is a song I wrote in Vancouver, good old Vancouver,” he says, introducing “There’s A World”. “Been there twice. Once early in the month and once a little later in the month.”
But it’s the spatial allure of the song readings — the entry points they give us to his themes of isolation and need — more than the spaciness of the performer that matters most. With the exception of “Bad Fog Of Loneliness”, a never-released song he says he wrote for Johnny Cash’s TV show only to have his appearance on it cancelled (and eventually un-cancelled), the tunes here are familiar. But they sound reborn, the melodies re-cast.
The brief but pointed renditions of “Cowgirl In The Sand” and “Down By The River” included here have more emotional heft than the amped up, anthemic renditions on the Fillmore set. The way he holds and extends those last notes on “River” speaks to his hunger for connection.
At a time when commercial labels typically cut and paste live albums (the few, that is, they risk releasing) from multiple shows, eliminate song introductions and limit audience reaction, the real-time quality of this nearly 70-minute album is an anomalous treat. There is no shortage of live Neil Young — acoustic and electric, solo and with band — on record. The unconventional Time Fades Away (1973) is from the same period. But coming from an artist who, whatever Paul Simon says, never allows himself the luxury of staying pat, this journey to the past is a worthy addition to his canon.
The Youngian beat will go on — allegedly — this fall, when an 8-CD, 2-DVD box documenting his work from 1963-1972 is slated for release. A treasure trove of previously unreleased recordings is promised.
