krispyweiss

[krispyweiss]

Song Review: The Rolling Stones feat. Steve Riley - “Zydeco Sont Pas Salés”

Add zydeco band to the Rolling Stones’ résumé.

Sixty-four years after forming as a blues outfit - and after playing rock ‘n’ roll, reggae, disco, funk and pop music as well - the Stones joined forces with accordionist Steve Riley to cut Clifton Chenier’s “Zydeco Sont Pas Salés” for the forthcoming various-artists’ A Tribute to the King of Zydeco.

The logical bookend to the Stones’ version of “Not Fade Away” with a touch of Paul Simon’s Chenier tribute “That Was Your Mother” on the side, “Zydeco Sont Pas Salés” is a sub-three-minute blast of call-and-response vocals and battles between Jagger’s harmonica and Riley’s squeezebox. Under the tangle of leads, the rest of the Stones stomp merrily through New Orleans.

It’s a rollicking, uncharacteristically tight, follow-up to Taj Mahal and Keith Frank’s cover of “Hey ’Tite Fille,” which announced the LP.

Out June 27, A Tribute to the King of Zydeco benefits the Clifton Chenier Memorial Scholarship Fund.

Grade card: The Rolling Stones feat. Steve Riley - “Zydeco Sont Pas Salés” - A-

6/25/25

[krispyweiss]

Album Review: The Travelin’ McCourys - One Chord that Rings True

Jason Carter left the Travelin’ McCourys in good shape, making his swan song with the Del McCoury Band spinoff on One Chord that Rings True, a strong album to support as Christian Ward settles in to his new role.

The LP’s title comes from a line in the McCourys’ version of Earl Scruggs’ “Passin’ Thru:” There’s one chord that rings true/it’s a mighty world we live in/but the truth is, we’re only passin’ through, mandolinist Ronnie McCoury sings - sounding much like Papa Del - on track No. 3.

As for Carter the fiddler, he is fiery throughout, while providing baritone lead vocals to Bruce Hornsby’s “White Wheeled Limousine” and Montgomery Gentry’s “Why Do I Feel Like Running.” After more than 30 years collaborating with the McCourys, in both the DMB and the Travelin’s, Carter’s presence will be missed.

But the Travelin’ will continue with bassist Alan Bartram adding smooth tenor sheen to ballads like the Waterboys’ “The Whole of the Moon;” Ronnie McCoury bluegrassifying Paul Simon’s “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” and the band bringing in drums and pedal steel to assist banjoist Rob McCoury on Tom T. Hall’s novelty “I Like Beer,” with its party sounds and drunken chorus.

Whiskey’s too rough/champagne costs too much/vodka puts my mouth in gear/this little refrain/should help me explain/as a matter of fact I like beer, they sing.

It’s a fine way to end a Travelin’ McCourys show - as it often does - the band’s second studio offering and Carter’s long tenure with Del and the boys.

Grade card: The Travelin’ McCourys - One Chord that Rings True - B

6/25/25

[krispyweiss]

Song Review: Los Lobos - “Three Hundred Pounds of Joy”

Often thought of as the quintessential Mexican-American band - which on one level they are - Los Lobos are also very much a blues band. And one so highly regarded, the group gets its own 45-rpm single on the forthcoming Antone’s 50th Allstars - 50 Years of the Blues.

Sharing company with, among others, Albert Collins, Gary Clark Jr., Otis Rush, Jimmie Vaughan, Doyle Bramhall II, Ruthie Foster, Pinetop Perkins and James Cotton, Los Lobos present themselves as authentic as any blues act on the Willie Dixon-penned stomper.

With Cesar Rosas wailing at the mic and Steve Berlin blowing sax like natch’al born Chicagoans, the band from East L.A. are temporary South Siders on this studio version of a song that all-too rarely makes it to the stage.

And when Rosas and David Hidalgo get their respective six strings in a tangle, Los Lobos’ seemingly unlikely inclusion - on a seven-inch standalone no less - on a various-artists boxset devoted to the blues suddenly makes perfect sense.

Antone’s 50th Allstars - 50 Years of the Blues is due Aug. 22.

Grade card: Los Lobos - “Three Hundred Pounds of Joy” - A

6/25/25

[krispyweiss]

Flashback on 60: Sound Bites, 40 Years Grateful; 40 Years Dead - 6/25/85-6/25/25

Editor’s note: The year 2025 marks the 60th anniversary of the Grateful Dead’s birth. This is the 19th Flashback on 60, a periodic feature in which Sound Bites revisits the band’s career.

I remember it clear as the Wall of Sound. It’s 1981, or so, and the big brother of my friend Bryce is playing an album called Dead Set and a song called “Friend of the Devil.” The music is enchanting, hypnotizing, but it is the high harmony on the chorus - I’d later learn it to be the voice of one Brent Mydland - that reeled in the incipient Sound Bites/Dead Head.

Things were changing.

Using paper-route money, I soon picked up the records - live and studio - and quickly enough began getting concert tapes to boot(leg). Fast-forward a few years to June 25, 1985, and I’m walking into my first Dead show at Blossom Music Center in Ohio.

Things - as in every, single thing - changed.

A Beatles fan from the jump, Sound Bites nearly exploded when the Dead took the stage in front of a huge minuteman emblazoned on their 20 Years So Far banner and lit into “Day Tripper.”

Oh, fuck, yes.

A fat and sinewy “West L.A. Fadeaway” followed and while Sound Bites swears he watched a full moon rising during “C.C. Rider,” the lunar calendar says he did not, so there’s that. Read into it what you will.

Sound Bites is sure, however, that Jerry Garcia’s spidery leads during “Row Jimmy” came up the hillside and wrapped him an an aural web from which he’s never fully escaped. And when the first half ended with the rip-snortin’est “Might as Well,” well, Sound Bites did.

Set two is a bit more blurry. Not unremembered or forgotten, but sort of an out-of-body experience that began as “Gimme Some Lovin’” gave way to “China Cat Sunflower” and the good ol’ Grateful Dead dived headlong into that good ol’ 85 weirdness.

I zapped back to it during the encore of “Touch of Grey,” still a couple of years away from becoming an anthem, but already anthemic.

We will survive?

Fuck yeah, we will.

Sound Bites was a different person walking out of Blossom that evening - mooing with the crowd as we crossed a bridge and taking care not to touch any of the Angels’ Harleys parked nearby - than he was walking in to Blossom that evening. And Sound Bites remains that second person to this day.

Read Sound Bites’ previous Flashback on 60 items here.

6/25/25

[krispyweiss]

Album Review: Pink Floyd - Pink Floyd at Pompeii - MCMLXXII - 2025 Remix

Before they retreated to the relative normalcy of the Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd traveled to Pompeii for one last blast of the old, weird band.

The results, expertly remixed and markedly upgraded by the ever-big-eared Steven Wilson and released as the soundtrack to the visually restored “Live at Pompeii” concert-without-audience film, Pink Floyd at Pompeii - MCMLXXII finds Roger Waters, Richard Wright, Nick Mason and David Gilmour clipping off the last of Syd Barrett’s tendrils and turning toward the more-structured approach that would dominate the balance of Floyd’s career.

An important document in any context, Pink Floyd at Pompeii - MCMLXXII is crucial listening for fans of the post-’72 group looking to expand their sonic menu.

Split into two parts, “Echoes” and to a lesser extent “One of these Days” are bright foreshadows in retrospect - songs that could’ve come later and sounded right on time.

The gurgling, mumbling psychedelia of “Careful with that Axe, Eugene,” which appears twice in similar iterations, “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun” and “A Saucerful of Secrets” find the Floyds looking over their collective shoulders as the kaleidoscopic sun sets and the dark moon breaches the horizon.

Grade card: Pink Floyd - Pink Floyd at Pompeii - MCMLXXII - 2025 Remix - B+

6/24/25

[krispyweiss]

Song Review: Grateful Dead - “Estimated Prophet” (Live, July 14, 1990)

A screaming, reverb-soaked Bob Weir, in the role of the Grateful Dead’s “Estimated Prophet,” told his followers: Don’t worry ’bout me, no. And when Weir was done wailing, Jerry Garcia snaked the band through a jazzy, sinewy outro to end the July 14, 1990, performance of the song.

Released as the Dead’s latest “All the Years Live” video, this “Prophet” captures the Dead coming to the end of a peak period as keyboardist Brent Mydland would die just after the band returned home from the road.

Until the summer tour wrapped, however, the Dead remained full of life. And this “Estimated” is a fine example of that, with a funky, double-jointed main section pairing with Weir’s vocal-coda histrionics and Garcia’s spacey trailing off spotlighting the band’s many guises across 12 psychedelic minutes.

In 2025, the Dead have been gone for 30 years, the same amount of time they were here. These videos are the kind of colorful flashbacks that help some relive the best live-music days of their lives and others experience all that went down, albeit from a distance.

Grade card: Grateful Dead - “Estimated Prophet” (Live - 7/14/90) - A-

Read Sound Bites’ previous “All the Years Live” coverage here.

6/24/25

[krispyweiss]

Steven Van Zandt to Sit out Springsteen Gigs as He Recovers from Surgery

Steven Van Zandt will miss most - perhaps all - of the remaining dates on Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band’s Europe tour as he recovers from a bout of appendicitis.

Van Zandt had surgery at “an exceptional hospital” in Spain after what he thought was food poisoning turned out to be more serious.

“Operation was a complete success and I’m hoping to get back on stage for at least one of the shows in Milan,” the guitarist said in a statement. “Thank you all for all the good vibes. See you soon.”

No replacement was announced, leaving Springsteen and Nils Lofgren to handle six-string duties June 24 in Spain and June 27 in Germany. BSESB are scheduled to play in Italy June 30 and July 3.

6/24/25

[krispyweiss]

Mott the Hoople and Bad Company Co-founder Mick Ralphs Dies at 81

Mick Ralphs, the co-founding lead guitarist of Mott the Hoople and Bad Company, has died.

News of Ralphs’ death at 81 comes nine years after the guitarist suffered a career-ending stroke.

“Our Mick has passed, my heart just hit the ground,” Bad Company singer Paul Rodgers said in a statement.

“He has left us with exceptional songs and memories. He was my friend, my songwriting partner (and) an amazing and versatile guitarist who had the greatest sense of humor.”

“The world is a poorer place today,” Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott said in eulogizing the man who “has been a constant companion through my musical journey and … one of the kindest souls I ever met.”

Ralphs co-founded Mott in 1969 and stayed with the band through six albums until 1973, when he joined former Free members Rodgers, drummer Simon Kirke and former King Crimson bassist Boz Burrell to form Bad Company.

“(Ralphs) was a dear friend, a wonderful songwriter and an exceptional guitarist,” Kirke said in a statement. “We will miss him deeply.”

The guitarist’s songwriting credits include “Ready for Love,” “Can’t Get Enough” and “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” which along with Ralphs’ “high-gain guitar riffs and heavy phrasing … helped define Bad Company as hard rock’s quintessential supergroup,” the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame said in a statement.

Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Damon Johnson mourned Ralphs with a “heavy sigh from my heavy heart” on social media.

“And thank you for charting the path for all of us that love soulful, badass rock and roll,” Johnson said.

6/24/25

[krispyweiss]

Album Review: Cat Stevens - Saturnight (Live in Tokyo)

Overflowing with ubiquitous titles that many listeners may not need to hear again in their studio forms, Cat Stevens’ Saturnight (Live in Tokyo) breathes new live into played-out numbers.

Released only in Japan as a UNICEF fundraiser, the 1974 album is now available worldwide and presents such tracks as “Wild World,” “Where Do the Children Play?,” “Hard Headed Woman,” “Peace Train” and “Father & Son” in full-band iterations with female backgrounds and electric piano altering the sonic template enough to make them sound fresh without erasing the qualities that made them classics in the first place.

Stevens is, as ever, in sonorous voice as he debuts his version of Sam Cooke’s “Another Saturday Night” for the appreciative Japanese audience and taps a couple of deeper cuts in “Lady D’Arbanville” and “King of Trees.”

These are not the definitive versions; these represent a moment in time in Japan. But Saturnight’s beauty lies in making this list of songs appealing in a way the studio version no longer are and inviting repeated spins in 2025 and beyond.

Grade card: Cat Stevens - Saturnight (Live in Tokyo) - B+

6/23/25

[krispyweiss]

Song Review: Drink the Sea - “Saturn Calling”

“Saturn Calling” couldn’t be further outside the orbit of Drink the Sea’s initial singles.

After following the loose contours of Mark Lanegan’s solo career on “Outside Again” and “House of Flowers,” Duke Garwood, Peter Buck, Barrett Martin and Alain Johannes go back to MTV in the 1980s on their third offering.

Think Human League meets Psychedelic Furs and you’ll be close to untangling the splashes of guitar amid a wash of synths, drums and processed vocals that comprise “Saturn Calling.” It joins its predecessors in previewing Drink the Sea I (Sept. 19) and Drink the Sea II (Oct. 3).

Grade card: Drink the Sea - “Saturn Calling” - D

6/23/25

[krispyweiss]

Flashback on 60: Grateful Dead - Download Series Volume 2 (2005)

Editor’s note: The year 2025 marks the 60th anniversary of the Grateful Dead’s birth. This is the 18th Flashback on 60, a periodic feature in which Sound Bites revisits the band’s career.

It’s Jan. 18, 1970, and a youthful, still-developing Grateful Dead are playing pretty well and singing pretty terribly at a gig in Oregon.

Things are in flux. Second keyboardist Tom Constanten will leave the band within a couple of weeks; percussionist Mickey Hart will begin a hiatus in a year.

Pigpen, whose health will fail within two years, is still up front singing the blues on “Big Boss Man,” which finds Jerry Garcia experimenting with the riff that would become “New Speedway Boogie,” and “Turn on Your Lovelight,” while the rest of the group is inching ever closer to the sound it would carry - while constantly evolving - all the way to 1995.

Released in 2005 as Download Series Volume Two, this partial-show recording finds the band going back to the very beginning with such numbers as “Cold Rain and Snow” and “Dancing in the Street,” during which an uncharacteristically chatty Bob Weir asks the fans to boogie. And though the harmonies are not at all harmonious, they’re spirited in the extreme.

The same is true of “Mason’s Children,” which despite its raggedness, is a special inclusion as the song was played fewer than 20 times and never recorded. Ditto, “China Cat Sunflower” -> “I Know You Rider,” which had been recently linked, to virtually never again disconnect.

File under interesting historical artifact; inessential listening.

Read Sound Bites’ previous Flashback on 60 items here.

6/22/25

[krispyweiss]

Song Review(s): Billy Strings - “Brown’s Ferry Blues,” “Soldier’s Joy” and “Roll on Buddy Roll On” (Live, June 21, 2025)

“No bass. Only me. What can I play?”

So said Billy Strings after Royal Masat’s tech troubles led to a solo-acoustic rendering of “Brown’s Ferry’s Blues” that, while amped and threatening to combust on Strings’ rapid-fire pickin’, couldn’t fix Masat’s problem.

“Soldier’s Joy” continued the way around what Strings termed “testical difficulties” as he, mandolinist Jarrod Walker and banjoist Billy Failing wove the instrumental tale in lieu of Masat and his bottom end.

Next trying their hand with a single mic, Strings, Walker, Failing and fiddler Alex Hargreaves performed the back-porch bluegrass of “Roll on Buddy, Roll On” before temporarily suspending the set and permanently ending the livestream sampler from the June 21 gig in Kentucky.

The moral? Billy Strings is as much a band of equals as a dude.

Grade card: Billy Strings - “Brown’s Ferry Blues,” “Soldier’s Joy” and “Roll on Buddy Roll On” (Live - 6/21/25) - A/A/B+

6/22/25

[krispyweiss]

Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra at Royal Albert Hall, London, 21 June, 2025

Bob(by) Weir stumbled out of the gate at Royal Albert Hall, missing his cue on “Truckin’,” before further botching the lyrics he nearly always mangles. He quickly recovered and turned in an all-time performance with Wolf Bros and the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra on 21 June.

“These guys are nothing short of a national treasure here,” Weir said of the RPCO after the interval between 60- and 85-minute sets. He was not being a prankster.

Weir’s first London, U.K., show in more than two decades began with the orchestra only performing the 10-minute “Grateful Overture” that featured on the Grateful Dead co-founder’s 2024 U.S. tour. Comprising elements of “The Other One,” “Dark Star,” “Lost Sailor” and “Saint of Circumstance,” it set the RAH stage for what was to follow.

With that, Weir and his Bros - pianist Jeff Chimenti, bassist Don Was and drummer Jay Lane - joined the 68-piece orchestra. Dressed in black, with the Bros’ shawl-donning daddy wearing closed-toed shoes in deference to the hallowed hall, the band was all business and Weir also slipped a fuckin’ into “Truckin’” to remind concertgoers who filled perhaps two-thirds of the regal, red-velvet seats that, formalit be damned, Weir was here.

“Black Peter” followed, with sweeping accompaniment from RPCO making the song less a blues and more a rhapsody bathed in red and blue lights. Replete with a trombone solo, “Peter” found Weir again fumbling the lyrics. But when he put a falsetto on the coda, he seemed to be letting everyone know he was determined to sort himself out.

And when “China Cat Sunflower” emerged with woodwinds handling Weir’s guitar figure, the recovery was complete as Weir adroitly delivered the tongue-twisting lyrics and the 72 musicians on stage - all audible owing to the Hall’s superior sound quality - became one under conductor Grzegorz Nowak. This song brought a heretofore-absent peppiness to the Albert’s exalted air. A glorious classical passageway subsequently marked the transition to “I Know You Rider.”

With the audience on its feet, “Rider” eventually gave way to a majestic orchestral interlude befitting the traditional song. The following standing ovation similarly befitted this particular presentation and led to the set-closing “Brokedown Palace,” which was faster than most Grateful Dead renderings and gently dominated by the orchestra.

“We’ll be back shortly,” Weir said at 9 sharp. And 35 minutes later, “Sugar Magnolia” was bloomin’.

Weir was dialed in. He sung powerfully over the fully integrated orchestra and Bros. Together and separately, they were full of kinetic energy. And when the string section took over, soon joined by tympani and brass, the players skirted the song’s edges while adding something unique to this set.

A wispy introduction signaled a transcendent “Terrapin Station Suite,” with the orchestra powering the train for the 23 minutes it took to get from the exquisite rendering of “Lady with a Fan,” with Weir singing like he really meant it while Chimenti added Bruce Hornsby-like flourishes and Lane made himself one of the four-person percussion section, to “Refrain.” Along the route, “Terrapin Transit” burned as Lane and the percussion section sparred with strings and Chimenti, who took over Garcia’s guitar parts under a rainbow color of lights on stage to reflect London’s abundance of rainbow flags.

Weir’s Bros decamped for “Days Between,” which Weir sung with his guitar to his side and a slight echo on voice to give him an omniscient presence against the fresh, classical arrangement - there was no percussion save for soft xylophone - that reinforced the song’s elegiac posturing.

“That was well-done,” Mrs. Sound Bites whispered as she applauded heartily. “He sang that better than I’ve ever heard him sing.”

The Wolves returned for “Jack Straw,” with Lane singing Garcia’s parts and Weir turning windmills during the stop-start homestretch when orchestra and band tossed the ball back and forth. This moved toward an oddball, but ingenious selection - a fast-paced “Hell in a Bucket,” the perfect segue into “Sunshine Daydream.”

As the fans cheered lustily, Natascha Münter presented roses to Nowak and her husband before Weir & Wolf Bros ended the evening with skeletal-sounding, band-only iterations of “She Says” and “One More Saturday Night.”

And that is how the 77-year-old Weir proved it’s not too late to reach new summits as long as Dead men are playing live.

Grade card: Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra at Royal Albert Hall - 21/6/25 - A

Setlist: Grateful Overture (RPCO only); Truckin’; Black Peter; China Cat Sunflower; I Know You Rider; Brokedown Palace; Sugar Magnolia; Terrapin Station Suite; Days Between; Jack Straw; Hell in a Bucket; Sunshine Daydream; She Says (band only); One More Saturday Night (band only)

22/6/25

[krispyweiss]

Darrell Scott’s Electrifying Trio Provides Healing “Whiskey” for “Sunday” Offering

Proclaiming “It’s the Whiskey that Eases the Pain,” Darrell Scott’s Electrifying Trio were nevertheless steady on their feet as they sauntered their way through the tune at the 2022 Albino Skunk Music Festival in South Carolina.

Much of this is on account of double bassist Bryn Davies, who held everything together as Scott’s soloed like a Chicago bluesman of yore and even drummer Jeff Sipe found room for a short showcase.

This latest “It Must be Sunday” video offering from Scott proves his Electrifying Trio is accurately named as it singes the audience with the sparks flying from the words and music.

It ain’t love, it ain’t money that makes this world turn around/when you hit rock bottom you still may not be on the ground/I can tell you something in case you’re walking with a cane/it ain’t love, it ain’t money, it’s the whiskey that eases the pain, goes the opening segment.

And Scott delivered it like a man in a love-hate relationship with his drink of choice - or necessity. Whichever the case, Scott sells this message like a bartender at (un)happy hour.

6/22/25

[krispyweiss]

Song Review(s): Billy Strings - “I’ve Just Seen the Rock of Ages” and “The Fire on My Tongue” (Live, June 20, 2025)

Billy Strings walked on stage alone in Kentucky, his head hung low and announced his mother had died in her sleep the previous evening. Strings talked about getting the news, wandering in a daze to a church and eventually deciding to do the show because that’s what his mom - whom many fans befriended - would’ve wanted.

“The reason I decided not to go home and be with my family right now is because I already am,” Strings said as the audience showed their support.

With that, Strings called out the “lazy boys” in his band and together they lit into “I’ve Just Seen the Rock of Ages,” the story of a dying mother talking to her son.

Strings not only got through it, he conjured the strength to call respective mandolin and fiddle solos from Jarrod Walker and Alex Hargreaves. Part mournful prayer, part celebration, this high-test bluegrass hymn was 100 percent healing. Or at least it seemed to be on the livestream sampler that also included “The Fire on My Tongue” from the June 20 show.

If “Rock of Ages” was healing, “Fire,” a song for those who die young and the weariness of those who stay behind, was an expression of collective grief. The band was slightly off, vocal harmonies tinged with sadness and wandering off-key as each musician dealt with the situation in his own way.

For Strings, that meant digging into a trad-bluegrass solo that pulled the band from its doldrums and signaled the bandleader’s intention to carry on for his mother.

And when he posted the setlist hours later, the coda said, simply, “For Mom.”

Grade card: Billy Strings - “I’ve Just Seen the Rock of Ages” and “The Fire on My Tongue” (Live - 6/20/25) - A/B

6/21/25

[krispyweiss]

Song Review: Paul Simon with Edie Brickell - “The Sacred Harp” (Colbert)

Paul Simon’s voice has aged but his guitar playing has not. And with his wife, Edie Brickell, adding co-lead and harmony vocals to “The Sacred Harp,” the modern Simon remains identifiable as the Paul Simon.

Simon and Brickell, backed by a large band making a quiet sound, appeared on “the Late Show with Stephen Colbert” to perform one of the Seven Psalms from Simon’s latest album. And while the presentation was near flawless - save a few bum notes on the mic - “The Sacred Harp” loses some of its meaning when removed from the other six Psalms.

That said, television appearances are meant to promote albums and/or tours and Simon is peddling both. And folks moved by “The Sacred Harp” will surely find more to feed the spirit in Seven Psalms, which Sound Bites reviews here.

Grade card: Paul Simon with Edie Brickell - “The Sacred Harp” (Colbert) - B-

6/20/25

[krispyweiss]

Album Review: Various Artists - Heart of Gold: The Songs of Neil Young Vol. 1

One thing is certain with the release of Heart of Gold: The Songs of Neil Young Vol. 1 - no one can do Neil Young songs like Neil Young does Neil Young songs.

Not that some of the various artists on this Bridge School benefit don’t try, whether it’s Brandi Carlile and Eddie Vedder doing respective paint-by-numbers renditions of “Philadelphia” and “Needle and the Damage Done,” or Anders Osborne cleverly grafting the 4 Way Street and Everybody Know this is Nowhere arrangements of “Cowgirl in the Sand” for his contribution.

Steve Earle finds some success adding oomph to the Stills-Young Band’s “Long May You Run” and Rodney Crowell proves himself a closet rocker on Buffalo Springfield’s “Mr. Soul.”

And the rest?

Imagine Allison Russell duetting with Michael McDonald as the other Doobie Brothers countrify “Comes a Time.” Imagine Stephen Marley recasting “Old Man” as a reggae number. And imagine Mumford & Sons and the Lumineers respectively sucking the life out of “Harvest” and “Sugar Mountain.”

Seriously. Just imagine it. The listening to too much to ask.

Grade card: Heart of Gold: The Songs of Neil Young Vol. 1 - C-

6/20/25