Fact #184459
When:
Short story:
Neil Young completes work on several songs, including After The Gold Rush, which will become the title track of his third solo album.Full article:
Nils Lofgren : I hit the road at 17, went out to L.A. with my band Grin. Neil Young and [record producer] David Briggs kind of took us under their wings, and I moved in with David. I saw Neil regularly with David, which was great. When I was eighteen years old, Neil called and said he was doing this project, After The Gold Rush, and wanted me to be in the band, which was an honour.
But then they told me they wanted me to play a lot of piano; I told them I couldn't play piano really. Actually, I didn't say that. I just said I wasn't really a piano player, which was true. I was being honest. But both Neil and David felt like because I had played classical accordion for ten years - I'd studied it seriously - that I shouldn't have any problem working out a few simple piano parts. They had more faith in me than I did. They told me they thought I could handle it. They were right and I was wrong, thank God.
I was petrified the whole time. David Briggs was producing Spirit and was good friends with that band. And John Locke (Spirit’s keyboard player] had this funky porch with an upright piano on it and just gave me the key. Twenty-four hours a day, when I wasn't doing the sessions with Neil, I'd be up on the porch, sleeping under the upright in a sleeping bag, then waking up and jumping on it, working on Neil's songs to try to keep up.
Even though I was being very creative on an instrument that was unfamiliar to me, playing songs I loved, I think what Neil got was somebody who was really into it musically but was playing very simple, very basic themes as opposed to a virtuoso who might want to overplay or might be bored playing that simply. For me, I was challenged and stretched. Yet, I was playing very simple thematic parts because I was on an instrument that was unfamiliar to me. It all worked out.
During the Gold Rush sessions, I was mostly doing piano and singing. There were a few songs where Neil said, "I need you to play some acoustic guitar here." I was like, "Well, I don't own one." He said, "Here's an old D-18 of mine you can borrow." David Briggs said it was a great guitar that Neil had been writing on. I know he used it on Tell Me Why and, I think, Till the Morning Comes.
At the end of the sessions, Neil gave it to me as a gift. I still gotta ask Neil a little more about the history of the instrument. But it remains my most treasured guitar. It was the most obvious and only choice to sing Neil Young songs on.
(Source : interview in Washington Post, Oct 8, 2008)
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But then they told me they wanted me to play a lot of piano; I told them I couldn't play piano really. Actually, I didn't say that. I just said I wasn't really a piano player, which was true. I was being honest. But both Neil and David felt like because I had played classical accordion for ten years - I'd studied it seriously - that I shouldn't have any problem working out a few simple piano parts. They had more faith in me than I did. They told me they thought I could handle it. They were right and I was wrong, thank God.
I was petrified the whole time. David Briggs was producing Spirit and was good friends with that band. And John Locke (Spirit’s keyboard player] had this funky porch with an upright piano on it and just gave me the key. Twenty-four hours a day, when I wasn't doing the sessions with Neil, I'd be up on the porch, sleeping under the upright in a sleeping bag, then waking up and jumping on it, working on Neil's songs to try to keep up.
Even though I was being very creative on an instrument that was unfamiliar to me, playing songs I loved, I think what Neil got was somebody who was really into it musically but was playing very simple, very basic themes as opposed to a virtuoso who might want to overplay or might be bored playing that simply. For me, I was challenged and stretched. Yet, I was playing very simple thematic parts because I was on an instrument that was unfamiliar to me. It all worked out.
During the Gold Rush sessions, I was mostly doing piano and singing. There were a few songs where Neil said, "I need you to play some acoustic guitar here." I was like, "Well, I don't own one." He said, "Here's an old D-18 of mine you can borrow." David Briggs said it was a great guitar that Neil had been writing on. I know he used it on Tell Me Why and, I think, Till the Morning Comes.
At the end of the sessions, Neil gave it to me as a gift. I still gotta ask Neil a little more about the history of the instrument. But it remains my most treasured guitar. It was the most obvious and only choice to sing Neil Young songs on.
(Source : interview in Washington Post, Oct 8, 2008)