Fred Neil - The Sky Is Falling: The Complete Live Recordings 1963-1971 (Rev-Ola, 2004)

The Sky Is Falling is a really good concept: Take Fred Neil's spottiest release, the part-live/part-half-baked-duets-with-other-musicians Other Side of This Life, and enhance it by including four rare live tracks that were originally featured on obscure mid-1960s Greenwich Village folk anthologies. The original album bore all the hallmarks of a contractual obligation by a performer who had long ago become disenchanted with the music industry. Nonetheless, an artist of Neil's caliber seems to have been incapable of making a record that was truly bad. The primary fault of Other Side of This Life is its patched-together feel. While those aforementioned bonus tracks don't make The Sky Is Falling any more of a cohesive product, they do present the listener with four more superb recordings of vintage Freddie Neil.

FRED NEIL WITH BUZZY LINHART (ON VIBES) ET AL.

This CD's first six tracks were recorded at a small club in Woodstock circa 1970 with old friend Monte Dunn on second guitar and consist of material that Neil had initially featured on his earlier albums for Elektra and Capitol. Put simply, this is post-Greenwich Village folk music at its finest. The next five selections, however, primarily sound like little more than demos. While there are some high points, these tracks all possess a pronounced unfinished feel and hardly qualify as essential. Luminaries such as Stephen Stills, Bruce Langhorne, Dino Valenti, Harvey Brooks, and Les McCann provide instrumental support to various degrees on "Come Back Baby," "Prettiest Train," "Felicity," "Ba-De-Da" and "Ya Don't Miss Your Water," with one-time partner Vince Martin and Gram Parsons respectively contributing vocals on the last two songs. Had these performances been more fully-realized, they could have been fantastic. As for the bonus tracks, "Linin' Track," "The Sky Is Falling" (a cousin of "Blues on the Ceiling" perhaps), "That's the Bag I'm In" (all originally included on the 1963 release Hootenanny: Live at the Bitter End), and "Raindrops" (an early version of "Yonder Come the Blues" that first appeared on A Rootin' Tootin' Hootenanny from the following year) are all extraordinary and further demonstrate Neil's ability to captivate an audience.

IN THE STUDIO WITH BRUCE "MR. TAMBOURINE
MAN" LANGHORNE AND OTHER ASSOCIATES

1. The Other Side of This Life
2. Roll on Rosie
3. The Dolphins
4. That's the Bag I'm In
5. Sweet Cocaine
6. Everybody's Talkin'
7. Come Back Baby
8. Ba-De-Da
9. Prettiest Train
10. Ya Don't Miss Your Water
11. Felicity
12. Linin' Track
13. The Sky Is Falling
14. That's the Bag I'm In
15. Raindrops Falling

ON THE STREETS OF GREENWICH VILLAGE
LOOKING LIKE HE'S HOMESICK FOR FLORIDA