On The Beach

I always thought I was a Neil Young fan.  I knew the hits and I knew the albums that I thought were the "ones to know" but I didn't know anything, not until I stumbled across my now favorite Neil album, On The Beach.  I remember exactly where I was when I first heard it - it's just that good.  My family and I were on a trip to San Francisco, we took a ferry to a small town outside of the city and went into a barn that was also an antique shop.  A haunting blues song was blasting from speakers hanging from the beams overhead.  The song was "Vampire Blues" and I stopped dead in my tracks.  I knew it was Neil Young but I was confused as to why I never heard this song or Neil play any song that had the same feel as this song.  I immediately asked the shop owner and he picked up the LP and said "this is the best Neil Young album of all time."  I quickly wrote down the name of the album on my phone.  I was going to buy it as soon as I found a record shop.

The album consists of a lot of blues songs combined with Neil's ever present folk rock.  The production quality is very crude and fits the style of the songs.  The songs are all a little messy, the playing is sloppy and real.  The feel of the album brings out the humanity in the musicians who recorded the instruments.  Young's solos are all over the place and full of emotion and simplicity.  The solo on "Vampire Blues" is in my top ten of all time.

The album was not commercially successful at all but critics loved it, dubbing it one of the best albums of the 70s.  Because the album was not very successful it was not released in a large quantity and not rereleased for some time.  In the pre-internet day, this album was rare, very rare.  It was a cult classic and getting your hands on a good copy of one was like finding the Golden Ticket.  Even finding an original copy now is very difficult.  The album was not rereleased until a petition of 5,000 signatures was signed in 2000 and the record label released the album on CD for the first time.

Side one

1. "Walk On" – 2:42
2. "See the Sky About to Rain" – 5:02
3. "Revolution Blues" – 4:03
4. "For the Turnstiles" – 3:15
5. "Vampire Blues" – 4:14

Side two

1. "On the Beach" – 6:59
2. "Motion Pictures" – 4:23
3. "Ambulance Blues" – 8:56

If you like Neil young and don't know this album or maybe you like old blues/folk, check this album out. It'll probably become your favorite in no time.