Neil Young Re-Signs With Reprise

[TimmyB]

From www.billboard.com

Edited By Jonathan Cohen. August 16, 2005, 3:00 PM ET

Neil Young Re-Signs With Reprise

By Jonathan Cohen, N.Y.

Neil Young has signed a new, multi-album deal with Reprise, which will kick in with the Sept. 27 release of his latest studio set, "Prairie Wind." Young recorded for Reprise from 1969 to 1983 and returned to the label in 1988 after a wildly experimental five-album stint on Geffen.

As previously reported, a major facet of the new deal will be a long-awaited series of archival releases from Young. According to Reprise, the series, which will get underway next year, will feature previously unreleased studio recordings and rarities as well as live material.

"I look forward to continuing my partnership with Reprise," Young said in a statement. "We've been through a lot together over the years. When you're with a company that long, it's like a family.

On Thursday and Friday (Aug. 18-19), Young will perform at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium as part of a concert film directed by Jonathan Demme. The as-yet-untitled project will hit theaters next year via Paramount.

[MarcO]

oh my god the Archives....... please let this be as good and as extensive as I can just imagine it could be....

[TimmyB]

http://www.marketwire.com/mw/releas...elease_id=93246

Neil Young and Reprise Records Continue Historic Four-Decade

Partnership in One of Music's Most Honored Legacies

New Album "Prairie Wind" Set for September 27th Release

BURBANK, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 08/16/2005 -- Neil Young, who has

created one of the most exciting and groundbreaking musical legacies

in rock & roll history, is continuing his four-decade relationship

with Reprise Records. Young released his first solo album on Reprise

in 1969, and since that time has become known as an inspirational

innovator, both in terms of recordings, live performances and film

endeavors. He is often cited as the artist who leads the way for

others through an uncompromising pursuit of staying true to his music.

Under the terms of the new long-term recording agreement, Reprise will

release multiple new studio albums from the acclaimed

singer-songwriter, beginning with "Prairie Wind" on September 27th.

That album is already being hailed as one of Neil Young's

masterpieces. Starting in 2006, Reprise will also begin an extensive

series of other releases, which will present a treasure trove of

archival material recorded over the past four decades. Working

together with Young, this series will feature a vast number of

unreleased recordings from his entire career, along with long-sought

live recordings and other infamous rarities. The different archive

sets will offer a comprehensive look at every facet in the musical

life of the multiple Rock & Roll Hall of Fame member, and create new

standards for honoring the artist's history, widely seen as one of the

most important and influential in rock & roll.

"I look forward to continuing my partnership with Reprise," says

Young. "We've been through a lot together over the years. When you're

with a company that long, it's like a family. [Warner Bros. CEO] Tom

Whalley really understands musicians and knows how to nurture

creativity. He's not afraid to let artists be artists."

Young first signed with Reprise in 1969 after leaving Buffalo

Springfield. The label has released the outspoken and iconic artist's

most critically and commercially beloved albums, including "Everybody

Knows This Is Nowhere" (1969), "After the Gold Rush" (1970), "Harvest"

(1972), "Rust Never Sleeps" (1979), "Freedom" (1989), and "Harvest

Moon" (1992). "Look at his track record," says Whalley. "Neil is a

relentless musical innovator and visionary, and we can't wait to hear

all the new music he's going to create. To us, Neil Young is a

foundation of what Reprise and Warner Bros. Records are all about, and

we are thrilled to continue our relationship with him into the

future."

That future includes the September 27th release of "Prairie Wind,"

which was recorded earlier this year in Nashville. In addition to a

single compact disc, the release will also be available in a special

edition that includes the CD along with a DVD in High Resolution DVD

Stereo, with filmed content of the entire recording of the album. The

incredible set of songs is being described as the last installment in

a trilogy of albums that include "Harvest" and "Harvest Moon," and

features the first single, "The Painter," along with "No Wonder,"

"Falling Off The Face Of The Earth," "Far From Home," "It's A Dream,"

"Prairie Wind," "Here For You," "This Old Guitar," "He Was The King"

and "When God Made Me." Young is joined on the album by keyboardist

Spooner Oldham, pedal-steel guitarist Ben Keith, drummer Chad

Cromwell, percussionist Karl Himmel, bassist Rick Rosas and vocalist

Emmylou Harris, along with the Fisk University Jubilee Singers and

other guests.

Neil Young is performing at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on

August 18th and 19th, to be filmed by Academy Award®-winning director

Jonathan Demme. He is also appearing at the 20th anniversary of Farm

Aid in Chicago on September 18th, an organization he co-founded with

Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp.

[Rob Not Bob]

The original plan for the archive series was a 28 disc set, comprised of 4 boxed sets of 7 discs each (4 cds and 3 DVDs) ... of course, that was proposed about 8 years ago and there has been no sign since. I'd be happy with just remasters of the original Reprise albums.

RnB

[TimmyB]

The original plan for the archive series was a 28 disc set, comprised of 4 boxed sets of 7 discs each (4 cds and 3 DVDs) ... of course, that was proposed about 8 years ago and there has been no sign since. I'd be happy with just remasters of the original Reprise albums.

RnB

That is a great idea about Neil Young's Reprise albums getting remastered.

As for the Archives, one can only hope. Either way I'm looking forward to the new album and Farm Aid.

Tim

[secondtube]

i love neil.

[deranger]

ditto

[MarcO]

THE ARCHIVES - I want them. My expectations for these releases are sky high. Why sky high? Sky high why? Because this project has been in development for 18 years now, with a partial description being released as far back as the early 1990's. Being that Neil is a nutjob, he's put the kibosh on it a few times, I guess maybe his brush with mortality earlier this year brought his legacy back to his attention. That, or holding off on them as a negotiating tool for re-signing a lapsed contract. Or a bit of both.

What do I expect from THE ARCHIVES??

As a start, we know that Neil has recorded several albums that remain unreleased as they were envisioned, although some of the tracks have popped up on other albums. There's the mid-1970's albums "Give To The Wind" and "Homegrown". Then there are original, wildly different versions of "Comes A Time", "Tonight's The Night". and "Old Ways". There was a double-live album with the Bluenotes that Neil pulled on the eve of it's release because he decided he was "done with that", which - judging from the live stuff from that band I've heard - would be really really good, full of startling original material unique to that project along with some choice covers. There was an aborted attempt at a CSNY album in the mid 1970s, with some tracks completed. Let's further assume that almost all of his albums - to this day - have leftover extra tracks and that there are numerous demoes of all sorts of stuff that would be fascinating. All this alone is a mammoth project - and the heart and soul of the project - but let's not stop there!

THE ARCHIVES, based on what I remember reading ten years ago in Rolling Stone, will also feature live shows and accompanying DVDs whereever possible. There was talk of recordings going back to his Riverboat days in Yorkville in the mid 1960s as well as his solo Massey Hall gigs in 1970 or 1971. Add on some 1969/1970 Crazy Horse shows from the vault and the early years are rounded out nicely. The mind boggles at what is in his vaults as far as the rest of his career goes but let's further assume that most of his live experiences are at least represented in there, not all but most. Laugh all you want but I for one would welcome a full show of say, the Shocking Pnks tour, or his sonic assault on Japan in 1990 with his band The Restless. There is also film footage of those Massey Hall shows, and God knows what else, that should be committed to DVD.

Finally, I expect THE ARCHIVES will be accompanied by a treasure trove of written materials and photographs, essays and articles.

I don't want this watered down to make it cheaper. It's been too long already, get it out there Neil and remind the world why you are one of the most important artists of the 20th century. Oh and I bet Neil's new album will make me cry too.

He really is the gift that keeps on giving. Fuck I love you Neil!

[TimmyB]

THE ARCHIVES - I want them. My expectations for these releases are sky high. Why sky high? Sky high why? Because this project has been in development for 18 years now, with a partial description being released as far back as the early 1990's. Being that Neil is a nutjob, he's put the kibosh on it a few times, I guess maybe his brush with mortality earlier this year brought his legacy back to his attention. That, or holding off on them as a negotiating tool for re-signing a lapsed contract. Or a bit of both.

What do I expect from THE ARCHIVES??

As a start, we know that Neil has recorded several albums that remain unreleased as they were envisioned, although some of the tracks have popped up on other albums. There's the mid-1970's albums "Give To The Wind" and "Homegrown". Then there are original, wildly different versions of "Comes A Time", "Tonight's The Night". and "Old Ways". There was a double-live album with the Bluenotes that Neil pulled on the eve of it's release because he decided he was "done with that", which - judging from the live stuff from that band I've heard - would be really really good, full of startling original material unique to that project along with some choice covers. There was an aborted attempt at a CSNY album in the mid 1970s, with some tracks completed. Let's further assume that almost all of his albums - to this day - have leftover extra tracks and that there are numerous demoes of all sorts of stuff that would be fascinating. All this alone is a mammoth project - and the heart and soul of the project - but let's not stop there!

THE ARCHIVES, based on what I remember reading ten years ago in Rolling Stone, will also feature live shows and accompanying DVDs whereever possible. There was talk of recordings going back to his Riverboat days in Yorkville in the mid 1960s as well as his solo Massey Hall gigs in 1970 or 1971. Add on some 1969/1970 Crazy Horse shows from the vault and the early years are rounded out nicely. The mind boggles at what is in his vaults as far as the rest of his career goes but let's further assume that most of his live experiences are at least represented in there, not all but most. Laugh all you want but I for one would welcome a full show of say, the Shocking Pnks tour, or his sonic assault on Japan in 1990 with his band The Restless. There is also film footage of those Massey Hall shows, and God knows what else, that should be committed to DVD.

Finally, I expect THE ARCHIVES will be accompanied by a treasure trove of written materials and photographs, essays and articles.

I don't want this watered down to make it cheaper. It's been too long already, get it out there Neil and remind the world why you are one of the most important artists of the 20th century. Oh and I bet Neil's new album will make me cry too.

He really is the gift that keeps on giving. Fuck I love you Neil!

Hey MarcO,

That was beautiful and feel the urge to say I love you right now.

I love you Marc.

Love,

Tim

[MarcO]

I love you too, Tim.

Love,

Marc.

[Im going home Donny]

Awesome! fuck yes!

I heart Neil too!

Heart o Gold baby!

[SmoothedShredder]

This thread is beautiful!

[TimmyB]

Today (August 18th) is the 12th anniversary of my first Neil Young concert at Exibition Stadium with Booker T. & the MG's as his back up band and Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Blues Traveler opening the show.

I am sure there were a few other people here on this board that were with me and the other 53,000 people that saw Young play that day in the city of his birth.

Since that show Neil has been my favorite artist, along with Bob Dylan. Though Young puts on a better show in the nineties and beyond than Dylan does so I prefer Neil as a live performer now.

Tim

[secondtube]

careful TimmyB, dont say that too loud, lol.

i can't wait for his new album, and in turn, his tour.

Go Neil!

[DownTown]

(kevO here...)

Fuckin right MarcO!!!!!! That is going to be insane. I'm watching the Rust Never Sleeps DVD right now, its blowing my top off. Hate was just a legend. Those little red gremlins are freakin my hungover self out though. They looks like the little people of Stonehenge! I think the rhythm guitarist is wearing a Montreal Canadians jersey, f'n right! Neil rules!!

[bradm]

Those little red gremlins are freakin my hungover self out though. They looks like the little people of Stonehenge!

Weren't those the "road-eyes", a play on the "Redeyes" from Star Wars?

Aloha,

Brad

[DevO]

ahh now i get it. man he's got some wacky ideas! neil!

[TimmyB]

Those little red gremlins are freakin my hungover self out though. They looks like the little people of Stonehenge!

Weren't those the "road-eyes"' date=' a play on the "Redeyes" from Star Wars?

Aloha,

Brad[/quote']

The Road-eyes are supposed to be the Jawas from Star Wars.

Jawas, not redeyes. I did not see too many redeyes in Star Wars.

Tim

Edited August 18, 2005 by Guest

[bradm]

Of course, jawas. ISTR them having glowing (red? yellow?) eyes, which was why I called them "redeyes". I was wrong.

Aloha,

Brad

[Swan]

Eddie Vedder speaks of the achives when he inducted Neil into the rock and roll hall of fame. He was saying that he visited Neils Vault and they have it broken down into the 37 best cortez the killers, etc. But the problem is that some of the tapes are simply labeled Friday Night or Wednesday morning. He also said that a friend of Stone Gossard referred to Neil's music as mountain funk. I've always liked that mountain funk!

[secondtube]

Neil and Eddie.

A match made in heaven.

[Kaidy Mae]

they have it broken down into the 37 best cortez the killers

Oh man, I can't wait!

[secondtube]

i'd LOVE to give them a listen to....but i'd HATE to have to pick the best one...

[MarcO]

08-18-2005, Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, Tennessee

1. The Painter

2. No Wonder

3. Falling Off the Face of the Earth

4. Far From Home

5. It's A Dream

6. Prairie Wind

7. Here For You

8. This Old Guitar

9. He Was The King

10. When God Made Me

---

11. I Am A Child

12. Heart Of Gold

13. Old Man

14. The Needle And The Damage Done

15. Comes A Time

16. Four Strong Winds

17. Old King

18. Harvest Moon

19. One Of The Days

---------------------------

from The New York Times:

August 20, 2005

Young Plays Nashville, but Old-Time Country It's Not

By JON PARELES

NASHVILLE, Aug. 18 - A lanky man in an antique-style pewter-gray suit and a gaucho hat stood onstage tonight at Ryman Auditorium, the hallowed country-music landmark that was the longtime home of the Grand Ole Opry. An old-fashioned painted backdrop was behind him; an old guitar was in his hands.

The guitar, he told the audience, had belonged to Hank Williams, who was fired from the Grand Ole Opry in 1952. Neil Young, the man holding the guitar, said he was happy that Williams's guitar was returning to the Ryman stage. And then he sang "This Old Guitar," a quietly touching song from his coming album, "Prairie Wind," that observes, "This old guitar ain't mine to keep/It's mine to play for a while."

Tonight Mr. Young began a two-night stand at the Ryman Auditorium that was a tangle of new and old, of remembrance and reinvention. With him were more than two dozen musicians: a band, backup singers (including his wife, Pegi), a horn section, a string section, the Fisk University Jubilee Singers and Emmylou Harris. They were assembled for what would be the only performances of all the songs on "Prairie Wind" (Reprise), due for release on Sept. 20. The musicians were costumed like old-time country performers, in suits and modest coordinated dresses, but they weren't playing old-time country music. A film crew directed by Jonathan Demme, who made the Talking Heads concert film "Stop Making Sense" as well as "The Silence of the Lambs," was shooting for a documentary due in February.

A day before the concerts, Mr. Young took a break for an interview between rehearsals that had been running 12 hours a day. "We're doing 10 songs with 20, sometimes 30 musicians on them," he said. "I pick musicians who are in the moment, and when you get guys who are in the moment to try and recreate some other moment, that's a hell of a lot of work to do. They can't even remember what they played."

Memory is central to both "Prairie Wind" and Mr. Young's other project, the long-postponed release of music from his archives that is to begin next year. "It's a long road behind me," he sings in "The Painter," which opens the album. "It's a long road ahead."

"Prairie Wind" is a collection of plainspoken songs about family, faith, home, music, the passage of time and the wide-open Canadian landscape where Mr. Young grew up. Like the other albums he has recorded in Nashville - including the best-selling album of his career, "Harvest," from 1972 - it looks toward American roots, and its 10 songs amble from country twang to bluesy harmonica to Memphis soul horns. There's a fond, loose-limbed honky-tonk tribute to Elvis and ballads that straightforwardly offer love and loyalty; the title song, particularly onstage, turned into an incantation, as expansive as its chorus: "Prairie wind blowin' through my head."

The lyrics are infused with feelings of mortality, and are full of benedictions and farewells. While making the album, Mr. Young, 59, was being treated for a brain aneurysm, a swelling in a blood vessel. He alternated recording sessions in Nashville with surgery and hospitalization in New York City.

In March, Mr. Young he had experienced blurred vision at the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, where he performed with the Pretenders. "I saw a lot of doctors real fast," he said. The aneurysm was diagnosed, but he had already made plans to begin recording in Nashville, and he did a week of sessions - finishing the first three songs on the album - before returning to New York for surgery.

"The recording studio is one of the few places where I feel completely at home," he said. "I felt like staying in there. I wanted to get whatever I had on my mind into music." He wrote quickly - sometimes completing a song in just 15 or 20 minutes - and placed the songs on the album in the order they were written and recorded, as he had with "Greendale," the rock opera he released in 2003. The songs on "Prairie Wind" don't have a narrative, as "Greendale" did, but they continue to explore Mr. Young's fascination with the changes and continuity of generations.

"When you're in your 20's, then you and your world are the biggest thing, and everything revolves around what you're doing," Mr. Young said. "Now I realize I'm a leaf floating along on the water on top of some river. That's where I'm at."

The lyrics are filled with reminiscences. "It's about where I'm from and where our family's from and where the world is going," Mr. Young said, "and what it used to be like when my grandfather was a kid, and what they remember and what I remember them telling me about: the things that they saw that no one will ever see again."

Like Bruce Springsteen's current album, "Devils & Dust," Mr. Young's new album also ponders religion. The album's most striking song, "No Wonder," is a series of elusive, overlapping narratives and contrasting musical sections, united by the recurring image of a church. And its final song, "When God Made Me," sets a series of questions to a hymnlike melody: "Did He think there was only one way to be close to Him?" Perhaps by coincidence, the studio where "Prairie Wind" was made, Masterlink, was once a church and, during the Civil War, a Confederate morgue. (More recently it was Monument Studios, where Roy Orbison recorded throughout his career.) Ryman Auditorium itself was built in 1892 as a gospel tabernacle.

"I feel like our religion and our faith have been hijacked," Mr. Young said. "What is bothering me the most is the misappropriation of religion and faith, the misuse of God and the house of worship. It's one faith with different people trying to express it in different ways. It's all about being the little guy in the big world."

The core band on "Prairie Wind" is the same one Mr. Young used on "Harvest Moon" in 1992, and it includes his longtime collaborator, the slide and pedal steel guitarist Ben Keith (who was on "Harvest") and the soul songwriter Spooner Oldham on keyboards. Mr. Young has returned to Nashville every so often to make his more reflective, down-home albums. Most of the concert's second half was drawn from those albums, with songs including "Heart of Gold" and "Old Man" from "Harvest," a gorgeously poised version of "Harvest Moon" that included the sound of a man rhythmically pushing a broom, and the title song from the 1978 album "Comes a Time."

Mr. Young recorded "Prairie Wind" in an old-fashioned way: playing and singing live with the band in the studio, though strings and backing vocals were added later. "We really made a Nashville Renaissance recording," he said. But the songs rarely sound like other people's Nashville projects, past or present; their homespun tone conceals eccentricities small and large. Onstage at Ryman, musicians came and went in constantly shifting combinations. Even when the songs are slight, they're atmospheric.

Mr. Young said he had decided to film the concerts for a simple reason: Mr. Demme asked him. "He called me up and said, 'I've got a year off, I'd like to do something, and are you doing anything?' I said, 'Well yeah, I just made this record called "Prairie Wind." I'll send it to you, see what you think.' " And then we just came around to the idea, 'Why don't we just use this music, which was recorded in Nashville in the old way, with real musicians coming in from everywhere, and putting them together live.?' "

Meanwhile, Mr. Young had been working steadily working on releasing digital versions of the music in archives that date back more than 40 years. The last time he was on the verge of releasing archive material, he changed his mind when improvements in technology promised higher fidelity, and he started a new round of remastering. Mr. Young recently renewed his longtime contract with Reprise Records, which will release the first volume of his archives - covering 1963 to 1973 - as a set of eight DVD's or CD's. The DVD's, with high-resolution audio, also include visuals and annotations; for instance, with material recorded in the 1960's at the Riverboat Coffeehouse, Mr. Young reconstructed images of the club. "You can see everything but me," he said. "I'm like a ghost."

The archive project has been as time-consuming as "Prairie Wind" was spontaneous. "When I do finally get it out there, it's going to be a great relief," Mr. Young said. "It's like a huge overcoat that I wear. It's got a lot of pockets in it. Some of them are full of diamonds. Some of them are just full of lead. It's a burden, but it's getting lighter."

Going through the archive has let Mr. Young second-guess his memories. "There are some things in it that are just unbelievable, records that I don't know why I never released," he said. "I look at what I released during that period, and I go, 'Wow, what was I thinking?' But life is like that."

For the concert's finale tonight, Mr. Young returned to the "Harvest Moon" album for "One of These Days," a song about watching friends drift away. But with more than two dozen Nashville musicians surrounding him onstage, he didn't look lonely at all.

Edited August 19, 2005 by Guest

[Rob Not Bob]

Of course the question is ... was this taped, and will it be distributed? (OK, 2 questions ...)