Uncut Review of “Live at the Cellar Door” – Unveiled NY Ultimate Music Guide
The UK’s UNCUT has done it again in its ongoing love affair with Neil Young.
John Mulvey’s blog talks about the new release ‘Live at the Cellar Door” and its timing, just as the magazine was putting out its Uncut Ultimate Music guide dedicated to Young.
“Just as we thought we’d put together a comprehensive survey of all his recorded work, another Archives Performance Series release crept onto the schedules,” Mulvey writes.
Also:” One of the great pleasures of ‘Live At The Cellar Door’ is the way it illustrates how malleable Young’s songs can be. ‘Cinnamon Girl’, for instance, is hardly diminished by that lunging riff being replaced by a quasi-baroque flurry of notes. Listen out, especially, for a powerful moment when Young sings ‘Loves to dance/Loves to…’ and allows himself to be overwhelmed as his playing suddenly shifts from tenderness to a new bluesy intensity. ‘That’s the first time I ever did that one on the piano,’ he notes at the death, and I’m not sure he’s done it again many times since.”
The Neil Young Ultimate Music Guide goes on sale towards the end of this week. The 148-page guide, through interviews from the NME, Melody Maker and Uncut archives, reveals that, among many things, Young has been consistent in his contrary single-mindedness. The new reviews of every one of his albums provide a similarly weird and gripping narrative, finding significant echoes and hidden treasures on even his most misunderstood and neglected ‘80s records.