Neil Young – A Letter Home

Continuing his tradition of doing the unexpected, Neil Young this time coops himself up in a 1947 Voice-o-graph Vinyl Recording Booth to record ‘A Letter Home’, an album of largely solo acoustic songs, all of which are covers, and mainly featuring songs he loved and learned as a young man. An honourable idea, the highly rustic quality of the recording does unfortunately impact from the off. We have moved on, and at the very least we have come to expect a certain level of audio quality. Unless of course, it is a vintage recording, or one made under difficult circumstances. Which is a shame, because Young on the acoustic, unadorned, can be a thing of beauty, and on tracks such as Phil Ochs’ ‘Changes’, Bert Jansch’s ‘Needle of Death’ and Gordon Lightfooot’s ‘If You Could Read My Mind’, his sublime way with melody, rhythm and pace are all at one… except the damn recording! Scratches, pitch distortions, and general noise is what you have to put up with, along with Young dictating an imaginary letter to his long lost Mother. Still, it’s an interesting experiment, helmed by Jack White (who also contributes bar room piano – how did they get that in the booth!? – and vocals on one track), albeit one that may have very limited appeal.

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