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129 of 136 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Canterbury House still rocks!, December 3, 2008
As the current Chaplain of Canterbury House, I can offer a little bit of history on this performance.
Canterbury House was then and is now the Episcopal campus ministry at the University of Michigan. In 1968 the Chaplains were the Revs. Dan Burke and Martin Bell, and the student House Manager was Ed Reynolds. These three remarkable persons turned Canterbury House into an innovative coffee house ministry, oriented toward those who were turned off to all things establishment, including main-line churches. The stellar musicians who performed here included Joni Mitchell, Richie Havens, Odetta, Tom Rush, Gordon Lightfoot, the Byrds, and Janis Joplin. Many of these concerts were recorded, and the tapes given to the artists. The venue was intimate, as can clearly be heard on this recording of Neil Young's performance here on Saturday, 9 November 1968. This was his first performance as a solo artist after the breakup of Buffalo Springfield, and indeed this recording includes many of the songs that were hits for the group, including "On The Way Home," "Mr. Soul" and "Broken Arrow." All of the songs on this album, stripped to the bare essentials of voice and guitar, demonstrate the purity and simplicity that has made Neil Young a wonderful songwriter for decades. The dialogue on the recording demonstrates a youthful shyness and a natural ability to connect with his audience.
Canterbury House remains to this day a venue for prophetic music. Our concert series features primarily jazz and experimental idioms. Those of us who were young people in 1968, Neil Young included, "can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain" any more; but it's nice to know Sugar Mountain is still there.
Better Get It In Your Soul: What Liturgists Can Learn from Jazz
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42 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The sweet sounds of Neil Young, December 2, 2008
The sweet sounds of Neil Young.
I am blown away by this cd. Neil's songs are always so deeply personal and this recording is no different. It's just Neil and a guitar singing from the heart and playing so soulfully. This is so well engineered and produced that I can imagine myself there in the audience in an intimate setting with Neil and a few friends.
The recording was made after the breakup of The Buffalo Springfield. There is some Springfield stuff here as well as some songs that would make it on to his first solo album like Last trip to Tulsa. The last trip to Tulsa is every bit as good live here as the studio recording. The acoustic Mr. Soul has a very different feel here. Expecting to fly is also every bit as beautiful and pleasing to listen to as the Buffalo Springfield studio version.
There is some funny and interesting banter between the songs along with Neil making some anecdotal comments about the songs. At one point he takes requests from the audience. With the CD you get to hear the entire show from beginning to end.
The DVD is only so-so. It does contain the entire audio track of the CD but other then that It's mostly just short clips and an advertisement for his upcoming anthology (archives). I too wish the DVD concert footage, that was part of my expectation when I bought the CD\DVD but the reality is that this concert probably wasn't video taped.
The sound is very good for 1968. While it is a live recording there is very little crowd noise. There is also a little hiss but it doesn't distract from the listening pleasure.
The time is a little more then 70 minutes........... but it's easy to lose track of time while listening to the CD because it totally immerses the listener in the beauty of Neil's voice, song writing and performance. Find the one you love, put on the cd, turn the lights down low and have an introspective, romantic evening courtesy of Neil Young.
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23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Essential for any Neil Young fan, December 7, 2008
If you are a Neil Young fan my advice is not to hesitate in buying this. Granted it is not as an assured a performance as Massey Hall but as a historical document of one of the most important artists of the 20th Century it is essential. This is Neil Young as a shy unsure 22 year old stepping out of the shadow of Stephen Stills in his first solo concert since the break up with the Buffalo Springfield, It's fantastically intimate with a lot of amusing anecdotes and stories even taking requests at one point. He audibly displays a nervousness in his ability that no release has ever highlighted, it is utterly compelling. The material is taken mostly from his first solo album but includes his best known Springfield tracks (a lot of which were sung by Richie Furay and not Neil) also includes Birds which was re-recorded for After the Goldrush and Sugar Mountain the same version which was included on Decade.
A word of warning....the DVD is a DVD-Audio disc (commonly abbreviated as DVD-A) and is a digital format for delivering very high-fidelity audio content on a DVD. DVD-Audio is not intended to be a video delivery format and should not be confused with video DVDs containing concerts and music videos. In saying this it's actually very good value for money and gives you the same material on 2 different formats. If you don't have a DVD-Audio player then play the CD, as someone who has a DVD-A player I have the CD to enjoy in the car.
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