My Neil Young top 10

When I was a kid, many, many years ago now, I used to make all sorts of top 10 music lists. I always found it really hard to keep it to just 10 tracks or 10 albums, so invariably I ended up making lists for a specific genre or decade, but even that became tricky at times. I have not done this for years, but following a vinyl revival evening at a friend's house last week, we got talking about favourite artists, favourite albums, favourite tracks, etc., and that has inspired me to create a few 'top 10' lists. Given that the conversation was mainly about Neil Young, I thought it appropriate to list my first top 10 dedicated to the man himself.

1. Harvest Moon
2. Everybody Knows This is Nowhere
3. My My (Hey Hey) Out of The Blue
4. Birds
5. Out On The Weekend
6 . Rockin' in the Free World
7. Like a Hurricane
8. Comes a Time
9. The Old Laughing Lady
10. Ohio

Listen to mp3 extracts on amazon.com ... or amazon.co.uk

  

Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship - a musical rediscovery

Over the past week I've deviated a little from my recent discoveries of folk music, and re-discovered my love for the late 60's west coast scene of Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship. It all started whilst on the beach on holiday when I wanted to musically 'get back to the land'. The obvious choice would of course have been 'Woodstock' by Crosby, Stills and Nash, which features that line, but instead I opted for Blows Against the Empire by Jefferson Starship. Although this album was actually released in 1970, it feels distinctively late 1960's.

My favourite track is easily A Child Is Coming, which features and was co-written by David Crosby ...

"What are we going to do When Uncle Samuel comes around
Asking for the young one's name, Looking for the print of his hand
For the files in their numbers game.
I don't want his chances for freedom Ever to be that slim.
Let's not tell them about him!"

Inspired by this album, I decided to give some of the others a listen on the iPod and also during some Easter weekend driving. I recalled Crown of Creation as being one of the Airplane's best CD's so that was the next one to listen to. It was good but still not what I was craving. Eventually I put Volunteers into the car CD player. This was it ... this was what I'd been looking for. Stand out tracks for me are We Can Be Together, Wooden Ships and Volunteers. Despite thinking that the Crosby, Stills and Nash version of Wooden Ships was 'untouchable', the Airplane do a pretty decent version. I should also mention that their cover of David Crosby's Triad on Crown of Creation is also excellent.

Links to these CDs in amazon.co.uk ...

Links to these CDs in amazon.com ...