Blue Notes from Neil Young

Neil Young a bluesman? Well, stranger things have happened. If Buster Poindexter can claim that title, so can Young. Funny thing is, based on the evidence on this two-CD, four vinyl LP set, Young is a bluesman, and a helluva good one.

The Bluenote Cafe here is not a venue, but the name of the band he put together for his 1988 tour: an 11-piece group featuring a six-piece horn section, recorded live at 11 venues from the Agoura Ballroom in Cleveland to the Fillmore in San Francisco. The Bluenote Cafe is a red-hot, house rockin’ road band. The horn section punches up the material like some ’60s-era rock and soul review, Young’s guitar screaming like Albert Collins.

The opening cut,“Welcome to the Big Room,” with Young’s Collins impersonation, is previously unreleased. It’s straight-up blues; big foot stomping, table-pounding stuff with enough bombast to rattle the glasses on the tables and make the widows tremble in the big room. Young had been on the road for two years straight by this point and was looking for a change of pace, determined not to play any of his hits.

He had just gotten out of a disastrous relationship with David Geffen’s label, sued for breach of contract over ’83’s Everybody’s Rockin’. Geffen had accused him of being deliberately non-commercial for recording the album of rockabilly material under the name of Neil Young and the Shocking Pinks. Young counter-sued and won, and Geffen offered Young a public apology, letting him stay on the label till ’87. Young fulfilled his contract with some rather lackluster albums. Returning to Reprise in ’88, he cut This Note’s For You.

The singer lashed out at what, at the time, were considered by the majority of the musical community as sellouts — musicians licensing their songs as jingles for popular consumables. “I ain’t singing for Pepsi, ain’t singing for Coke, ain’t singing for nobody makes me look like a joke,” Young promised. “I won’t sing for politicians, ain’t singin’ for spuds,” he sings on the title track for the video that won MTV’s 1989 Video of the Year award.

Young kept hammering that no-sellout theme home later in the compilation. “This next song is brought to you by nobody,” Young announced, introducing “Twilight,” a cut that could be at home on a Springsteen album with Max Weinburg’s unerring timepiece ticking behind him (with Ralph Molina as Weinberg) and Clarence Clemons’ sax (played here by Steve Lawrence’s alto) swirling in the instrumental mist.

Another previously unreleased track, “Bad News Has Come to Town,” is a bluesy scorcher, Young’s Albert King guitar riffs slash at the melody, offsetting a mellow King Curtis-like sax passage and a fluid, funky Fred Wesley-style bone solo from Claude Calliet.

“Ain’t It the Truth” sounds like a Booker T and the MGs cut with Young ripping out a Steve Cropper solo on guitar. “Soul of a Woman” is more blues than soul, the Bluenotes punching out big band bluster, underscoring it with a slinky funky bassline.

Like any seasoned bluesman, Young knows the value of a good piece of sexual prowess promotion. “Ride me babe/Hang on to my hat/I’ll howl like a wolf/Scream like an alley cat,” he promises on “I’m Goin’” from This Note’s For You. And the band blasts out bluesy waves of ecstatic support behind him.

“Ten Men Working,”from the same album, is a funky blues stomp that lets Young get loose and wiggly on guitar while the horns build a wall of sound around him.

Young obviously has big ears, picking up traces of Parliament/Funkadelic and Sam and Dave for the melody on “Doghouse,” which hasn’t seen the light of day until now. The band is as big an attraction as Young on all these cuts, putting out a Stax/Muscle Shoals vibe with a big beat that’ll rattle your sternum and tickle your feet.

“Fool For Your Love,” from 2000’s Road Rock Vol. 1: Friends & Relatives, has an arena rock/Bad Company feel similar to that band’s big 1974 hit, “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love.”

“Sunny Inside” sounds like the backing track to Wilson Pickett’s “Wait Till the Midnight Hour” with a snippet of Curtis  Mayfield and the Impressions’ ’65 hit “Amen” spliced into the choruses.

The closer is a rip-roaring, 20-minute live version of “Tonight’s the Night,” recorded at Pier 84 in New York City.

Neil Young fans will recognize this compilation as some of the best work of his career. Those not so enthusiastic about his style need to tune in to this stuff and reassess their perception of him as a folkie rocker.

This beast is a wooly bugger with sharp claws and a fearsome set of choppers, ready to rip and slash the fabric of blues, gnawing a hole big enough to park a Buffalo Springfield in and have plenty of room to turn around.