Reprise Records

Reprise RecordsNeil Young‘s archival live album and concert video Young Shakespeare, capturing a January 1971 solo show the folk-rock legend played in Stratford, Connecticut, was released today.

The album was recorded at The American Shakespeare Theatre on January 22, 1971, just two months after Neil’s classic After the Gold Rush album was released. The show, which featured Young solo on vocals, guitar, harmonica and piano, was shot on 16-millimeter film for German TV, but the full footage was never made available publicly until now.

Young Shakespeare is available now on CD, as a vinyl LP, on DVD and in high-res digital formats. A deluxe box set gathering the CD, LP and DVD, as well as offering a code for a high-res download of the album, is also available.

Coinciding with the release, a music video for Neil’s performance of his classic 1970 Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song “Helpless” from the concert has premiered at his official YouTube channel. 

The Young Shakespeare concert took place three days after Neil’s lauded show at Toronto’s Massey Hall that was released in 2007 as part of his Archives Performance Series.

The Connecticut show featured a variety of Young’s most enduring tunes, and included renditions of four then-unreleased songs that would soon appear on Neil’s classic 1972 album Harvest: “Old Man,” “The Needle and the Damage Done,” “A Man Needs a Maid” and “Heart of Gold.”

According to Young, footage of the concert is the “earliest known film of any of my performances.”

Here’s the full Young Shakespeare track list:

“Tell Me Why”
“Old Man”
“The Needle and the Damage Done”
“Ohio”
“Dance Dance Dance”
“Cowgirl in the Sand”
“A Man Needs a Maid”/”Heart of Gold”
“Journey Through the Past”
“Don’t Let It Bring You Down”
“Helpless”
“Down by the River”
“Sugar Mountain”

By Matt Friedlander
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