day” to “Mojo Hand,” Step Back is the perfect album for Johnny to exit the room with. It stands as a solid reminder of how fortunate we were to have had him here to begin
with...Recorded in an old direct to disc booth and produced by Jack White at his Third Man Records in Nashville, A Letter Home by Neil Young is a breath of fresh air in the age of digital recording, when so many albums sound so squeaky clean and pure that I’d all but forgotten the personality and spirit of old vinyl with it’s pops and cracks. This recording, made on a 1940’s recording booth the size of an aver- age phone booth
was once a popular way to record your own one-off record, cut straight to a vinyl record. Young starts with a message home to his deceased Mom and moves into a nice set of covers performed on his acoustic guitar, harmonica, and electric piano including a pair of Gordon Lightfoot
covers, “Early Morning Rain” and “If You Could Read My Mind.” His reading of Phil Ochs’ “Changes” is made for this recording environment. It’s emotional and tender. Young also sings the Willie Nelson penned Patsy Cline hit “Crazy” and Tim Hardin’s clas- sic “Reason to Believe” to great effect. Of course, there are a few tracks that were a bad idea. “On the Road Again” is just awful, and his take on Springsteen’s “My Hometown” doesn’t work in this format at all, but re- demption isn’t far behind because his cover of the Bert Jansch tune “Needle of Death” is a
beautiful and heartfelt song about a junkie’s heroin overdose that harkens back to “Needle and the Damage Done.” Even with the small minor misses, A Letter Home is a brave and wonderful release, and as is usually the case with Mr. Young, the good far outweighs the
bad....Case in point, his other release of 2014. Storyline, subtitled An Album of Rare Beauty, is as different from A Letter Home as Prince’s two simultaneous releases. Storyline features ten new Young compositions backed by a 92-piece orchestra, a choir and a big band. It somehow manages to be both huge and intimate at the same
time.The Deluxe edition (recommended) includes a second disc of the same songs preformed by Neil solo. Actually, the bonus disc probably should have been the album. It is quite good. Now, I won’t knock Neil for having the balls to do his own thing - he is a master of that. But most of these songs really don’t work with orchestral arrangement and
strings...The Rolling StonesHampton Coliseum, 1981 is truly an unearthed gem of a double album. Recorded live, the set kicks off in fifth gear with “Under My Thumb,” and includes all of the biggest hits we all know and love, as well as some nice surprises. This, of course, was the Stones of my High School years of the 70’s, when Bill Wyman was still holding down the bottom on bass. The band was re- ally “on” this night, espe- cially Mick Jagger, who delivers the familiar and often re- vamped lyrics and melodies with his usual swagger and passion. “Let’s Spend the Night Together,” rocks - “Shattered” gets a bit of a makeover, and “Beast of Burden” is a sonic
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