STACK New Zealand December Issue 69

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48 DECEMBER 2015
Neil Young
Bluenote Cafe
Most recent Young has been disappointing (never-
play-again rubbish like A Letter Home and The
Monsanto Years) so loyalists welcome him diving
into the vaults. As he does for this double-disc of
21 songs (seven unreleased) which is a reminder
of how exciting he could be, even in the 80s when
he was being dismissed. This brings the best versions of songs recorded
live in 1988 when he was swinging out with a big horn-driven r'n'b band
dealing material from his then-current (and terrific) This Note's For You
album. There's delicious B.B. King-blues (Don't Take Your Love Away
From Me), lowdown boogie with penetrating horns (Soul of a Woman),
garageband r'n'b ( Ain't It The Truth nodding to Van Morrison's Gloria), and
the outstanding Bad News Comes to Town (another previously unreleased
gem). There’s also his bitter and always timely This Note's For You (about
not taking a buck to do ads), taut jazz solos by the saxophonists, midnight
MOR ( Twilight), Stax soul-cum-country (Hello Lonely Woman) and much
more. He closes with a 20-minute Tonight's the Night . Neil had his head in
the game; you'll wish you'd been there, now you are.
Chris Knox
Seizure
A sensible first blast in
the lovingly restored vinyl/
CD reissue of Knox's vast
catalogue (re-presented here
alongside the excellent 1990
Tall Dwarf album Weeville,
Knox with Alex Bathgate)
because it contains The Hit
(Not Given Lightly) as well as
important Knox statements
(The Face of Fashion, The
Woman Inside of Me,
Wanna!! , the lovely and bitter-
sweet And I Will Cry, Grand
Mal etc). Fifteen slices of
fractured, idiosyncratic genius
from 1989.
Various Artists
Solid Gold Hits
Summer's the time for classic
rock at the BBQ, but here are
unexpected goodies (Christie's
Yellow River, Ann Murray's
version of McCartney's You
Won't See Me, R. Dean Taylor's
Taos New Mexico) alongside
cornerstones (Long Cool Woman
in a Black Dress , You Ain't Seen
Nothin' Yet, Maggie May) and
Kiwi hits ( Good Morning Mr
Rock'n'Roll, Dance All Around
the World , Out in the Street).
A 20-song pick'n'mix to keep
guests guessing.
visit
Face Value (1981)
At the time of this exceptional solo debut -- kicked
off by the still astonishing In the Air Tonight – he'd
seamlessly replaced Peter Gabriel as singer in Genesis
and appeared on Gabriel's innovative solo albums. In
its own way this album bears comparison with the more critically
acclaimed Gabriel, and is emotionally bleak (Collins separating
from his first wife). The version of the Beatles' Tomorrow Never
Knows isn't special, but the expanded reissue includes his demo for
Against All Odds. He were a dark bugger.
. . . But Seriously (1989)
Prince and Philly soul-funk had impressed him (he's a
drummer after all) and although few believe a rich man
writing about the homeless (Another Day in Paradise)
and other social issues, the songs here are diverse
(Something Happened on the Way to Heaven is a post breakup
dancefloor shaker), emotional (utterly resigned on That's Just the
Way It Is) and Eric Clapton turns up on the powerful I Wish It Would
Rain Down. More unhappiness and unease than you might think
from a guy whose hits have mostly been cheery monsters.
Reconsidering the man who wrote Against All Odds.
Both Sides (1993)
His fifth solo album found him breaking up from his
second wife and living in uneasy political times, all
of which fed into downbeat songs (Everyday, the
emotionally naked I've Forgotten Everything) and
even on his rare flashes of optimism he sounds unconvinced. Not a
happy chappy, he takes a poke at young people (We're the Sons of
Our Fathers, but they were poking at him). On the bagpipe-driven
We Wait And We Wonder he addressed living under the cloud of
terrorism, as relevant now as it was then.
Love Songs: A Compilation...
Old and New (2004)
A happy double disc? Well, it opens with his previously
unreleased version of John Martyn's slow ballad Tearing
and Breaking (see below) and love for Phil rarely sounds
like long walks on the beach holding hands. More like he's waiting for
her to say, “We need to talk . . .”
Further Listening
He was a boozing brother-in-arms for the late John Martyn's harrowing
separation album Grace and Danger (1980) which was shelved for a
year because it was thought too dark and depressing.
For more from Graham Reid visit
By Graham Reid
PHIL COLLINS