Neil Young will mark the 50th anniversary of his classic ‘After The Gold Rush’ with a new edition old the album in December followed by a deluxe vinyl edition in March 2021.
As part of the reissue, a new video for the unused ‘After The Gold Rush’ song’ Wonderin’ has been released. Young would eventually release a different recording of the song on his 1983 album ‘Everybody’s Rockin’.
After The Gold Rush’ was the third Neil Young solo album. (He had previously been a member of Buffalo Springfield. The album was recorded in Los Angeles across the winter of 1970. It featured an 18-year old Nils Lofgren ion guitar.
The album started as a soundtrack for what would have been a Dean Stockwell movie to be called ‘After The Gold Rush’. The title track and ‘Cripple Creek Ferry’ were written with the movie in mind but Stockwell never got around to making it.
Young wrote ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’ for Graham Nash who was breaking up with Joni Mitchell at the time.
Here is the album release info from Neil Young’s Archives:
Neil Young and Reprise Records are pleased to announce the 50th Anniversary Edition of Young’s classic record After the Gold Rush, which will arrive on CD/Digital on December 11. The deluxe vinyl box set will follow on March 19.
The 50th Anniversary Edition vinyl box set features a variant of the artwork, originally created by Neil’s long-time art director Gary Burden, made in collaboration with Grammy Award-winning artist Jenice Heo. The set also includes a 7” single in a picture sleeve with two versions of album outtake “Wonderin’.” Side A, originally included in The Archives Vol. 1: 1963-1972, was recorded in Topanga, California, in March 1970, and Side B is a previously unreleased version recorded at Sunset Sound in Hollywood in August 1969. A litho print of the album’s front cover is exclusively included in this vinyl box set. The CD format of the 50th Anniversary Edition includes the new artwork and both versions of “Wonderin’.”
The timelessness and influence of After the Gold Rush is difficult to overstate. From the iconic LP cover of Young walking in New York against a brick backdrop to the long-running legacies of songs like the incendiary “Southern Man” and the melancholy “Only Love Can Break Your Heart,” the album has felt vital in each of the five decades since its release. In fact, its title track, with Young’s time-traveling and apocalyptic visions of California, places it firmly in the here and now. Young’s re-working of the song’s lyrics for live performances over the years casts that fact in a chilling clarity: “Look at Mother Nature on the run in the 21st century.” This 50th Anniversary Edition is both a celebration for longtime fans, and a chance for new ears to take in its continued relevance.
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