After the Gold Rush is the third studio album by Neil Young, released in September 1970 on Reprise Records. Gold Rush consists mainly of country folk music, along with the rocking “Southern Man”, inspired by the Dean Stockwell-Herb Bermann screenplay After the Gold Rush.
“While David Crosby yowls about assassinations, Young divulges darker agonies without even bothering to make them explicit. Here the gaunt pain of Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere fills out a little—the voice softer, the jangling guitar muted behind a piano. Young’s melodies—every one of them—are impossible to dismiss. He can write ‘poetic’ lyrics without falling flat on his metaphor even when the subject is ecology or crumbling empire. And despite his acoustic tenor, he rocks plenty. A real rarity: pleasant and hard at the same time.” A+
– Robert Christgau (Consumer Guide ’70s)
Only love can break your heart:
“After the Gold Rush was recorded with the aid of Nils Lofgren, a 17-year-old unknown whose piano was a major instrument, turning one of the few real rockers, “Southern Man” (which had unsparing protest lyrics typical of Phil Ochs), into a more stately effort than anything on the previous album and giving a classic tone to the title track, a mystical ballad that featured some of Young’s most imaginative lyrics and became one of his most memorable songs. ”
– William Ruhlmann (Allmusic)
Southern Man – Chicago Theater, Chi IL. Apr 22, 2014:
“I immediately fell in love with his music, that soft vibrato that nobody else has. More than that, it was his attitude toward the way he laid songs down. It’s always about laying down whatever is in your head at the time and staying completely true to that, no matter what it is.”
Thom Yorke about first hearing After The Gold Rush (to BBC, 2008)
After The Gold Rush by Neil Young (Spotify):
Personell:
- Neil Young – guitar, piano, harmonica, vibes, lead vocals
- Danny Whitten – guitar, vocals
- Nils Lofgren – guitar, piano, vocals
- Jack Nitzsche – piano
- Billy Talbot – bass
- Greg Reeves – bass
- Ralph Molina – drums, vocals
- Stephen Stills – vocals
- Bill Peterson – flugelhorn