After the Gold Rush
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| After the Gold Rush | ||
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| Studio album by Neil Young | ||
| Released | September 19, 1970 | |
| Recorded | Aug. 1969-June 1970 | |
| Genre | Rock | |
| Length | 35:10 | |
| Label | Reprise | |
| Producer(s) | Neil Young, David Briggs with Kendall Pacios | |
| Professional reviews | ||
|---|---|---|
| Neil Young chronology | ||
| Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (1969) |
After the Gold Rush (1970) |
Harvest (1972) |
After the Gold Rush is the third album by Neil Young, and one of four high-profile albums released by each partner of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in the wake of their chart-topping Déjà Vu album of 1970. It peaked at #8 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart; two singles taken from the album, "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" and "When You Dance I Can Really Love," made it to #33 and #93 respectively on the Billboard Hot 100.
Contents |
[edit] Track listing
All songs written by Neil Young except "Oh, Lonesome Me" written by Don Gibson.
- "Tell Me Why" – 2:54
- "After the Gold Rush" – 3:45
- "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" – 3:05
- "Southern Man" – 5:41
- "Till the Morning Comes" – 1:17
- "Oh, Lonesome Me" – 3:47
- "Don't Let It Bring You Down" – 2:56
- "Birds" – 2:34
- "When You Dance I Can Really Love" – 3:44
- "I Believe in You" – 3:24
- "Cripple Creek Ferry" – 1:34
[edit] History
Neil Young's third solo album was released during a prolific period of his career, having recorded two solo albums and Déjà Vu with in less than a year; after being sidelined with a back injury, he would wait until 1972 for his subsequent LP Harvest, which would make Young a household name. Although his work with Buffalo Springfield had shown him experimenting with a variety of musical styles, on Gold Rush Young continued the mix of hard rock with the country and folk-flavored acoustic approaches from CSNY and on 1969's Everybody Knows This is Nowhere.
In the authoritative Young biography Shakey, it was stated that he was intentionally trying to combine Crazy Horse and CSN on this release, with Crazy Horse appearing alongside Stephen Stills and CSNY bass player Greg Reeves. Initial sessions were conducted with Crazy Horse at Sunset Sound Studios in Los Angeles amid a winter tour that included a well-received engagement with Steve Miller and Miles Davis at the Fillmore East. Due to the deteriorating condition of rhythm guitarist Danny Whitten, the sessions only yielded one track, "I Believe In You". This song and "When You Dance I Can Really Love" mark the only appearance of the backing group on After The Gold Rush, although Whitten performed on "Southern Man".
Most of the album was recorded at a make-shift basement studio in Young's modest Topanga Canyon home during the spring of 1970 with Greg Reeves, Ralph Molina of Crazy Horse, and burgeoning eighteen year old musical phenom Nils Lofgren of the Washington, DC-based band Grin on piano. In a typical idiosyncratic decision of the singer/songwriter, Lofgren had not played keyboards on a regular basis prior to the sessions. Along with fellow Young stalwart Jack Nitzsche, he would join an augmented Crazy Horse sans Young before enjoying cult success and a stint in Bruce Springsteen's band.
Critics were not immediately enamored; the original review in Rolling Stone began:
"Neil Young devotees will probably spend the next few weeks trying desperately to convince themselves that After the Gold Rush is good music. But they'll be kidding themselves. For despite the fact that the album contains some potentially first rate material, none of the songs here rise above the uniformly dull surface."
As is typical of Young releases, critical reaction has improved with time, and Gold Rush is now considered a milestone in Young's recording career. Ink Blot magazine's retrospective review summarizes more current critical thinking:
- "One of his least stylized efforts, the record gains its strength from not only the rock solid songwriting, but the array of musical personalities that Neil displays. ... The variety and quality of the songs causes After The Gold Rush to play like a greatest hits album, which unbelievably it is not."
In 1998 Q magazine readers voted After the Gold Rush the 89th greatest album of all time. It was ranked 92nd in a 2005 survey held by British television's Channel 4 to determine the 100 greatest albums of all time. In 2003, Rolling Stone named the album the 71st greatest album of all time.
[edit] "After the Goldrush" Screenplay
The credits read that "Most of these songs were inspired by the Dean Stockwell-Herb Berman screenplay "After the Goldrush." Young had read the screenplay and asked Stockwell if he could produce the soundtrack, and though the movie came to naught, After the Gold Rush was released nonetheless. When asked by Shakey author Jimmy McDonough which songs were inspired by the script, the only tracks Young could recall were "After the Gold Rush" and "Cripple Creek Ferry". Stockwell said of it "I was gonna write a movie that was personal, a Jungian self-discovery of the gnosis...it involved the Kabala (sic), it involved a lot of arcane stuff." (Shakey). Described in Shakey by fellow Topanga resident Shannon Forbes as "...A sort of an end-of-the-world movie...at the end, the hero is standing in the Corral parking lot watching this huge wave come in and this house was surfing along, and as the house comes at him, he turns the knob - and that's the end of the movie."
Unfortunately, not much else is known about the screenplay, as it is currently missing.(Shakey) Stockwell would work with Young later in his career, creating the cover for the American Stars 'N Bars album, as well as writing and co-directing Young's film Human Highway.
[edit] Personnel
- Neil Young: guitar, piano, harmonica, vibes, vocal
- Danny Whitten: guitar, vocal
- Nils Lofgren: piano, vocal
- Jack Nitzsche: piano
- Billy Talbot: bass
- Greg Reeves: bass
- Ralph Molina: drums, vocal
- Bill Peterson: flugelhorn
- Stephen Stills: vocal
[edit] Additional Personnel - Production
Alphabetically:
- Joel Bernstein - Photography
- David Briggs - Producer
- Gary Burden - Art Direction
- Kendall Pacios - Producer
- Elliot Roberts & Lookout Management - Direction
- Neil Young - Producer
[edit] Billboard Singles Charts
- "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" peaked # 33 on Pop Singles in 1970
- "When You Dance I Can Really Love" peaked # 93 on Pop Singles in 1971
