Neil Young – Bluenote Cafe (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192kHz | Time – 02:26:24 minutes | 5,27 GB | Genre: Rock
Official Digital Download – Source: PonoMusic | © Reprise Records
Bluenote Café is a live album by Canadian singer-songwriter Neil Young, released on November 13 2015 on Reprise. The album is volume eleven in Young’s Archives Performance Series, and features performances from Young’s 1987-1988 American tour in support of his seventeenth studio album, This Note’s for You (1988), with his then-backing band, The Bluenotes.
Neil Young is famous as a man who is going to do what he wants, and he’s willing to pounce on a moment’s inspiration and run with it if it pleases him. In 1987, Young decided he wanted to set aside rock & roll for a while and play the blues, and that’s just what he did. He recruited his longtime musical partners Crazy Horse (Frank Sampedro on keys, Billy Talbot on bass, and Ralph Molina on drums), added a six-piece horn section (led by Steve Lawrence on tenor sax), and called the new band the Bluenotes, hitting the road with the new act in late 1987. In 1988, Young cut an album with the Bluenotes, This Note’s for You, and toured some more with the group before deciding he wanted to move back to topical songwriting with 1989’s Freedom, leaving the Bluenotes behind for good. Bluenote Café is an installment in Young’s Neil Young Archives series that documents his 1987-1988 concerts with the Bluenotes; unlike most of the NYA releases, this doesn’t present a single show, but stitches together highlights from 11 different gigs from November 1987 to August 1988. One of the unusual aspects of Young’s Bluenotes period is that the format of the band didn’t adapt itself well to his back catalog, so with the exception of a 19-minute workout on “Tonight’s the Night,” pretty much everything here is unique to this particular ensemble, and while it might have been interesting to hear Young rework some of his more primal material with a bluesy spin, that doesn’t happen. But there are a number of otherwise unrecorded tunes here that merit preservation, particularly the lean, funky “Doghouse” and the tough but playful “Ain’t It the Truth,” and the performances here are consistently solid. Crazy Horse don’t sound as exciting when reduced to a rhythm section, but they give this music a solid foundation and a deep groove, and if the horn section has only so many moves, they’re emphatic and drive these songs home with impressive force. And the Bluenotes were a fine showcase for Young’s guitar work; he doesn’t spin off many epic solos here as he does with most of his electric bands, but the urgent, brittle tone of Young’s guitar is a great match for his brief bursts of six-string fury, recalling a wired and feral version of Albert Collins. As a two-disc set, Bluenote Café feels a bit overstuffed and drawn out, but these recordings confirm the Bluenotes hold up better than many of Young’s creative left turns in the ’80s, and this is a thorough and entertaining look at an often overlooked phase in Young’s creative journey. –AllMusic Review by Mark Deming
Tracklist:
1. Welcome to the Big Room (Mt. View Theater, Mt. View, CA – 11/7/87) 7’31
2. Don’t Take Your Love Away From Me (The Fillmore, San Francisco, CA – 11/12/87) 9’31
3. This Note’s for You (The Palace, Hollywood, CA – 4/13/88) 5’24
4. Ten Men Workin’ (The World, NY, NY – 4/18/88) 8’32
5. Life in the City (The World, NY, NY – 4/18/88) 3’52
6. Hello Lonely Woman (The World, NY, NY – 4/18/88) 4’51
7. Soul of a Woman (The World, NY, NY – 4/18/88) 5’54
8. Married Man (The World, NY, NY – 4/21/88) 3’05
9. Bad News Comes to Town (Agora Ballroom, Cleveland, OH – 4/23/88) 8’00
10. Ain’t It the Truth (Agora Ballroom, Cleveland, OH – 4/23/88) 7’31
11. One Thing (Agora Ballroom, Cleveland, OH – 4/23/88) 6’41
12. Twilight (Agora Ballroom, Cleveland, OH – 4/23/88) 7’50
13. I’m Goin’ (CNE, Toronto, Canada – 8/18/88) 5’34
14. Ordinary People (Lake Compounce, Bristol, CT – 8/23/88) 12’51
15. Crime in the City (Jones Beach, Wantagh, NY – 8/27/88) 7’21
16. Crime of the Heart (Pier 84, NY, NY – 8/30/88) 5’37
17. Welcome Rap (Pier 84, NY, NY – 8/30/88) 0’35
18. Doghouse (Pier 84, NY, NY – 8/30/88) 4’10
19. Fool for Your Love (Pier 84, NY, NY – 8/30/88) 4’13
20. Encore Rap (Pier 84, NY, NY – 8/30/88) 1’07
21. On the Way Home (Poplar Creek Music Theatre, Hoffman Estates, IL – 8/16/88) 2’56
22. Sunny Inside (Pier 84, NY, NY – 8/30/88) 3’53
23. Tonight’s the Night (Pier 84, NY, NY – 8/30/88) 19’27
Personnel:
Neil Young – vocals, guitar
Rick Rosas – bass
Chad Cromwell – drums
Frank Sampedro – keyboards
Steve Lawrence – lead tenor saxophone
Ben Keith – alto saxophone
Larry Cragg – baritone saxophone
Claude Cailliet – trombone
Tom Bray – trumpet
John Fumo – trumpet
Billy Talbot – bass
Ralph Molina – drums
Download:
mqs.link_NeilYungBluenteCaf201519224.part1.rar
mqs.link_NeilYungBluenteCaf201519224.part2.rar
mqs.link_NeilYungBluenteCaf201519224.part3.rar
mqs.link_NeilYungBluenteCaf201519224.part4.rar
mqs.link_NeilYungBluenteCaf201519224.part5.rar
mqs.link_NeilYungBluenteCaf201519224.part6.rar