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alien style studio - Bremen, Germany Personnel: 1. southern man Neil Young may not have been most musicians first choice for an "instrumental" album tribute, but the Sisters Euclid is a group that thrives on taking the road less-travelled. Sure, we could have done funked-up versions of pieces by Henry Mancini or Theolonius Monk, but we all grew up listening to "pop music" and it seemed like it would be more challenging to do instrumental arrangements of pieces by an artist that nobody would think of doing. Neil Young writes damn good songs! They have beautiful melodies and sound harmonic structures that we felt carried the tunes just fine, even without his incredible lyrics. Neil's words are, of course, the central point of his songs and we tried our best to imply them in the arrangements. "Southern Man" and "Ohio" are probably the most obvious examples of this. These are very powerful, political songs about very serious subjects and we put our hearts and souls into their delivery. There was a ghostly, teary-eyed silence in the studio after the last notes of "Southern Man" died away. Even though it was the first take, we all knew right away it was the only one we had to do. Kevin just put his guitar down and said, "Well, that's that!" The mansions were all on fire and the slaves were running free. Neil's ballads are just plain beautiful and a pleasure to play. We're not the first ones to cover "Harvest Moon" and we won't be the last. Neil has romantic ballad writing covered here. This recording was a lot of fun to make and we hope Mr. Young gets to hear it and we hope he isn't too pissed-off that his words aren't there. We have nothing but total admiration for him as a songwriter and a storyteller. This recording is respectfully dedicated to the Artist, Neil Young. Gary J. Taylor |
