After the Gold Rush

Infobox Album |
Name = After the Gold Rush
Type = studio
Artist = Neil Young


Released = September 19 1970
Recorded = August 1969 - June 1970
Genre = Rock
Length = 35:10
Label = Reprise
Producer = Neil Young, David Briggs with Kendall Pacios
Reviews =
*Wireless Bollinger (85/100) [http://www.wirelessbollinger.com/content/view/362/81/ link]
*Allmusic Rating|5|5 [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:3sr67uu0h0j3 link]
*"Rolling Stone" (Negative) [http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/neilyoung/albums/album/241138/review/5942184/after_the_gold_rush link]
*Robert Christgau (A+) [http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=neil+young link]
Last album = "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere"
(1969)
This album = "After the Gold Rush"
(1970)
Next album = "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.

Track listing

All songs written by Neil Young except as indicated.

ide one

#"Tell Me Why" – 2:54
#"After the Gold Rush" – 3:45
#"Only Love Can Break Your Heart" – 3:05
#"Southern Man" – 5:31
#"Till the Morning Comes" – 1:17

ide two

#"Oh Lonesome Me" (Don Gibson) – 3:47
#"Don't Let It Bring You Down" – 2:56
#"Birds" – 2:34
#"When You Dance I Can Really Love" – 4:05
#"I Believe in You" – 3:24
#"Cripple Creek Ferry" – 1:34

History

Neil Young's third solo album was released during a prolific period of his career, having recorded two solo albums and Déjà Vu as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young 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 health of rhythm guitarist Danny Whitten (due to heroin use), the sessions only yielded one track, "I Believe In You". This song, "When You Dance I Can Really Love", and "Oh, Lonesome Me" mark the only appearance of the backing group on "After The Gold Rush".

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."

Acclaim and Legacy

After the Gold Rush is thought by some to be Young's greatest and has appeared on a number of greatest albums lists. 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, his highest ranking on this list. Pitchfork Media listed it 99th on their 2004 list of the "Top 100 Albums of the 1970s" [ [http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/36725-staff-list-top-100-albums-of-the-1970s Pitchfork Feature: Top 100 Albums of the 1970s ] ] . In 2006, Time Magazine listed it as one of the 'All-TIME 100 Albums' [ [http://www.time.com/time/2006/100albums/0,27693,After_the_Gold_Rush,00.html The All-TIME 100 Albums: After the Gold Rush by Neil Young ] ] . It was ranked third in Bob Mersereau's 2007 book "The Top 100 Canadian Albums". Its followup album, "Harvest", was named the greatest Canadian album of all time in that book. On Rate Your Music.com, it is the second highest ranked album of 1970, twelfth highest of the 70s and 49th of all time. In 2005, Chart Magazine readers placed it fifth on a poll of the best Canadian Albums. In 2002, Blender Magazine named the 86th greatest "American" album. New Musical Express named it the 80th greatest album of all time in 2003. On the Acclaimedmusic.net website, the album holds the #1 spot for the year 1970, the #16 spot for the 1970s and the #43 spot on the all-time list (Young's highest placing). In addition, the title track and "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" are on the site's all-time top 3000 songs [ [http://www.acclaimedmusic.net/ Acclaimed Music ] ] .

"After the Gold Rush" screenplay

The credits read that "Most of these songs were inspired by the Dean Stockwell-Herb Berman screenplay "After the Gold Rush"." Young had read the screenplay and asked Stockwell if he could produce the soundtrack, and though the movie came to naught, the album "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".

Personnel

*Neil Young – guitar, piano, harmonica, vibes, vocals
*Danny Whitten – guitar, vocals
*Jack Nitzsche – piano
*Billy Talbot – bass
*Ralph Molina – drums, vocals
*Greg Reeves – bass
*Nils Lofgren – piano, vocals
*Stephen Stills – vocals

Charts

Album

References