Neil Diamond - Hot August Night (Remastered / Expanded) (2CD)
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Free Music Notes for Hot August Night (Remastered / Expanded) (2CD)
Free Music Review: One of the Greatest Live Albums of All Time
Hit: 5 Stars
The very first time I played "Hot August Night" was in the dark ages of 1973. I had heard that it was perhaps the best live album of all time. I have never been a live album fan, and still am not. However, "Hot August Night" could not have been done as anything other than a live album. The ambiance of the Greek Theater in Los Angeles was the perfect setting for a singer/songwriter who performs better as a travelling troubadour than a studio musician. As a more recent example of this assertion, watch the ending of "Born in East L.A." when Neil Diamond sings "Coming to America". The song coupled with the movie and the action is a perfect fit, but I find it difficult to enjoy the song as much as a cycled FM song without the movie.Having said that this album is good, the next question is: just how good is it? Other reviewers have compared this album to the all time live-album king, Peter Frampton's "Frampton Comes Alive", which everyone seemed to own in the 1970s. This album is not as hard a rocker, but as noted elsewhere, "Frampton Comes Alive" feels dated when you listen to it today; "Hot August Night" sounds as good, if not better, than when it was first released.
The sound quality is beyond excellent, it is outstanding. When listening to live albums it's often tempting to adjust the equalizer to reduce annoying hisses or crowd noise or some error in the recording process. No need with this album. Leave the adjustments where they normally are for any pop-rock album.
The songs on this album are a best of the best of early Neil Diamond music. You could see every one of these songs as a potential hit in the 60s and 70s. In fact, many of them were. Those that weren't perhaps should have been.
Some highlights of this CD:
"Prologue" is one of the best intros to any album, ever. That is all the comment you need about the prologue.
The first CD is one excellent Neil diamond song after another. They are all good, many mellow. There are a few rockers too. "Crunchy Granola Suite", "Cherry Cherry", and "Porcupine Pie", which is silly, all have a fast pace. The other songs are bluesy and some have a country flavor.
The second CD is a combination of blues/soft rock and an excellent rock song, "Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show", where Neil puts himself totally into his music. There is a lot of emotion on this second CD, and it is best listened to when you want to immerse yourself into a musical experience.
"Canta Libre", the second song on this CD, is reminiscent of Neil's songs on the "Jonathan Livingstone Seagull" soundtrack. Very mellow, very beautiful.
The remaining songs are music as art. "Morningside", "Holly Holy", and "I Am...I said" are just a few of the emotional songs that make you long for the days when this music was young. Listening now to "Morningside", the emotions it generates are just awesome. Neil is in this song, living it...
Enough said. This CD is perhaps the best live album of all time. At the very least it is in the top 3. If you've ever found yourself singing along with any of Neil's early songs, buy this. You'll want to play it over and over.
Free Music Review: Trees in the sky!
Hit: 5 Stars
Like trees in the sky!
Well ...as I read, much has been said about this beautiful concert but, if you permit me, I`d like to add a few words about it from this part of the world. I used to listen to it in LP recording when I was 15 or 16. I'm 46 now. So, the old LP somehow scratched now, I got a remastered CD a few days ago and....Wow!!! This is what I remembered...and more! Maybe the interesting part is that I studied music, so as a professional musician I somehow retrace my steps asking the key question: was there anything here worthy of my awakening music perception? And the answer is YES! These are not just romantic memories of my adolescence. No. There are beautiful melodies and poetry in Morningside, a lovely, somehow Haydn inspired, treatment of the strings in the Prologue, inspired orchestral arrangements in I am I said, a strong "pathos" in the rock-gospel interpretation of Holy Holly, the great percussion of Denis St. John....you name it. But, above all that, and somehow illuminating all of it, this was 1972, and still the spirit of the 60's! I find it touching to read that Neil Diamond's last album, still unreleased, is called "Home Before Dark". Home and dark are not clichés or empty words for someone who has "seen the light" or dreamt with the "Dear Father" through his own poetic sky, not so "lonely looking". It sounds suggesting. This man has been singing for 40 years now and in good company: these were the times of Luther King and of Peter Paul and Mary, the times of Serrat in Spain and Caetano in Brazil, the times of Joan Baez. Young generations: will you ever get the picture? This people sang from commitment and from the heart's mystic daimon, ( no miss spelling) as the Greek would say it. This was still the spirit of Kennedy, not Bush, the spirit of make love, not war, the times of melodic and harmonic richness expressing the true longings of a generation, not of silly and elementary beats on two chords, expressing the greediness of the pop market.
No, this was much different; this had roots and spirit: Neil, the trees you saw in the sky, that August 24 beautiful night, are still there! With all of us. And, yes, they are BEAUTIFUL!
Thanks again for sharing them with us.
Santiago Zuleta.
Free Music Review: One of the all time best
Hit: 5 Stars
Have you ever had one of those nights, both electrifying and magical! It was 1972; Song Sung Blue was being played by all of the music stores on Broadway while blasting its way up the charts to #1 nationwide. We had tickets to Neal Diamond's last performance at New York's famous Winter Garden Theater. The show was an exact replica of what was to become the album "Hot August Night." We settled in during the Prologue and then, very softly the music began while the curtains were being rolled back. This revealed a stage with some dim lights and one which was center stage and brighter than all. A misty haze and roiling clouds of smoke were coiling around everything on stage (dry ice I presume) including Neal's band. Then, with the music steadily rising the center light explodes in brilliance and the music is temporarily suspended and we are all suspended with it. Then he was there! The audience exploded and with the big light as his temporary backdrop Neal and the band gave us a rendition of "Crunchy Granola Suite" that no one will soon forget. With all the trappings added (speakers stacked at least 35 feet high in what is a small theatre with great acoustics and 3rd row seats, it was and still is one of the best shows I have ever seen. I wish we could have a DVD of the show but the album is more than enough for me. Neal played the Winter Garden for two weeks upon his return from his 10 day stay in California and the Greek Theater. Yes, believe it or not, he looked exactly like his album cover. This was a special performance for Neal as well as his family was in the audience for this final performance before he went on to study classical piano for two years. With few exceptions such as Roy Orbison's "A Night in Black and White" I would be hard pressed to come up with a better album. You would be doing yourself a huge dis-service should you not make this album part of your collection. The songs as well as the beautiful and driving music of his band (all Julliard Graduates) and his ever present string section made this an unforgettable night.Free Music Review: One of the all time great live performers
Hit: 5 Stars
I have seen Neil Diamond live 4 times and I will soon see him a fifth time. He is absolutely fantastic live and his energy comes out well on live albums. This two cd album does this great performer justice. Over the years, Neil has become sort of an "easy listening" genre recording artist but live, he is still one of the all time great rockers."I particularly like his many upbeat rockers in this cd. He does a great version of "Cherry Cherry." His classic E-A-D guitar chord progression (that was later used by other artists in songs such as "What I like About You") is so simple yet is the backdrop for Cherry Cherry's great driving beat. The edge that a live performance lends to it makes the song a rock classic. Neil combines "Soolaimon" and "Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show" into an incredible 8 minute plus medley that must have had the audience on it's feet. I have personally seen Neil bring down the house with Brother Love and it sounds great on this cd.
Some of his slower tempo songs exude an incredible energy such as "Holly Holy." Again, like "Cherry Cherry," the chord progressions are simple (they must be simple since a dolt like me is able to play them on my guitar) and, without building up in tempo, the song slowly reaches a couple of intense climaxes. Live it is just unbelievable. The emotional ballad, "I Am I Said" also is a highlight of this wonderful live album.
In the past, I have reviewed live cds and given an otherwise great cd 4 stars because having seen the performer live, I felt that the cd did not do the actual performance justice. This is not the case here. Neil's live performances are extraordinary and the cds do them justice. I also recommend "Hot August Night II" another great live cd, with many of the same songs performed again, years after this album was recorded,
Free Music Review: Diamond's best
Hit: 5 Stars
I'm tempted to buy this again in order to get the live versions of "Walk on Water," "Kentucky Woman," and "Stones" that I see have been added to the CD. Well, we'll see.With or without the new tracks, this is a great CD, and it was a great LP when it was first released. I concur heartily with the reviewers who think this was Neil Diamond's best album; in my own not-especially-humble opinion, his last _good_ album was _Beautiful Noise_, and everything after that has been pretty much crud.
But _this_ is what Diamond could do during a live show when he tried. Most of the live cuts are actually _better_ -- in some cases _much_ better -- than the studio versions. His own performance is just electrifying, Marty Paich's arrangements are brilliant, and the Sid Sharp Strings are at their peak.
Not everybody likes Neil Diamond, and another reviewer has already pointed out some of his song-she-brang-to-me gaffes. I can't argue; at one point in his career Diamond had managed to convince himself he was some sort of major bard, and at his most pretentious he was pretty hard to abide.
But whatever his importance or otherwise as an Artiste, this is one of the all-time _great_ live albums. And it is undoubtedly the peak of Diamond's own recorded output.
Another nice feature of the CD version is that it omits some of the silly quotations that appeared on the liners of the vinyl LP. That's actually an improvement over the older release. Nobody needs to read self-important nonsense like this: "'The stage, she is the God-damnedest woman you ever saw.' -Neil Diamond."