Following the triumph of Rust Never Sleeps, Hawks & Doves benefited from the enormous critical goodwill Neil Young had amassed, though fans and critics nevertheless were baffled by its set of obscure acoustic and country-tinged songs.
This box set continues the chronological re-releasing of Neil Young’s Official Releases, remastered where analog tapes exist. Volume 4, released as a 4 LP box and 4 CD box. The ORS Vol 4 collects an eclectic set of decade-spanning sounds. Hawks & Doves (1980) revisits his folk roots and explores some of his most country-leaning offerings; the blistering Re•ac•tor (1981) showcases a stomping set of heavy, overdriven rock with Crazy Horse; and This Note’s for You (1988) casts Young as a big band leader, belting out intricately arranged blues. The Eldorado EP (1989), a 5 track mini-album, previously only released on CD in Australia and Japan, is full of feral distortion and earthy crunch featuring Young backed by The Restless (Chad Cromwell and Rick Rosas). It includes two thundering tracks — “Cocaine Eyes” and “Heavy Love”— not available on any other album, along with different versions of 3 tracks that appeared on Freedom later the same year.
After Neil Young left the California folk-rock band Buffalo Springfield in 1968, he slowly established himself as one of the most influential and idiosyncratic singer/songwriters of his generation. Young's body of work ranks second only to Bob Dylan in terms of depth, and he was able to sustain his critical reputation, as well as record sales, for a longer period of time than Dylan, partially because of his willfully perverse work ethic…
Though it may seem unlikely that Frank Zappa had much of an influence on the work of Lalo Schifrin, one can detect some cultural crossover on There's a Whole Lalo Schifrin Goin' On. Schifrin was as much a jazz-pop genius as ever, but on this album rock rhythms, musical satire, sound effects, and exotica are all used as camp in a way that is eerily reminiscent of Zappa's more thoughtful efforts. Schifrin being Schifrin, every cut has a distinct and catchy melody, but there are whimsical and satirical themes embedded in the music. Nowhere is this more obvious than in "Hawks Vs. Doves," in which a cheery carnival-like theme is played in counterpoint to a martial air, each interfering with the other.
This triple disc collector s box set features rare broadcast recordings by Neil Young, originally transmitted from live shows the great man performed in the 1970s and 1980s; his glory years if you will. Disc One includes two such superb performances : the first a short set Neil played alongside Bob Dylan and members of The Band at the San Francisco SNACK Benefit concert in 1975, and secondly his legendary acoustic set from the late show he gave at Boston s Music Hall in November 1976. Disc Two features Young s marvellous appearance on the Austin City Limits programme in 1984. Including recent cuts mixed with NY classics, this is perhaps Neil s finest performances of that period. Disc Three houses another 80s gig, played at the end of the decade in Hamburg, Germany, on 8th December 1989, shortly after the release of his dynamic Freedom album.