Time Fades Away

Time Fades Away
Live album by Neil Young
Released October 15, 1973
Recorded February 11 - April 1, 1973 (except "Love In Mind": January 30, 1971)
Genre
Length 34:33
Label Reprise
Producer Neil Young, Elliot Mazer
Neil Young chronology
Journey Through the Past
(1972)		 Time Fades Away
(1973)		 On the Beach
(1974)

Time Fades Away is a 1973 live album by Neil Young, consisting of previously unreleased material. It was Young's first live album, and was recorded with The Stray Gators on the tour following 1972's highly successful Harvest and has not been reissued on CD due to Young's dissatisfaction with that particular series of concerts.[2] Time Fades Away received much critical praise,[3] has been widely pirated and is highly sought after by fans.[4] It was reissued on vinyl only as part of the Official Release Series Discs 5-8 Vinyl Box Set for Record Store Day 2014. The album is also available as a digital download for purchase through the PonoMusicWorld website.

History

Though "Love In Mind" dates from a 1971 solo tour (on the January 30 date of the tour, from which "The Needle and the Damage Done" on Harvest was sourced), all other songs on the album were from recordings made during a 62-date tour in early 1973 that featured an acoustic set with Young followed by an electric set with backing band the Stray Gators. Longtime collaborator and former Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten had been set to join the Gators as a second guitarist but was sent home after it became evident that he was in no condition to embark on a rigorous tour. He died shortly after from a fatal combination of Valium and alcohol.[5] This motif of death and gloom recurred throughout the period, culminating in Tonight's the Night.

The tour came on the heels of the success of the primarily acoustic, country-tinged Harvest. Audiences did not always react positively to the new songs premiered; neither were they fond of the Gators' raucous and heavily electrified live sound. Having been introduced to tequila (which he would retrospectively characterize as a potentiator of "interesting" experiences beyond the purview of other alcoholic beverages) by bassist Tim Drummond, Young grew increasingly aloof and mentally unstable as the tour progressed, lambasting band members' performances following concerts, scheduling soundchecks that were often cancelled on short notice, and once proclaiming to longtime fan Ken Viola in Boston that "They're gonna win the war!" (a likely allusion to the imminent ratification of the Paris Peace Accords) before storming off in drunken insensateness. Such behavior frustrated drummer Kenneth Buttrey (who had initially refused to tour unless he received $100,000 in compensation, a salary extended to the rest of the band following protests from pianist Jack Nitzsche) to the point where he left the group two-thirds of the way through; he was immediately replaced by former Turtles/CSNY/Jefferson Airplane percussionist Johnny Barbata, who plays on all of the recordings on the album.[6]

Other band members performed erratically: according to producer Elliot Mazer, Nitzsche would often spew obscenities into his switched-off vocal microphone, while pedal steel/dobro player Ben Keith was so inebriated at one soundcheck that he could not recall the key of "Don't Be Denied", a key song in the tour's core setlist. Following the loss of a pickup on his signature Old Black (a heavily modified Gibson Les Paul), Young switched to a Gibson Flying V in homage to Lonnie Mack, one of the model's first promulgators; according to Young, the guitar "wouldn't stay in tune" and lacked the timbral mutability of the former instrument. Accordingly, McDonough has castigated Young's instrumental performances as "the worst guitar playing of his career".[7]

Alcohol abuse and strained singing would lead Young to develop a throat infection in the final days of the tour. Called in to supplement the harmonies and add some extra guitar were David Crosby and Graham Nash. Clashes continued, with Nitzsche complaining that he couldn't hear himself playing because Crosby's 12-string electric guitar overpowered the sound mix. After ninety days, the tour ended in Salt Lake City.

Recording

Time Fades Away was recorded directly from the soundboard to 16-track and mixed simultaneous to LP cutting using the Quad-Eight Compumix.

There were no 2 track masters ever made of this record. The master discs were cut directly from the 16 track masters through the Compumix system. A mix was recorded to a second 16 track machine--we had 2 that would run perfectly together--to feed the variable pitch system of the lathe--but was discarded when we were through. I was the mastering engineer who cut the masters.

— Phil Brown

While no master tape was created in the traditional sense, stereo tapes were in fact created while cutting to enable future remastering.[8]

Release

Time Fades Away was released on October 15, 1973. The album reached #22 on the Billboard Charts, and quickly achieved gold status, selling over 1 million copies in both the US and UK.[9] It was issued on vinyl, cassette and 8 track.

The album's title track was briefly released as a single, with the B-side of "Last Trip To Tulsa", a live version of the song also taken from the Time Fades Away tour and unavailable anywhere else.

Response

"Neil Young, having tasted fame and fortune with After the Goldrush and Harvest, famously said he would rather head for the ditch than stay in the middle of the road. And that's just what he did with Time Fades Away. Young recorded the stoned, muddy, hard-rocking album on a stadium tour to confused audiences who had never heard the songs before. No atmosphere, no acoustic balladry, just memories of getting a kicking in the schoolyard and an extended moan about LA. Young's profile duly disappeared."

—Bob Stanley of The Guardian, talking about the album's release in 2008.[10]

Young's response

Neil Young commented on Time Fades Away in the original, unreleased liner notes for his 1977 triple-album compilation Decade:

Time Fades Away. No songs from this album are included here. It was recorded on my biggest tour ever, 65 shows in 90 days. Money hassles among everyone concerned ruined this tour and record for me but I released it anyway so you folks could see what could happen if you lose it for a while. I was becoming more interested in an audio verite approach than satisfying the public demands for a repetition of Harvest.[2]

In 1987, Young told an interviewer that Time Fades Away was "the worst record I ever made - but as a documentary of what was happening to me, it was a great record. I was onstage and I was playing all these songs that nobody had heard before, recording them, and I didn't have the right band. It was just an uncomfortable tour. I felt like a product, and I had this band of all-star musicians that couldn't even look at each other."[3][11]

Young has rarely played songs from Time Fades Away live. "Don't Be Denied" was included in the 1974 CSN&Y tour. In July 2008, he performed the record's title track at a concert in Oberhausen, Germany.[12]

Critical and fan response

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[13]
Rolling Stone(positive)[14]
Robert Christgau(A)[15]

Upon its release, Time Fades Away received positive reviews from Rolling Stone,[16] The New York Times,[3] and Robert Christgau of The Village Voice.[17] In more recent years, it has been rated highly by AllMusic,[18] sputnikmusic,[4] and Blurt Online.[9]

R.E.M. has cited Time Fades Away as a source of inspiration for New Adventures in Hi-Fi.[19]

On December 31, 2013, Widespread Panic played the following three songs from Time Fades Away: "Journey Through The Past", "Don't Be Denied", and "Time Fades Away" at a concert in Atlanta, GA.[20]

Aborted compact disc reissue and Time Fades Away II

Along with the soundtrack to Journey Through the Past, Time Fades Away remains the only officially released Neil Young album unavailable on compact disc. Young has often cited his unfavorable memories of the tour as the main reason that the record has not been reissued. There is a movement among Young's fans to release the album.[21]

In the mid-1990s, plans were made to release the album on CD using the HDCD encoding; several test pressings were made, and a street date of November 7, 1995 was announced.[22] However, the CD release was shelved for unknown reasons.[22] In early 2007, Young's management reiterated that there were no plans to release the album on CD. Pristine vinyl copies are still available in used stores and on eBay, often with the fold-out liner notes still intact; some CDs from the 1995 test pressings exist, and copies of these CDs are circulated as bootlegs. Additionally, some fans have made CDs from the more readily available vinyl copies.

In October 2009, Young told Guitar World that a disc titled Time Fades Away II will be included in the second volume of the Archives box set series, noting: "It's interesting because [Time Fades Away II] has a different drummer than what was on that album. Kenny Buttrey was in there for the first half, and Johnny Barbata came in for the second. It's a completely different thing, with completely different songs."[23]

In 2014, Young released a limited edition box set of vinyl records that includes the original Time Fades Away along with On the Beach, Tonight's the Night, and Zuma. [24] In December of that year, Young's first 14 albums, including Time Fades Away, were released as high-resolution downloads via the Pono digital music service.[25]

Track listing

Side one

No. TitleWriter(s) Length
1. "Time Fades Away" (recorded at The Myriad in Oklahoma City, March 1, 1973)Neil Young 5:36
2. "Journey thru the Past" (recorded at the Public Hall in Cleveland, February 11, 1973)Neil Young 3:19
3. "Yonder Stands the Sinner" (recorded at the Seattle Center Coliseum in Seattle, March 17, 1973)Neil Young 3:17
4. "L.A." (recorded at The Myriad in Oklahoma City, March 1, 1973)Neil Young 3:11
5. "Love in Mind" (recorded in Royce Hall at the University of California, Los Angeles, January 30, 1971)Neil Young 1:58

Side two

No. TitleWriter(s) Length
1. "Don't Be Denied" (recorded at The Coliseum in Phoenix, March 28, 1973)Neil Young 5:16
2. "The Bridge" (recorded at the Memorial Auditorium in Sacramento, April 1, 1973)Neil Young 3:05
3. "Last Dance" (recorded at the Sports Arena in San Diego, March 29, 1973)Neil Young 8:47

Personnel

† Neil Young credited as Joe Yankee

References

  1. ↑ http://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/mar/07/popandrock1
  2. 1 2 Williams, Paul. Neil Young: Love To Burn. p. 115. ISBN 0-934558-19-1.
  3. 1 2 3 Thrasher's Wheat page: "Time Fades Away by Neil Young".
  4. 1 2 sputnikmusic article: "Time Fades Away review."
  5. ↑ Michael St. John. Downtown: The Danny Whitten Story. Self-published 2012. http://www.dannyraywhitten.com/bookpdf.html
  6. ↑ Shakey by Jimmy McDonough, retrieved on-line from Google Books
  7. ↑ Shakey by Jimmy McDonough, retrieved on-line from Google Books
  8. ↑ Brown, Phil (25 August 2010). "Neil Young's "Time Fades Away" LP". Vinyl Engine. Retrieved 18 December 2014.
  9. 1 2 Blurt Online article: "Time Fades Away review"
  10. ↑ http://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/mar/07/popandrock1
  11. ↑ Shakey by Jimmy McDonough, pp. 391.
  12. ↑ Sugar Mountain page: "Neil Young - 2008 setlists."
  13. ↑ Allmusic review
  14. ↑ Rolling Stone review
  15. ↑ Robert Christgau review
  16. ↑ Rolling Stone article: "Neil Young: Time Fades Away: Music Reviews."
  17. ↑ Robert Christgau's official website: "Neil Young reviews."
  18. ↑ AllMusic article: "Time Fades Away: Overview."
  19. ↑ McDonough, Jimmy, Shakey - Neil Young Biography, p. 399
  20. ↑ PanicStream website
  21. ↑ Thrashersweat.org call to sign petition to re-release TFA
  22. 1 2 Side Street Records page: "Unreleased Neil Young compact discs 1988-1995."
  23. ↑ Guitar World interview with Neil Young.
  24. ↑ http://neilyoung.warnerreprise.com/vinylbox2/
  25. ↑ http://neilyoungnews.thrasherswheat.org/2014/12/neil-young-ors-1-14-release-date-dec-23.html

External links

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