Time Fades Away
Encyclopedia
Time Fades Away is a 1973 live album
by Neil Young
, consisting of previously unreleased material. It 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. Although Time Fades Away received much critical praise, has been widely pirated, and is highly sought after by fans, there are no current plans to reissue the album.
" was recorded, the version on Harvest), 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
, who had just died of a heroin overdose, 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. 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 country-tinged Harvest. Audiences did not always react positively to the new songs premiered; neither were they fond of the Gators' new sound, more reminiscent of the hard-rocking Crazy Horse of old. Young grew mentally unstable as the tour progressed, frustrating drummer Kenneth Buttrey to the point where he left the group two-thirds of the way through. He was replaced by ex-Turtles and CSNY (and future Jefferson Airplane
) percussionist Johnny Barbata, who plays on all of the recordings on the album. Similarly frustrated was pianist Jack Nitzsche
, who according to producer Elliot Mazer in the book Shakey would often spew obscenities into his switched-off vocal microphone. Similarly, pedal steel/dobro player Ben Keith
was so inebriated at one soundcheck that he had no idea of what instrument he was playing. For the tour, Young switched guitars from his trademark Gibson Les Paul
to a Gibson Flying V
.
Alcohol abuse, combined with his near-falsetto singing style on the tour, 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.
, who referred to it as the "Compufuck" but was forced to yield to the desires of Young. This resulted in a murky-sounding release.
Because no two-track stereo master tape was ever made as would commonly be done, the album cannot be remastered in a traditional manner. If any new release was to be attempted, a new mix would need to be made from the original multitrack tapes.
, and quickly achieved gold status
, selling over 1 million copies in both the US and UK. 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.
:
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."
Young has rarely played songs from Time Fades Away live, but in July 2008 performed the record's title track at a concert in Oberhausen, Germany.
, and Robert Christgau
of The Village Voice
. In more recent years, it has been rated highly by AllMusic, sputnikmusic
, and Blurt Online.
R.E.M.
has cited Time Fades Away as a source of inspiration for New Adventures in Hi-Fi
.
, Time Fades Away remains the only officially released Neil Young album unavailable on CD. 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.
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. However, the CD release was shelved for unknown reasons. 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."
Live album
A live album is a recording consisting of material recorded during stage performances using remote recording techniques, commonly contrasted with a studio album...
by Neil Young
Neil Young
Neil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...
, consisting of previously unreleased material. It was recorded with The Stray Gators
The Stray Gators
The Stray Gators were the musicians Jack Nitzsche , Ben Keith , Tim Drummond and Kenny Buttrey that supported Neil Young in 1972 on his hit album Harvest, for which Nitzsche also produced two songs...
on the tour following 1972
1972 in music
-Events:*January 17 – Highway 51 South in Memphis, Tennessee is renamed "Elvis Presley Boulevard"*January 20 – The début of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon at The Dome, Brighton, is halted by technical difficulties,...
's highly successful Harvest and has not been reissued on CD due to Young's dissatisfaction with that particular series of concerts. Although Time Fades Away received much critical praise, has been widely pirated, and is highly sought after by fans, there are no current plans to reissue the album.
History
Though "Love In Mind" dates from a 1971 solo tour (on the January 30 date of the tour, "The Needle and the Damage DoneThe Needle and the Damage Done
"The Needle and the Damage Done" is a song by Neil Young that describes the descent into heroin addiction of musicians he knew. It was written about the heroin use of his Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten, and previews the theme of "Tonight's the Night", a song that addresses the heroin overdose...
" was recorded, the version on Harvest), 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
Crazy Horse (band)
Crazy Horse is an American rock band best known for its association with Neil Young. It has been co-credited on a number of albums throughout Young's career and has released five albums of its own.-Early years:...
guitarist Danny Whitten
Danny Whitten
Daniel Ray Whitten was an American musician and songwriter best known for his work with Neil Young and Crazy Horse, and for the song "I Don't Want To Talk About It", a hit for Rita Coolidge, Rod Stewart and Everything but the Girl.- Biography :Whitten was born on May 8, 1943, in Columbus, Georgia....
, who had just died of a heroin overdose, 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. 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 country-tinged Harvest. Audiences did not always react positively to the new songs premiered; neither were they fond of the Gators' new sound, more reminiscent of the hard-rocking Crazy Horse of old. Young grew mentally unstable as the tour progressed, frustrating drummer Kenneth Buttrey to the point where he left the group two-thirds of the way through. He was replaced by ex-Turtles and CSNY (and future Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band formed in San Francisco in 1965. A pioneer of the psychedelic rock movement, Jefferson Airplane was the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve mainstream commercial and critical success....
) percussionist Johnny Barbata, who plays on all of the recordings on the album. Similarly frustrated was pianist Jack Nitzsche
Jack Nitzsche
Bernard Alfred "Jack" Nitzsche was an arranger, producer, songwriter, and film score composer. He first came to prominence in the late 1950s as the right-hand-man of producer Phil Spector, and went on to work with the Rolling Stones, Neil Young and others...
, who according to producer Elliot Mazer in the book Shakey would often spew obscenities into his switched-off vocal microphone. Similarly, pedal steel/dobro player Ben Keith
Ben Keith
Bennett Keith Schaeufele , better known by his stage name Ben Keith, was an American musician and record producer...
was so inebriated at one soundcheck that he had no idea of what instrument he was playing. For the tour, Young switched guitars from his trademark Gibson Les Paul
Gibson Les Paul
The Gibson Les Paul was the result of a design collaboration between Gibson Guitar Corporation and the late jazz guitarist and electronics inventor Les Paul. In 1950, with the introduction of the Fender Telecaster to the musical market, electric guitars became a public craze. In reaction, Gibson...
to a Gibson Flying V
Gibson Flying V
-External links:*, , , , and , from the Gibson website*, a June 2001 article from Guitar Collector magazine*, a tribute site that lists all models and re-issues and most notable players**...
.
Alcohol abuse, combined with his near-falsetto singing style on the tour, 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
David Crosby
David Van Cortlandt Crosby is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. In addition to his solo career, he was a founding member of three bands: The Byrds, Crosby, Stills & Nash , and CPR...
and Graham Nash
Graham Nash
Graham William Nash, OBE is an English singer-songwriter known for his light tenor vocals and for his songwriting contributions with the British pop group The Hollies, and with the folk-rock band Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Nash is a photography collector and a published photographer...
. 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 using the Quad-8 CompuMix, the unreliable first digital mixing soundboard—against the wishes of producer David BriggsDavid Briggs (producer)
David Briggs was an American record producer best known for his work with Neil Young and his band Crazy Horse. He is noted for his eclectic imagination and style.-Early life:David Briggs was born in Douglas, Wyoming...
, who referred to it as the "Compufuck" but was forced to yield to the desires of Young. This resulted in a murky-sounding release.
Because no two-track stereo master tape was ever made as would commonly be done, the album cannot be remastered in a traditional manner. If any new release was to be attempted, a new mix would need to be made from the original multitrack tapes.
Release
Time Fades Away was released on October 15, 1973. The album reached #22 on the Billboard ChartsBillboard charts
The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine...
, and quickly achieved gold status
Music recording sales certification
Music recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped or sold a certain number of copies, where the threshold quantity varies by type and by nation or territory .Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories,...
, selling over 1 million copies in both the US and UK. 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.
Young's response
Neil Young commented on Time Fades Away in the original, unreleased liner notes for his 1977 triple-album compilation DecadeDecade (Neil Young album)
Decade is a triple album compilation by Neil Young, released in 1977, now available on two compact discs. It contains 35 of Young's songs recorded between 1966 and 1976, among them five tracks that had been unreleased up to that point...
:
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."
Young has rarely played songs from Time Fades Away live, but in July 2008 performed the record's title track at a concert in Oberhausen, Germany.
Critical and fan response
Upon its release, Time Fades Away received positive reviews from Rolling Stone, The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, and Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics".One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published since 1969 in his Consumer Guide columns...
of The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
. In more recent years, it has been rated highly by AllMusic, sputnikmusic
Sputnikmusic
Sputnikmusic, or simply Sputnik, is a music website offering music criticism and music news alongside features commonly associated with wiki-style websites...
, and Blurt Online.
R.E.M.
R.E.M.
R.E.M. was an American rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 by singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry. One of the first popular alternative rock bands, R.E.M. gained early attention due to Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style and Stipe's...
has cited Time Fades Away as a source of inspiration for New Adventures in Hi-Fi
New Adventures in Hi-Fi
New Adventures in Hi-Fi is the tenth studio album by the American alternative rock band R.E.M. It was their fifth major label release for Warner Bros. Records, released on September 9, 1996, in Europe and Australia and the following day in the United States...
.
CD reissue and Time Fades Away II
Along with the soundtrack to Journey Through the PastJourney Through the Past
Journey Through the Past is a soundtrack album from the film of the same name by Neil Young, released in November of 1972 on Reprise Records, catalogue 6480. It peaked at #45 on the Billboard 200, and since its initial release on vinyl, cassette tape and 8-track tape cartridge it has remained out...
, Time Fades Away remains the only officially released Neil Young album unavailable on CD. 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.
In the mid-1990s, plans were made to release the album on CD using the HDCD
High Definition Compatible Digital
High Definition Compatible Digital, or HDCD is a patented encode-decode process, now owned by Microsoft, that improves the audio quality of standard Redbook audio CDs, while retaining backward compatibility with existing Compact disc players....
encoding; several test pressings were made, and a street date of November 7, 1995 was announced. However, the CD release was shelved for unknown reasons. 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
Guitar World
Guitar World is a monthly music magazine devoted to guitarists. It contains original interviews, album and gear reviews and guitar and bass tablature of approximately five songs each month. The magazine is published 13 times per year...
that a disc titled Time Fades Away II will be included in the second volume of the Archives
Neil Young Archives
The Neil Young Archives is a series of archival releases by singer-songwriter Neil Young which feature previously released as well as unreleased studio and live recordings. The project has been long in the making – work began in the late 1980s...
box set series, noting: "It's interesting because [Time Fades Away II] has a different drummer than what was on that album. Kenny Buttrey
Kenny Buttrey
Aaron Kenneth Buttrey was an American drummer and arranger. According to CMT, he was "one of the most influential session musicians in Nashville history"....
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."
Side one
- "Time Fades Away" – 5:36
- Recorded at The Myriad, Oklahoma City (March 1, 1973)
- "Journey Through the Past" – 3:19
- Recorded at Public Hall, Cleveland (February 11, 1973)
- "Yonder Stands the Sinner" – 3:17
- Recorded at Seattle Center Coliseum, Seattle (March 17, 1973)
- "L.A." – 3:11
- Recorded at The Myriad, Oklahoma City (March 1, 1973)
- "Love in Mind" – 1:58
- Recorded at Royce Hall, UCLA (January 30, 1971)
Side two
- "Don't Be Denied" – 5:16
- Recorded at Memorial Auditorium, Phoenix (March 28, 1973)
- "The Bridge" – 3:05
- Recorded at Memorial Auditorium, Sacramento (April 1, 1973)
- "Last Dance" – 8:47
- Recorded at Sports Arena, San Diego (March 29, 1973)
Personnel
- Neil Young – lead guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, pianoPianoThe piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, harmonicaHarmonicaThe harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...
, vocalsSingingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments... - Ben KeithBen KeithBennett Keith Schaeufele , better known by his stage name Ben Keith, was an American musician and record producer...
– pedal steel, harmony vocals (on tracks 1, 3, 4, 6, 8) - Jack NitzscheJack NitzscheBernard Alfred "Jack" Nitzsche was an arranger, producer, songwriter, and film score composer. He first came to prominence in the late 1950s as the right-hand-man of producer Phil Spector, and went on to work with the Rolling Stones, Neil Young and others...
– piano (on tracks 1, 3, 4, 6, 8) - Johnny Barbata – drumDrumThe drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...
s (on tracks 1, 3, 4, 6, 8) - Tim DrummondTim DrummondTim Drummond is an American bass guitarist who has toured and recorded with many notable artists including Conway Twitty, Bob Dylan, James Brown, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Crosby, Stills, & Nash, Ry Cooder, J. J. Cale, Lonnie Mack, Miles Davis, B.B...
– bassBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
(on tracks 1, 3, 6, 8) - Joe YankeeNeil YoungNeil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...
– bass (on track 4) - David CrosbyDavid CrosbyDavid Van Cortlandt Crosby is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. In addition to his solo career, he was a founding member of three bands: The Byrds, Crosby, Stills & Nash , and CPR...
– rhythm guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, backing vocals (on tracks 3, 8) - Graham NashGraham NashGraham William Nash, OBE is an English singer-songwriter known for his light tenor vocals and for his songwriting contributions with the British pop group The Hollies, and with the folk-rock band Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Nash is a photography collector and a published photographer...
– backing vocals (on track 8)
External links
- Neil Young's Time Fades Away - Analysis and Reviews
- Time Fades Away (no label) - Analysis and review of Time Fades Away on Collectors Music Reviews