50 Great Neil Young Covers

i would not say no to a 2gb USB of neil young covers, that'd be awesome!
and yeah, some serious obscurities in that article!

entwistle cover is kind of impressive in its rigid faithfulness to the original. i think they just slowed it down slightly. otherwise, an exact copy!

I think it's in a different key; Neil used drop-D tuning for that, and it sounds like Entwistle's band (Cy Langston on guitar, and Humble Pie's Jerry Shirley on drums) does it in E. I kind of wish Entwistle had taken more liberties with it, though.

yeah, they even do the same handclaps during the solo.

The Rheostatics are a Toronto band, where I'm from, and I used to contribute to a local publication back in the '80s with one of the members. I was never a fan of their music--it was always kind of arty for my tastes--so I was surprised by how great their "Everybody Knows" is. (If you click on my username and follow the link, Tyler, you'll get my e-mail address and we can go from there.)

when my folks first got the Internet, I was a p big fan of Sloan (read a RIP magazine article on them, then picked up a couple of their albums on a HS band trip to Toronto) & was searching for stuff about them, and came across the Chart magazine top 100 Canadian albums list; Sloan's Twice Removed was #1, After the Gold Rush #2, and I think Rheostatics' Whale Music was #3 (actually #5)..later on in life I was able to pick up both Whale Music and Introducing Happiness at a used CD store close to where I lived...

mostly meh, though Whale Music is half-good; heard of but never heard the "Everybody Knows" cover, though intrigued by the fact that an orchestra got co-performer credit...

xxp Supposedly the adherence to Neil's version was why it was left off the album (Smash Your Head Against The Wall), so he wrote the not-dissimilar "My Size" to replace it.

did y'all see this? http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=436
looks a little better on paper than it does in real life. alasdair roberts' number is my fave thing.

60. rainy day - flying on the ground is wrong
― hipster knight (electricsound), Friday, January 29, 2010

^^yes!

Green on Red has a great "Down By The River" on a live bootleg.

Roy Buchanan's "Down By The River" is great, too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLhdS-8-YS8

ooh that was awesome. thanks!

Just seen this thread for the first time, and it's a miracle that ctrl+f didn't come up with Hayden's Tell me why cover, from the 'Live at Convocation Hall' album, because it's fantastic.

Had no idea Sylvester covered "Southern Man":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAIcKuF3ZCo

Stumbled over this tonight when I was checking to see if I had something else. From 1979: quite bizarre.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtoYYvU5ktg

That Sylvester cover of Skynyrd is bad ass.

I really like this one from a few years back:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_37kdxtw8wY

Lee Ann Womack did a great version of "Out on the Weekend" last year on The Way I'm Livin'/ Govt Mule did a suitably epic (which doesn't just mean "long") version of "Cortez the Killer" on Live...With A Little Help From Our Friends in '99.

Merry Clayton - Southern Man - righteous and mighty where the original is just pissy

― Dorian (Dorianlynskey), Friday, January 15, 2010 7:34 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

So, thanks to discovering this thread I've spent much of the evening listening to Neil Young covers, and this comment is as OTM as it gets. I never liked "Southern Man" for the very reason stated above, but Clayton's version feels earned. She can talk about this because she's lived it. For anyone else who missed it the first time, and doesn't feel like scrolling upthread, here it is again:

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/4czTIjYwGlc"; frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

aw shit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4czTIjYwGlc&list=LL_5EyVAJzOEw_Zp8NzDlZvQ&index=2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TBUH-9I_xA

ILM user ___________________ (I know his actual name, but his display name's all weird characters....) sent me a link for this:

http://www.philxmilstein.com/probe/index.htm

A few things in there I've never come across.

Another excellent roundup, passed on to me by cryptosicko:

http://coverlaydown.com/2018/03/recovered-in-folk-neil-young-44-redefining-tracks-from-a-decade-in-tribute/

I'm closing in on 700 Neil covers on my hard drive. Anyone know how to get in touch with, um, Neil Young? I think he should spend the next year securing all legal clearances and add a covers section to his archival website.

hmmm I find that collection surprisingly underwhelming, maybe it's the aesthetics, maybe Neil's hard to cover

I like the Built to Spill Cortez

I'm just hoarding at this point--I don't even listen to them anymore. I'd worked up an excellent mix-CD a few years ago.

haha, cool

can I see your mix cd tracklist?

Found it and put it on Google Docs:

http://docs.google.com/document/d/1-eBYRbX1QUe5iejXjCw7DamYmJRmOWajThfc0d9CmgQ/edit?usp=sharing

That goes back 10 years, when I probably had half of what I have now. So there'd be some changes, I'm sure. You can probably figure out what the Chris Farley excerpt is if you give it some thought.

nice, that's an interesting mix!

51. Killdozer -" Cinnamon Girl"

Don't miss that one ^^

While tagging songs from these last two links, discovered a couple of full-length albums I didn't know about: Blitzen Trapper's Live Harvest, a Record Store Day thing, and J. Tillman covering the whole Tonight's the Night LP.

http://phildellio.tripod.com/trapper.jpg http://phildellio.tripod.com/tillman.jpg

has this one been mentioned yet? i dig it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRBUAkOOMYE

Nobody's mentioned The Chromatics, Into The Black

Once you start down the rabbit hole..."Even Richard Cheney has got soul."

http://soundcloud.com/rfp86/campaigner-originally-by-neil-young

(If anybody can turn this into an mp3 for me, I'd be very appreciative.)

And this, the entirety of Decade (I probably have a lot of it already, but I can see some things that are new to me).

http://www.covermesongs.com/2012/10/full-albums-neil-youngs-decade-part-one.html

Seven years ago, when I picked "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" as my favourite song ever in a Facebook countdown, I called it "the most indestructible of Neil’s songs for anyone who tries to cover him." Rickie Lee Jones, whose version I'd never heard till today, walks right up to that line. The song sort of survives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjYQ36lGIcY

I think the song makes it

btw clemenza, did you ever try clicking
https://www.klickaud.com/ or
https://9soundclouddownloader.com/

I haven't, thanks...they're okay? I'd only do it in really isolated instances like this.

I guess the legality would be disputable, but yeah, it works

something like this app would be more stable, customizable https://www.4kdownload.com/

My favourites

Chromatics - into the black
Tori Amos - Philadelphia
Annie Lennox - don't let it bring you down

Niels: had no problem, thanks again. (Will probably start searching for more Neil covers there...)

I don't think anyone saw this one coming:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77Ycxql63nY

lol yes! love how he hams it up during the one note solo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBIj2NxdbZE

I guess the original is either in a different key or slightly off key or Neil does smth weird with his voice because both this and the excellent Buddy Miles version has something off about the vocals (not necessarily in a bad way) particularly on the "when you could be taking me for a riiiiiide" line

KD Lang - Helpless
Neko Case - Dreaming man

Ida - Everyone Knows This Is Nowhere

Chris Forsyth - Don't Be Denied

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6dUriWmnh

https://chrisforsyth1.bandcamp.com/track/dont-be-denied

Roxy Music's "Like A Hurricane" is so incredible, it sounds like a Roxy song, even the lyrics ("Once I thought I saw you, in crowded, hazy bar") seem like Roxy lyrics.

That and Killdozer's "Cinnamon Girl", which points for having, some how, and even more inept rhythm section that the Horse

Does CSNY doing Down By The River at Balboa park in 1969 count as a cover? Never sure if the writer is on board.
Anyway 19 minutes of guitar burn including a hypnotically repetitive element from one of the players.
NOt sure if it is available anywhere legally yet but it does circulate on bootleg which is why i've heard it.

think Y is on that one

no what I meant was never sure if it counts as a cover if the writer/original artist is onboard i.e. later band with writer as central player or contemporary alternative band to the main one the artist is known for when artist is a permanent player in both bands.

Intuitive call: I probably wouldn't count that, but I would count Neil joining R.E.M. for their cover of "Ambulance Blues" (some fan-club record put out by R.E.M., with a great lyric change to accommodate Bill Clinton).