Music fans finding themselves missing the legendary Canadian singer-songwriter and musician Neil Young will want to join “Dreamer of Pictures - A Celebration of Neil Young,” an ensemble collection of over ten local musicians paying tribute to his six decade career.
Local blues musician Ray Lundy will be performing as part of the ensemble, and Eric Britt of New American Hologram and Hazel Virtue was the man behind the idea of the show.
Lundy is looking forward to working with what he calls “a bunch of local unknown legends” and paying tribute to someone who had a heavy influence on him.
“I was approached by Eric Britt of New American Hologram and Hazel Virtue about doing the show,” Lundy said. “He asked me if I admired Neil Young and his music and I said of course he’s a huge part of my formative years. Even though I’m more of a blues guy I actually learned how to play guitar by listening to Neil Young and his acoustic stuff. For the opportunity to be part of a tribute show and to work with all these other great musicians together on this one big project...it’s just good for the soul. It’s good for comradery, community, all that good stuff.”
Before achieving a successful solo career, Young was one of the founders of the band Buffalo Springfield and performed with Crosby, Stills, and Nash.
He’s produced over 40 studio albums and has even earned the title “Godfather of Grunge” for his influence on the grunge music scene of the 1990s.
“We could do this show again with all new different material,” Lundy said. “Neil has just such a gigantic catalogue. He has a line in one of his songs that says ‘my life is an open book, you read it on the radio.’ I always thought that was fascinating. As you get into his songs and you see how he marries the lyrics with his music, you get some really interesting insight into the man himself. It’s been really interesting and fun to get a better insight into these pictures he’s been dreaming of.”
With such a large catalogue of music to choose from, Lundy added that the tribute show will be broken into an acoustic set and an electric set.
“The first part of the show will be an acoustic set,” he said. “Matt Eckstine will be flying the plane for that portion and it will be combinations of different musicians from different bands coming together to perform some of Neil’s songs. “In the electric portion, we’ll be playing the harder edged stuff. The New American Hologram is basically going to be the house band or ‘Crazy Horse’ in this situation. We’ll also have guests come and lead some other songs as well.”
In addition to performing with other local artists, Lundy says he’s also looking forward to the audience’s involvement, something that he feels Neil Young’s music is all about.
“Neil has just good down home, earthy music. He puts a song on peoples lips not just in their ears. Another reason I love this show so much is because it gets everyone together. That’s what his music is all about. I’m hoping the audience will join us in a chorus and try to lift the ceiling a little bit higher!
“Dreamer of Pictures - A Celebration of Neil Young” will take place at 7 p.m. on Wed., Nov 24 at Victory North. For more information or to purchase tickets visit eventbrite and search for the event.
