Live at Massey Hall 1971 | ||||
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Live album by Neil Young | ||||
Released | 13 March 2007 | |||
Recorded | 19 January 1971 | |||
Genre | Folk rock | |||
Length | 67:39 | |||
Label | Reprise | |||
Producer | David Briggs, Neil Young | |||
Neil Young chronology | ||||
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Professional ratings | |
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Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
Allmusic | |
CLUAS | (8.5/10) |
LA Daily News | |
Music Box | |
Okayplayer | |
Pitchfork Media | (8.0/10) |
Robert Christgau | |
Rolling Stone | |
Uncut |
Live At Massey Hall 1971 is a live album by Neil Young. Released in 2007, the album features a solo, acoustic performance from Massey Hall in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on 19 January 1971 during the Journey Through the Past Solo Tour. It is the second release in Young's Archives Performance Series. It reached #1 in Canada with 11,000 units sold in its first week. It debuted at #9 on the Irish Charts, and #30 on the UK albums chart.
The album debuted on the Billboard 200 album chart on 31 March 2007 at number 6, with 57,000 copies sold. It spent 11 weeks on the chart. In 2009, the album was named by Fretbase as the second best album featuring a singer-songwriter on acoustic guitar of all time.
The CD release is paired with a DVD featuring footage from a performance at the Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, Connecticut.
Though the set of songs featured that night was similar to other concerts during the tour, the bulk of the songs played would have been unfamiliar to the audience. Of the eighteen songs Young performed during his second set that night, only eight had already appeared on record. These include songs that Young recorded with the bands Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, or had released on one of his three solo albums to date.
Five additional songs performed would appear one year later on the landmark album Harvest (though there are noticeable differences in the lyrics on "A Man Needs a Maid"). One song, "Bad Fog of Loneliness," makes its first appearance with this release. The remaining four songs would see the light of day on subsequent 1970s albums. "Love in Mind" and "Journey Through the Past" would appear on the 1973 live album Time Fades Away, which has yet to appear on CD. "See the Sky About to Rain" was released in a different arrangement on the 1974 album On the Beach. "Dance Dance Dance" would appear on Crazy Horse's February 1971 debut album, and rewritten with new lyrics on the 1977 compilation album Decade as "Love Is a Rose." The reworked version later became a hit for Linda Ronstadt.