What a beautiful, musical night it must have been Friday night, Feb. 6 at the 2015 MusiCares Person of the Year show at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Bob Dylan, 73, was the honoree.
The line-up is pretty incredible: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young harmonized on “Girl from North Country.”
Acts from Neil Young to Bonnie Raitt to Bruce Springsteen performed across four different stages with no interruption. Aside from Bob Dylan lyrics, there were barely any words said, according to the Idaho Statesman.
Associated Press music writer Mesfin Fekadu writes: ” After accepting his award from former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, the singer-songwriter (Dylan) went on to speak for 40 minutes, scrolling through page after page of his written speech.
“I’m glad for my songs to be honored like this. But, you know, they didn’t get here themselves. It’s been a long road and it’s taken a lot of doing,” he said.
Dylan’s speech ranged from him reciting his own lyrics to thanking Peter, Paul and Mary for covering “Blowin’ In the Wind” and making the song a pop hit. He also addressed his critics.
“Critics have been giving me a hard time since day one. Critics say I can’t sing, I croak, sound like frog. Why don’t critics say the same thing about Tom Waits?” as the audience laughed. “Critics say my voice is shot. That I have no voice. Why don’t they say those things about Leonard Cohen? Why do I get special treatment?”
Dylan, known for performing regularly, didn’t sing, but many of his friends showed up in his honor.
Beck kicked it off and played the harmonica, as did Alanis Morissette, who sang “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” Springsteen jammed with Tom Morello on “‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door'” while Young closed the night with “Blowin’ in the Wind.” Norah Jones played piano and Jack White played guitar. Other performers included John Mellencamp, Jackson Browne, Sheryl Crow, Crosby, Stills & Nash and Tom Jones, who earned rousing applause when he hit the stage.
Willie Nelson kicked off “Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)” with a slow burn, but paused as he waited for lyrics to appear on the monitor.
Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2015/02/07/3632904_springsteen-neil-young-others.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy
Freelance writer and former editor of Toronto Star Wheels Mark Richardson writes about Neil Young being named Toronto Star Wheels’ Newsmaker of the year.
“For playing concerts in January, writing a book and spreading his message through the year, and for actively promoting alternative fuel — while never forgetting that cars are really cool — Neil Young is Wheels’ Newsmaker of 2014,” Richardson writes.
He quotes Young:
“I’ve had a lot of cars and I bought cars as rewards for projects that I did . . . They were all old cars so they already had a history. And the designs reflected the culture of the time,” Young told the Star’s Ben Rayner in an interview this year.
Richardson writes about Special Deluxe: A Memoir of Life & Cars and the stories about the cars Young has owned, “all of them bought used and all of them interesting.”
“His new book is a chronicle of his experiences as told by the memories his cars invoke, everything from a Mini and a Citroen 2CV to a Corvette and a Hummer H1. Throughout it, he details the fuel consumption and the exhaust emissions of the vehicles. His family’s 1951 road trip to Florida in their new Monarch sedan, for example, spewed about 1,296 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere each way; that Route 66 drive to L.A. in the hearse would have emitted 4,900 pounds of CO2.”
Eventually, in 2003, a friend of his daughter’s called him a hypocrite for being an environmentalist who drove such gas-guzzlers, and the accusation stuck. He resolved to find alternatives to gasoline for his cars and diesel for his tour buses.
Richardson writes: “His message is not against cars, which he loves passionately, but against the fuel that powers them. ‘We can have as many cars as we want, as long as the highways can hold them,’ he told the Star, “but we have to think smart about how they run.”
Neil Young’s “Harvest is among 27 recordings that have been added to the Grammy Hall of Fame, which continues “the tradition of preserving and celebrating timeless recordings” and now totals 987 recordings.
The album will be in good company, according to NME News.
A selection of both albums and singles have been included, including Kraftwerk’s 1974 ‘Autobahn’ LP, Bob Dylan’s 1975 LP ‘Blood On The Tracks’, ABBA”s 1976 single ‘Dancing Queen’, Neil Young’s 1972 LP ‘Harvest’, Chic’s 1978 single ‘Le Freak’, Sex Pistols’ 1977 LP ‘Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols’, Alice Cooper’s 1972 single ‘School’s Out’, Leonard Cohen’s 1967 album ‘Songs of Leonard Cohen’, Otis Redding’s 1966 single ‘Try A Little Tenderness’ and Lou Reed’s 1972 single ‘Walk On The Wild Side’.
Read more at http://www.nme.com/news/various-artists/81784#bDzJ1q5MLgCEjq1V.99
The 2013 “A Tribute to Bruce Springsteen” aired for the first time on Friday, Dec. 5 on National Public Television.
The show ran from 9 p.m. to midnight.
The tribute was in honor of the rock icon’s influence and philanthropy over the years, and subsequently his MusicCares Person of the Year award. Neil plays “Born in the U.S.A.”
PBS used the event as a fund-raiser for public television and sold the CDs.
Here is an all-star line-up finale on “Glory Days.”
The 2013 ceremony did air earlier this year on the AXS TV cable network, and clips from many of the individual performances have been floating around YouTube for awhile.
The lengthy show features 16 Bruce tunes covered by Sting, Elton John, Patti Smith, Neil Young and much more, as well as few songs performed by Springsteen himself.
Many of the performances were amazing. Atlantic City for one, was haunting…
(Manuela – you will love this).
Lineup:
Adam Raised a Cain – Alabama Shakes
Because the Night – Patti Smith
Atlantic City – Natalie Maines, Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite
American Land – Ken Casey
My City of Ruins – Mavis Staples and Zac Brown
I’m On Fire – Mumford and Sons
American Skin (41 Shots) – Jackson Browne and Tom Morello
My Hometown – Emmylou Harris
One Step Up – Kenny Chesney
Streets of Philadelphia – Elton John
Hungry Heart – Juanes
Tougher Than the Rest – Tim McGraw and Faith Hill
The Ghost of Tom Joad – Jim James and Tom Morello
Dancing in the Dark – John Legend
Lonesome Day – Sting
Born in the USA – Neil Young with Crazy Horse
We Take Care of Our Own – Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
Death to My Hometown – Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
Thunder Road – Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
Born to Run – Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
Glory Days – Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band & cast ensemble
Right up there with Prince, Tupac Shakur, Hunter S. Thompson, Andy Warhol and Jack Kerouac.
Young made the top 100 list of the coolest Americans in history, according to a new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, The Telegraph is reporting.
He made the list, even though he is Canadian. Weird, but cool.
The hundred actors, actresses, artists, musicians and writers in the United States were chosen for their creativity and style – having shaped the concept of cool. There is even a welcome place for country singer Willie Nelson.
The exhibition, which took five years to bring to fruition, has been put together by Joel Dinerstein, professor of American Civilisation at Tulane University in New Orleans, and Frank Goodyear III, co-director of Bowdoin College Museum of Art.
To make their selection, the two curators came up with four defining factors of cool, of which people chosen had to fit at least three categories:
• Originality of artistic vision and especially of a signature style.
• Cultural rebellion, or transgression in a given historical moment.
• Iconicity, or a certain level of high-profile recognition.
• Recognized cultural legacy (lasting more than a decade)
Among the photographers featured in the show are Diane Arbus, Annie Leibovitz, Robert Mapplethorpe, Edward Steichen and Herman Leonard.
“\"I\'m writing a book, don\'t mess with the muse!\"” by --Neil Young [2011, paraphrasing, source not sure]
Neil Young on Tour
Sugar Mountain setlists
Tom Hambleton provides BNB with setlists, thankfully. His website is the most comprehensive searchable archives on the Internets about anything Neil Young related setlists. Goto Sugar Mountain.