Prairie Wind

Prairie Wind
Studio album by Neil Young
Released September 27, 2005
Recorded March 2005
Genre Country rock, folk rock, Americana
Length 52:05
Label Reprise
Producer Neil Young, Ben Keith
Neil Young chronology

Greendale
(2003)		 Prairie Wind
(2005)		 Living with War
(2006)
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic [1]
Music Box [2]
Robert Christgau A−[3]
Music OMH [4]
Pitchfork Media (5.8/10)[5]
Rolling Stone [6]

Prairie Wind is the twenty-seventh studio album by Canadian musician Neil Young, released in 2005. After recent dalliances with 60s soul music (Are You Passionate?) and rock opera (Greendale, which spawned a Young-directed film of the same name), Prairie Wind featured an acoustic-based sound reminiscent of his earlier commercially successful albums Harvest and Harvest Moon. The album was in part inspired by the illness and recent death of his father, Canadian sportswriter and novelist Scott Young, and the album is dedicated in part to the elder Young.

Young recorded the album in Nashville before undergoing minimally invasive surgery for an aneurysm in the spring of 2005, and some of the songs on the album appear to be informed by Young confronting his own mortality.

A premiere live performance of Prairie Wind was held in 18–19 August 2005 at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Here, Young held a two-night concert where songs from the album were performed. These concerts became the subject of a film directed by Jonathan Demme entitled Heart of Gold.

Young debuted the album's closing track, "When God Made Me", at the Live 8 concert in Barrie, Ontario, Canada.

Charts and awards

The album debuted on the Billboard 200 album chart at number 11, on October 15, 2005, with sales of approximately 72,000 copies. It remained on the chart for 26 weeks. It was awarded a certified gold record by the RIAA on January 23, 2006.

Prairie Wind received two Grammy Award nominations at the 2006 Grammy Awards - Best Rock Album of the Year and Best Rock Solo Performance for The Painter.[7] Prairie Wind was also chosen as one of Amazon.com's Top 100 Editor's Picks of 2005.

Track listing

All songs written by Neil Young, and ©2005 Silver Fiddle Music (ASCAP)

  1. "The Painter" – 4:36
  2. "No Wonder" – 5:45
  3. "Falling Off the Face of the Earth" – 3:35
  4. "Far From Home" – 3:47
  5. "It's a Dream" – 6:31
  6. "Prairie Wind" – 7:34
  7. "Here for You" – 4:32
  8. "This Old Guitar" – 5:32
  9. "He Was the King" – 6:08
  10. "When God Made Me" – 4:05
  11. "An Interview with Neil Young" - 19:06 (LP only)

Personnel

References

  1. ↑ Allmusic review
  2. ↑ Music Box review
  3. ↑ Robert Christgau review
  4. ↑ Music OMH review
  5. ↑ Pitchfork Media review
  6. ↑ Rolling Stone review
  7. ↑ "Neil Young News: 2 Grammy Nominations for Neil Young". Thrasherswheat.org. 2005-12-09. Retrieved 2012-09-08.