Neil Young in Nashville

I spent the weekend in Nashville. First stop was at the gorgeous wooden Ryman Auditorium where a lucky audience got to witness the filming of the new Jonathan Demme performance movie of Neil Young and the World Premiere of his new album Prairie Wind. Neil recorded the album in Nashville and it is sort of a part of a trilogy with Harvest and Harvest Moon. Very personal songs about family and Neil's life. His father passed away in June and Neil's fans know about his aneurysm and subsequent operation that happened essentially while the album was being recorded.

Anyway, all these cameras and cool lighting and subtle but appropriate kinda cowboy costuming. Neil wearing a big ol hat that he kept getting caught up in his harmonica holder. After every song they would go into "limbo" as Neil said to make set changes and get all the proper musicians on stage. Then the lights would go down again and come back up so it will look seamless in the film. Neil had everybody who worked on the album there. from the Fisk Jubilee singers to a 10 piece string section, the Memphis Horns and backup singers including Emmylou Harris. At one point I counted 40 musicians on stage.

The first half was the new album in it's entirety and it was just incredible with homespun backdrops flying across the stage and despite the truncated performance style Neil really getting into it. After a break he came back and did an amazing set of older Neil tunes starting with I am a Child and moving thru Harvest Harvest Moon, Comes A Time and all of his work that was appropriate in an acoustic setting in chronologic order.

The next day was my opportunity to talk to Neil along with a slew of both film and music journalists from around the globe. I headed to the Hermitage Hotel only to find out that Neil was running at least an hour behind ,( dude got up late!) Ran into Dan Deluca from the Inquirer -look for his piece soon. Anyway we ended up with the last interview of the day and I must admit I had supreme butterflies worrying about everything from whether I had good questions to whether the minidisc player I had never used would work.

Neil looked great wearing black cowboy shirt and pants and was extremely focussed even though he had been talking to all these people. I think he was happy to actually talk about music. At one point people in the hall outside the room were making noise and Neil jumps up and runs outside to tell them "Hey, w'ere doin' a radio interview in here" he came back and said "I love to do that" After about 35 minutes of so he we got the time's up signal and wrapped it up. I asked Neil if I could snap a picture with my cell phone. He said something about " boy this is the low end of high tech" After I failed to get anything the first time. He said, "All you're gonna get is two guys with quizzical looks on their faces waiting for the camera to work".

As we finished up we found out what the commotion in the hall was. Turns out it was Jonathan Demme who had been out at a Nashville junk shop and found a road sign from the Trans Canada highway (the road features prominently in one of Neil's new songs) and had bought it to give to Neil who was very touched and immediately called Demme on the phone.

Spent the next day at the Country Music hall of Fame before heading home. Had to take a snap of Gram Parson's suit from the first Flying Burrito album which is prominently displayed.

Big Fun,