Neil Young, Friends & Relatives
Alabama Ass Whuppin’
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Not counting Rhino’s nine-CD Richard Pryor box set, the best comedy albums of recent months come from a pair of unrepentant rock outfits: upstart Georgia honky-punks the Drive-By Truckers and evergreen road warrior Neil Young. Road Rock, credited to “Neil Young, Friends & Relatives” and recorded during his fall tour, falls squarely into the accidental ha-ha category. The packaging makes it look like a compilation you’d pick up at a truckstop or buy off late-night TV. The track lengths as noted on the cover and as seen on my changer are not the same–“Motorcycle Mama,” for instance, is advertised as 5:30 but lasts only 4:12. Not that I’m complaining–and hey, timing is everything in comedy, right? A witty sticker on the cover announces that “Fool for Your Love,” which dates from the 70s, is previously unreleased–and after one listen you’ll understand why.
Mostly, though, the chuckles Road Rock inspires depend on a familiarity with the rest of Young’s oeuvre–of his endlessly circling career path and his string of seemingly pointless live albums and his insistence on hoeing his row as vigorously as ever. Take the opener, “Cowgirl in the Sand.” Young first recorded the song more than 30 years ago, and he’s probably played it at least 2,000 times since. Yet this version is reminiscent of an especially brutal segment of When Animals Attack. When the roil winds down, the audience cheers, as much for the memories the song invokes as for this specific treatment of it.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Daniel Coston.
