Prairie Wind



Prairie Wind is the twenty-seventh studio album by Canadian musician Neil Young, released on September 27, 2005. After dalliances with 1960s 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.

Commercial performance
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".

Track listing
All songs written by Neil Young

Personnel

 * Neil Young - acoustic guitar, electric guitar, harmonica, piano, vocals
 * Ben Keith - Dobro, pedal steel, slide guitar
 * Spooner Oldham - piano, Hammond B3 organ, Wurlitzer electric piano
 * Rick Rosas - bass
 * Karl Himmel - drums, percussion
 * Chad Cromwell - drums, percussion
 * Grant Boatwright - acoustic guitar, backing vocals
 * Clinton Gregory - fiddle on "No Wonder"
 * Wayne Jackson - horns
 * Thomas McGinley - horns
 * Emmylou Harris - special guest vocalist
 * Pegi Young - backing vocals
 * Diana Dewitt - backing vocals
 * Anthony Crawford - backing vocals
 * Gary Pigg - backing vocals
 * Curtis Wright - backing vocals
 * Chuck Cochran - string arranger
 * Fisk University Jubilee Choir, directed by Paul Kwami