Prairie Wind

Prairie Wind is the 26th studio album by Canadian / American musician Neil Young, released on September 27, 2005.

Prairie Wind
Studio album by
Neil Young
ReleasedSeptember 27, 2005
RecordedMarch 2005
StudioMaster-Link Nashville, Tennessee
GenreCountry rock, folk rock, Americana
Length52:05
LabelReprise
ProducerNeil Young, Ben Keith
Neil Young chronology
Greendale
(2003)		 Prairie Wind
(2005)		 Living with War
(2006)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[1]
Music Box[2]
Robert ChristgauA−[3]
Music OMH[4]
Pitchfork Media(5.8/10)[5]
Rolling Stone[6]
Q[7]

After albums rooted in 1960s soul music (Are You Passionate?) and rock opera (Greendale, which spawned a Young-directed film of the same name), Prairie Wind featured an acoustic-based sound reminiscent of his earlier commercially successful albums Harvest and Harvest Moon. The album was in part inspired by the illness and recent death of his father, Canadian sportswriter and novelist Scott Young, who passed a few weeks after the album was completed. The album is dedicated in part to the elder Young.

Young recorded the album in Nashville after diagnosis but before undergoing minimally invasive surgery for an aneurysm in the spring of 2005, and some of the songs on the album are informed by Young confronting his own mortality. Young explains in an October 2005 interview for Time Magazine:

"I went into the studio on Thursday and recorded three songs. I wrote one on the way there and two more right away after I recorded the first one. The whole album's chronological; I wrote and recorded in the order it appears on the record. Then I went back up to New York on Monday for a pre-surgery thing, flew back to Nashville, wrote and recorded [songs] four, five, six, seven, eight and most of nine and ten. And then I got admitted, and they put me under."[8]

"Falling Off the Face of the Earth," for example, was inspired by a voicemail left for Young wishing him well as he went into surgery.

"Most things just came pouring out, but that song's unique because a lot of it came from a voice-mail message. A friend of mine called, knowing I was going through this, and left me a voice mail that was, 'Thinking about you; just want to tell you that you mean a lot to me,' that kind of stuff. So I wrote it all down and made up this kind of bass-ackwards melody. With songwriting, the key thing is not to have any preconceptions, to be wide open and never worry about whether it's cool or not. Use whatever you can, and worry about cool after you finish the record."[9]

Young recorded the album's songs on a guitar owned by Hank Williams. In a January 2006 interview for Rolling Stone, Young explained his song writing process:

"In writing, you have to try to be as unaffected as you can by what's going on around you, while also writing about what's going on around you. I like to remove myself from me to be able to write about the thing I want to write about, I like to think about myself as another soul on the planet. In the morning maybe I'll come out to the studio and start a fire, pick up a guitar. Different guitars make you write differently. Each day's different, though. Could be writing while I'm walking. If it's not happening, I continue living my life. I look at writing songs as like hunting for a wild animal, but you're not trying to kill it. You're trying to communicate with it, to coax it out of its lair. You don't go over and set a fire and try to force it from its lair, or try to scare it out. When it comes out, you don't want it to be scared of you. You have to be pan of what it sees as it's looking around, what it takes as natural, so that it doesn't regard you as a threat. To me, songs are a living thing. It's not hunting to capture. I just want to get a glimpse of it, so I can record it."[10]

A premiere live performance of Prairie Wind was held in 18–19 August 2005 at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Here, Young held a two-night concert where songs from the album were performed. These concerts became the subject of a film directed by Jonathan Demme entitled Heart of Gold.

Young debuted the album's closing track, "When God Made Me", at the Live 8 concert in Barrie, Ontario, Canada.

Commercial performance

The album debuted on the Billboard 200 album chart at number 11, on October 15, 2005, with sales of approximately 72,000 copies. It remained on the chart for 26 weeks. It was awarded a certified gold record by the RIAA on January 23, 2006. Prairie Wind received two Grammy Award nominations at the 2006 Grammy Awards - Best Rock Album of the Year and Best Rock Solo Performance for "The Painter".[11]

Critical reception

The record was regarded by Robert Christgau as "one of those nearness-of-death albums", along with Mississippi John Hurt's Last Sessions (1972), Bob Dylan's Time Out of Mind (1997), Warren Zevon's The Wind (2003), and Johnny Cash's American VI: Ain't No Grave (2010).[12]

Track listing

All songs written by Neil Young

No.TitleLength
1."The Painter"4:36
2."No Wonder"5:45
3."Falling Off the Face of the Earth"3:35
4."Far From Home"3:47
5."It's a Dream"6:31
6."Prairie Wind"7:34
7."Here for You"4:32
8."This Old Guitar"5:32
9."He Was the King"6:08
10."When God Made Me"4:05
11."An Interview with Neil Young" (LP only)19:06

Personnel
  • Neil Young - acoustic guitar, electric guitar, harmonica, piano, vocals
  • Ben Keith - Dobro, pedal steel, slide guitar
  • Spooner Oldham - piano, Hammond B3 organ, Wurlitzer electric piano
  • Rick Rosas - bass
  • Karl Himmel - drums, percussion
  • Chad Cromwell - drums, percussion
  • Grant Boatwright - acoustic guitar (5), backing vocals (1)
  • Clinton Gregory - fiddle (2)
  • Wayne Jackson - horns (4, 6, 9)
  • Thomas McGinley - horns (4, 6, 9)
  • Emmylou Harris - special guest vocalist (2, 4, 8)
  • Pegi Young - backing vocals (2-4, 6-7, 9)
  • Diana Dewitt - backing vocals (2-4, 6-7, 9)
  • Anthony Crawford - backing vocals (1, 2, 6)
  • Gary Pigg - backing vocals (2, 9)
  • Curtis Wright - backing vocals (2)
  • Chuck Cochran - string arranger
  • Fisk University Jubilee Choir, directed by Paul Kwami

Production
  • A Nashville Renaissance Production
  • Produced by Ben Keith and Neil Young
  • Analog recording and mixing by Chad Hailey and Rob Clark (2nd engineer)
  • Recorded at Master-Link Nashville, TN
  • Analog to Digital Transfers by John Nowland at His Master's Wheels, Woodside, CA
  • Mastering by Tim Mulligan at Redwood Digital, Redwood City CA

DVD production
  • Director of photography: L.A. Johnson
  • Executive Producer: Elliot Rabinowitz
  • Editor: Toshi Onuki
  • Post Production at Total Media Group, South San Francisco, CA
  • DVD menu sound design by Hands on Sound
  • DVD authoring by: Rich Winter
  • Art Direction & Design: Gary Burden & Jenice Heo for R. Twerk & Co
  • Photos of band on CD sleeve and Neil on CD label by L.A Johnson
  • Photo of "Hank" guitar by Will Mitchell

Charts
Chart performance for Prairie Wind
Chart (2005) Peak
position
Australian Albums (ARIA)[13] 59
Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria)[14] 22
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders)[15] 10
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia)[16] 30
Canadian Albums (Billboard)[17] 3
Danish Albums (Hitlisten)[18] 8
Dutch Albums (Album Top 100)[19] 15
French Albums (SNEP)[20] 25
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)[21] 16
Irish Albums (IRMA)[22] 11
Italian Albums (FIMI)[23] 9
New Zealand Albums (RMNZ)[24] 29
Norwegian Albums (VG-lista)[25] 3
Spanish Albums (PROMUSICAE)[26] 65
Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan)[27] 3
Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade)[28] 56
UK Albums (OCC)[29] 22
US Billboard 200[30] 11

Certifications
Certifications for Prairie Wind
Region CertificationCertified units/sales
Ireland (IRMA)[31] Gold 7,500^
United Kingdom (BPI)[32] Silver 60,000^
United States (RIAA)[33] Gold 500,000^

^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

References
  1. Stephen Thomas Erlewine (2005-09-27). "Prairie Wind - Neil Young | Songs, Reviews, Credits, Awards". AllMusic. Retrieved 2015-06-03.
  2. John Metzger. "Neil Young - Prairie Wind (Album Review)". Musicbox-online.com. Retrieved 2015-06-03.
  3. "CG: neil young". Robert Christgau. Retrieved 2015-06-03.
  4. "Neil Young - Prairie Wind". Archived from the original on November 23, 2005. Retrieved 2015-06-03.
  5. "Neil Young: Prairie Wind | Album Reviews | Pitchfork". Pitchforkmedia.com. 2005-09-28. Retrieved 2015-06-03.
  6. Sheffield, Rob (2005-10-06). "Neil Young Prairie Wind Album Review". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2015-06-03.
  7. Doyle, Tom (November 2005). "Neil Young – Prairie Wind". Q (232): 120.
  8. Tyrangiel, Josh. “The Resurrection of Neil Young.” TIME Magazine 166, no. 14 (October 3, 2005): 68–73.
  9. Tyrangiel, Josh. “The Resurrection of Neil Young.” TIME Magazine 166, no. 14 (October 3, 2005): 68–73.
  10. OPEN MAN. By: Wilkinson, Alec, Rolling Stone, 0035791X, 1/26/2006, Issue 992
  11. "Neil Young News: 2 Grammy Nominations for Neil Young". Thrasherswheat.org. 2005-12-09. Retrieved 2012-09-08.
  12. Christgau, Robert (May 2010). "Consumer Guide". MSN Music. Retrieved February 27, 2019 – via robertchristgau.com.
  13. Ryan, Gavin (2011). Australia's Music Charts 1988–2010 (PDF ed.). Mt Martha, Victoria, Australia: Moonlight Publishing. p. 308.
  14. "Austriancharts.at – Neil Young – Prairie Wind" (in German). Hung Medien. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  15. "Ultratop.be – Neil Young – Prairie Wind" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  16. "Ultratop.be – Neil Young – Prairie Wind" (in French). Hung Medien. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  17. "Neil Young Chart History (Canadian Albums)". Billboard. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  18. "Danishcharts.dk – Neil Young – Prairie Wind". Hung Medien. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  19. "Dutchcharts.nl – Neil Young – Prairie Wind" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  20. "Lescharts.com – Neil Young – Prairie Wind". Hung Medien. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  21. "Offiziellecharts.de – Neil Young – Prairie Wind" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  22. "Irish-charts.com – Discography Neil Young". Hung Medien. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  23. "Italiancharts.com – Neil Young – Prairie Wind". Hung Medien. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  24. "Charts.nz – Neil Young – Prairie Wind". Hung Medien. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  25. "Norwegiancharts.com – Neil Young – Prairie Wind". Hung Medien. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  26. "Spanishcharts.com – Neil Young – Prairie Wind". Hung Medien. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  27. "Swedishcharts.com – Neil Young – Prairie Wind". Hung Medien. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  28. "Swisscharts.com – Neil Young – Prairie Wind". Hung Medien. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  29. "Official Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  30. "Neil Young Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
  31. "The Irish Charts - 2005 Certification Awards - Gold". Irish Recorded Music Association. Retrieved March 16, 2020.
  32. "British album certifications – Neil Young – Prairie Wind". British Phonographic Industry. Retrieved March 16, 2020.
  33. "American album certifications – Neil Young – Prairie Wind". Recording Industry Association of America. Retrieved March 16, 2020.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.