#149 Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Chicago 1976 (Flac)

Neil Young and Crazy Horse
Chicago Auditorium, Chicago, IL.
November 15, 1976
Late Show

Soundboard Upgrade via JEMS

Lineage: 

Lowest-generation origin cassette > Nakamichi CR-7A azimuth-adjusted playback > Sound Devices USBPre2 > Audacity 2.0 (24/96 capture to .wav) > iZotope RX6 and Ozone 6 mastering > iZotope MBIT+ resample and dither to 16/44.1 > Audacity > TLH > FLAC

01. Heart of Gold
02. The Old Laughing Lady
03. Journey Through the Past
04. Too Far Gone
05. Give Me Strength
06. The Needle and the Damage Done
07. A Man Needs a Maid
08. Tell Me Why
09. Sugar Mountain
10. Country Home
11. Don't Cry No Tears
12. Peace of Mind
13. Lotta Love
14. Like a Hurricane
15. After the Gold Rush
16. Are You Ready for the Country?

Band:

Neil Young - vocals, guitar, keyboards, banjo, harmonica
Frank Sampedro - guitar, keyboards, vocals
Billy Talbot - bass, vocals
Ralph Molina - drums, vocals

Original notes below:

About this recording. I’m sure this is one of those Neil Young recordings that all of you are familiar with, but this marks the first time this specific source has been shared. During all those years there has always been the same underlying version of this concert, but always from a bootleg release, never a version with known generation, let alone a source with known lineage to the master.

But that changes now. BK of JEMS explains:

“This cassette comes from the collection of our longtime friend and ally SS, and given everything we know about the provenance of this famous and fabulous recording and the person from which SS received it, we strongly believe this cassette is the point of origin for every known version of the show. Meaning, all copies in circulation go back to this tape. It is ground zero. What we do not know for sure is if it is THE actual soundboard master. My assumption is that this is a first-generation tape made off either a cassette or reel master. Regardless, I believe it to be the best known version of the recording and the first with a lineage back to analog source with no digital tape or CD generation in-between.”

Firstly, this version, although it had several of the noises and minor sonic defects also present in the bootleg releases, unlike those, in this version they are barely perceptible, able to be heard only if you pay full attention or if you are fully interested in those details, either because you are someone interested in those type of issues or because you're planning to fix them yourself.

In my opinion, sonically this transfer sounds much warmer, with more clarity both in the vocals as much as in the sound of the guitar. It feels more natural, unlike the bootleg releases that surely, at some point, had some kind of noise reduction. Here the mastering has no residue of such a process.

I am very happy to know that this recording is finally getting a release worthy of its quality. As always, I thank the JEMS team for their eternal confidence in me (and those who support me) in releasing recordings to the public. Huge thanks as well to SS for loaning BK his cassette source and blessing its dissemination.

If you, like me, are grateful to this, do not hesitate to show your gratitude in the comments, I know that this recording will be appreciated by all of you. (frogster)

LINK

                                               Above cover is of the now obsolete silver bootleg