Road Rock, Vol. 1 album review
by Bob Gendron
Officially credited to Neil Young, Friends & Relatives, Road Rock Volume I is the latest maverick move by the unpredictable rocker. With eight songs recorded "live" from his Summer 2000 tour, Road is Young's fourth live album in the past ten years. Seen in a certain light, and it is more. Consider that Young's long-rumored rarities box-set has been delayed for the umpteenth time, and we must ask if Young's archives are being released in morsel-size bites, as opposed to one big, expensive chunk. In this year alone, fans have seen Road's out-of-the-blue appearance on CD, as well as on DVD-Video (titled Red Rocks Live), which has an additional 12 songs recorded at the Denver venue. (Road is also being released on DVD-Audio with a program identical to the CD.) Add those to the recent Silver + Gold concert DVD, and the just-issued DVD of Jim Jamuch's documentary of Young and Crazy Horse, Year of the Horse, and there's plenty of fan-friendly, non-commercial Young material on the market.
Road is the first live album to spotlight Young's band of long-time friends, family, and assistants. Composed of Ben Keith on guitar and pedal steel, Spooner Oldham on piano and organ, Donald "Duck" Dunn on bass, Jim Keltner on drums, and Pegi and Astrid Young on backup vocals, this contingent played on Young's latest studio release, the romantic Silver + Gold. (Interestingly, not one song off of Silver is here.) Road amazingly avoids the risk of album repetition or song burnout - none of its selections appear on any of Young's three most recent live albums, which are1991's Arc/Weld, 1993's Unplugged, and 1997's Year of the Horse.
Nontraditional, Road is a raw collection of fan favorites, lost gems, and closet classics. Two songs make their first appearance on a Young album. Fool For Your Love, a 1988-era Young original makes its debut here, but it's horribly tacky, and, unlike most Young songs, lacks anything memorable. It's the low point of the set. The other first is a raging cover of Bob Dylan's All Along the Watchtower. Some may recall that Young originally performed the song at Madison Square Garden for "Bob Dylan's 30th Anniversary Celebration" in 1993, and that his stellar take is captured on the tribute album of the same name. Some may also remember that the very same performance stole the show. Young has intermittently played the song with various incarnations of his backing bands since. Here, Young delivers another thunderous rendition that's even edgier and harder than the MSG version, while sharing the vocal duties with the Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde. It doesn't top the 1992 recording, but it's energetic and inspired nonetheless.
Other standouts include a marathon-length, 18-minute Cowgirl In the Sand, and an 11-minute Words jam. On Motorcycle Mama, Young's wife, Pegi, sings with conviction, the part of the female rider, and adds a playful interplay to the song's progression. While everything except Fool succeeds, the slow-to-medium tempo build-up on the harrowing drug classic Tonight's the Night helps it rank among the best versions of the song I've heard, and is the centerpiece of the set.
Disappointingly, the sonics on Road makes the listener feel as if they are in the 40th row of a large arena. The soundstage is small, cavernous, and without the finer musical dynamics that Young's improvisational, scatter-tone guitar playing produces. The disc's HDCD encoding negates some of the sonic emptiness, but it alone can't rescue the record's dismal sound. Young is better sonically represented on his recent studio albums, as well as on Unplugged and Arc/Weld.
While not the place for those hearing Young for the first time, Road is another worthy stop on Young's never-ending musical journey, and will alike please die-hards and music aficionados of all kinds.