Neil Young Tonight's The Night CD

Live Recording

Neil Young & Crazy Horse: Neil Young (vocals, guitar, harmonica, piano, vibraphone); Danny Whitten (vocals, guitar); Ralph Molina (vocals, drums); Billy Talbot (bass).
Additional personnel: Nils Lofgren (vocals, guitar, piano); Ben Keith (vocals, pedal steel guitar, slide guitar); Jack Nitzsche (piano); Tim Drummond (bass); Kenny Buttrey (drums).
Producers: Neil Young, David Briggs, Tim Mulligan, Eliot Mazer.
Written and recorded in 1973 shortly after the death of roadie Bruce Berry, Neil Young's second close associate to die of a heroin overdose in six months (the first was Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten), Tonight's the Night was Young's musical expression of grief, combined with his rejection of the stardom he had achieved in the late '60s and early '70s. The title track, performed twice, was a direct narrative about Berry: "Bruce Berry was a working man/He used to load that Econoline van." Whitten was heard singing "Come On Baby Let's Go Downtown," a live track recorded years earlier. Elsewhere, Young frequently referred to drug use and used phrases that might have described his friends, such as the chorus of "Tired Eyes," "He tried to do his best, but he could not." Performing with the remains of Crazy Horse, bassist Billy Talbot and drummer Ralph Molina, along with Nils Lofgren (guitar and piano) and Ben Keith (steel guitar), Young performed in the ragged manner familiar from Time Fades Away -- his voice was often hoarse and he strained to reach high notes, while the playing was loose, with mistakes and shifting tempos. But the style worked perfectly for the material, emphasizing the emotional tone of Young's mourning and contrasting with the polished sound of CSNY and Harvest that Young also disparaged. He remained unimpressed with his commercial success, noting in "World on a String," "The world on a string/Doesn't mean anything." In "Roll Another Number," he said he was "a million miles away/From that helicopter day" when he and CSN had played Woodstock. And in "Albuquerque," he said he had been "starvin' to be alone/Independent from the scene that I've known" and spoke of his desire to "find somewhere where they don't care who I am." Songs like "Speakin' Out" and "New Mama" seemed to find some hope in family life, but Tonight's the Night did not offer solutions to the personal and professional problems it posed. It was the work of a man trying to turn his torment into art and doing so unflinchingly. Depending on which story you believe, Reprise Records rejected it or Young withdrew it from its scheduled release at the start of 1974 after touring with the material in the U.S. and Europe. In 1975, after a massive CSNY tour, Young at the last minute dumped a newly recorded album and finally put Tonight's the Night out instead. Though it did not become one of his bigger commercial successes, the album immediately was recognized as a unique masterpiece by critics, and it has continued to be ranked as one of the greatest rock & roll albums ever made. ~ William Ruhlmann
Let's get a popular misconception out of the way. The rap about this being one of Young's darkest, most harrowing albums is utter nonsense, perpetuated by critics who spend more time reading each other than listening to the music. TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT is dedicated to Young's guitarist Danny Whitten and roadie Bruce Berry, who died shortly before this recording was made, and the title cut details that very subject, but the darker moments here are leavened by a generous share of self-parodic humor and general Neil Young loopiness.
Sad, tender ballads like "Borrowed Tune," (itself not without humor) rub shoulders with hearty rockers like "Come On Baby Let's Go Downtown." Several tunes find Young and Crazy Horse exploring hard-edged country-rock with their collective tongue stuck firmly in the cheek, as on "Roll Another Number." Young's voice reels sadistically and purposefully out of tune, cutting through the arrangements likeQ (4/02, p.141) - "...This is as gripping and original an album as Young has ever made."
The Wire (p.44) - "[T]he album most often hailed as Young's messed-up masterpiece....'Tired Eyes' addresses the death of a junkie with merciless candour..."
Mojo (Publisher) (11/01, p.151) - "...One of the most bleakly beautiful rock albums ever made..."
NME (Magazine) (10/2/93, p.29) - Ranked #94 in NME's list of the "Greatest Albums Of All Time."
NME (Magazine) (9/18/93, p.19) - Ranked #43 in NME's list of the "Greatest Albums Of The '70s."
NME (Magazine) (8/12/00, p.28) - Ranked #14 in The NME "Top 30 Heartbreak Albums" - "...[His] world was devastated in late-'72 by the overdose of Crazy horse guitarist Danny Whitten and roadie Bruce Berry....his desperate attempt to come to terms with those deaths..."