The Behemoths of December
Heads up on new mega-boxes from Neil Young, Paul McCartney
We might be seeing fewer anthologies this year than in previous years, but the ones that have just dropped are making up for it in sheer tonnage. Neil Young offers an extensively researched chronicle of Harvest, the 1972 album that remains his most popular work. The set contains video and audio gems, outtakes and the first official release of his transfixing BBC In Concert performance, which has been endlessly (and poorly) bootlegged for years. Fearless prediction: It’ll take less than 60 seconds of the below to determine whether this blast from 50 years ago is a must-buy or not.
Then there’s Paul McCartney’s The 7” Singles, a massive celebration of Macca’s solo songcraft. This thing comes in a specially designed crate! It offers careful reproductions of the original sleeve art, and includes all the B-sides.
Here’s a taste — the lovely mono remaster of “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey.”
Great heads-up on new releases I wasn't aware of! As for the Paul crate, quite an astounding collection. God bless Paul for not only making it all available, but for treating the original (and newby) vinyl crowd. If nothing else, his label is confirming (by its expenditure on this sheer volume of vinyl produced) that records are back (in case there had been any doubt)!
I was a high-school junior when I got "Harvest" week of release. It was in just another stack of Warner Bros. releases Dad would bring home from the Houston radio station he worked at (likely new albums by Sabbath, Alice Cooper, and Tull were also included in this "Harvest" pile)!
I had become something of a fan of Young, having had his self-titled debut and "No One Knows This is Everywhere" (as I liked to call it at the time!) albums from '69, as well as '70's "After the Gold Rush." I remember really liking "Cinnamon Girl" and "Down by the River" from "Everyone," so eagerly awaited each of his new ones.
"Harvest" was the last album I was totally in on. By the time his next (summer '74's "On the Beach"), I had already started my radio career, finishing a year at the N. Texas State radio station, and just about to start my year at the U of Houston station as Music Director. Within a year, I was picked up by the CBS-owned KLOL, Houston's top "progressive rock"-er (and my first of two commercial DJ gigs), and was playing Young regularly, from all the albums he'd released by fall '76 (the album he wrote all about my nose: "Long May You Run").
Just some notes from "the field," Tom...thanks for allowing! While I still have the long-term memory, it's fun to plumb the depths of my memories of when these classics first rolled out! Write on!