Reprise
Neil Young finally completes his trio of country-folk-rock triumphs with Prairie Wind, alongside Harvest and Comes a Time. This latest is more haunting and wistful, deeper in texture and sound, maybe because Young wrote and recorded much of this disc in the time between being diagnosed with a brain aneurysm and having (successful) surgery for it. Staring face to face with the grim reaper, Young turns inward with dream imagery, thoughts of life and God, and ruminations on modernity and 9/11, all backed by Ben Keith's mournful steel guitar and Spooner Oldham's almost subliminal organ. It's Young's fragility (notably on "Falling Off the Face of the Earth") that raises this disc to classic status.
This article appears in Nov 9-15, 2005.