As the 21st century left the 20th century behind, Neil Young showed little sign of slowing the breakneck pace he had set for himself when he was playing with Rick James in the Mynah Birds in the early ’60s.
“Silver & Gold” was released on April 25, 2000 as his 28th studio album. Not counting work with Buffalo Springfield or Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Once again, he returned to the country-rock roots that first made him a solo star.
Young had spent the last four years staying extremely busy working on a variety of projects with a couple of his many different ensembles. He recorded a new album with Crazy Horse in 1996 titled “Broken Arrow.” And he embarked on a massive tour that resulted in the live double album “Year of the Horse.” As well as the documentary directed by Jim Jarmusch of the same name. Shortly after, he re-entered the studio with David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash for the album “Looking Forward.” And then he was back on the road. By 2000 he finally felt ready to re-enter the studio for a solo effort.
Rather than attempt to write a new variety of material for what would become “Silver & Gold,” Young relied heavily on the material he had stockpiled over the years. The title track and “Razor Love” were originally written and performed live in the early ’80s, while most of the rest of the songs were written intermittently during the ’90s.
Young recruited several top session musicians to help him record Silver & Gold, including the late Booker T. & the MG bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn and Ben Keith, who had been working with Young since Harvest in 1971. Keith also served alongside Young as the album’s producer.
He also called on a duo of the greatest female vocalists of all time to back him up on the song “Red Sun.” «I remember she was alone when I made it and, at the end, she was crying. It was very emotional”; Young later recalled. “I kept hearing Emmylou Harris’ voice and I finally ended up taking him to Tucson to Linda Ronstadt’s house, where she and Emmylou were working on an album with Dolly Parton. They ended up singing on a lot of the songs on this album, but this one really got me. “The song has a bit of religion in it and Emmylou’s voice, especially, fits that.”
Longtime Neil Young fans especially fell in love with the song “Buffalo Springfield Again,” where the singer recounts the end of his former band and expresses his desire to play with all of them once again. Young missed his chance three years before this song debuted when Buffalo Springfield was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1997, but made up for it in 2011 when he went on tour for a six-show series with them. . He was supposedly preparing for a bigger tour, but it didn’t materialize.
One of the most intriguing facts about “Silver & Gold” is the cover, a sepia-toned, highly pixelated shot of Neil Young standing with his hands on his hips. It is notable for being perhaps one of the few album covers, if not the only one, to be filmed with a Nintendo Gameboy camera. It turns out that the photographer was Young’s own daughter, Amber.
Months before the record hit store shelves, Young hit the road again, this time for a solo acoustic tour. A complete performance of this show was filmed by director LA Johnson at the Bass Concert Hall in Austin, Texas, and was later also released on DVD as “Silver & Gold.” The original album later earned a Juno nomination in Young’s home country of Canada for Traditional and Roots Album of the Year.
