Hot August Night
| Hot August Night | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Live album by Neil Diamond | ||||
| Released | December 9, 1972 | |||
| Recorded | August 24, 1972 | |||
| Venue | Greek Theatre, Los Angeles, California | |||
| Genre | Rock | |||
| Length | 93:05 | |||
| Label | MCA | |||
| Producer | Tom Catalano | |||
| Neil Diamond chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Singles from Hot August Night | ||||
|
||||
Hot August Night is a 1972 live double album by Neil Diamond[1] ("Hot August night" is also the opening lyric to Diamond's 1969 single "Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show"). The album is a recording of a Diamond concert on August 24, 1972, one of ten sold-out concerts that Diamond performed that month at The Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. This also marks the first album released by the newly formed MCA Records (a merging of the Uni, Kapp, and Decca labels).[2]
This album, and its predecessor album Moods, are generally acknowledged to be the two most important recording projects of Diamond's career in terms of defining his signature sound, and in the case of Hot August Night his live performance style, for the future.
Diamond later released two live "sequel" albums, Hot August Night II (1987) and Hot August Night/NYC (2009).
Australian reception
The album has become a great success for Diamond, and in Australia, it spent 29 weeks at number 1 on the album charts during 1973 and 1974. In 2003, Delta Goodrem with her Sony BMG-based album Innocent Eyes, also achieved number 1 on the Australian album chart for 29 weeks, thereby tying her with Neil Diamond.
It was the number one charting album in Australia for the 1970s, entering the Australian album charts in late 1972 and was still charting in the top 20 in 1976. It re-entered the Australian top 10 in 1982.
Critical reception
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   [3] |
| Robert Christgau | D+[4] |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide |  [5] |
In a contemporary review for Rolling Stone, music critic Lester Bangs called Hot August Night a "fine presentation of the entire spectrum" of Diamond's work and praised its music as "great, pretentious, goofy pop" with a melodramatic, "hymn-like feeling".[6] In his review for Creem, Robert Christgau panned the album as a failed attempt at "bad art", and found Diamond's humor "sententious" and his country-western songs tasteless.[4]
In a retrospective review, Allmusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine called Hot August Night "the ultimate Neil Diamond record ... [which] shows Diamond the icon in full glory."[3] Rob Sheffield, writing in The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), dubbed the album "the triumph of Neilness" and said that its music is slightly more "lax" than his studio recordings, but "festive".[5]
Track listing
All songs written by Neil Diamond, except "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" (Randy Newman)
1972 vinyl edition
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
2000 compact disc release
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
2012 40th Anniversary Deluxe Edition Compact Disc Release
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Personnel
- Neil Diamond — vocals and guitar
- Richard Bennett — guitar
- Danny Nicholson — guitar
- Emory Gordy, Jr. — guitar and vibraphone
- Alan Lindgren — keyboards
- Reinie Press — bass
- Dennis St. John — drums
- Jefferson Kewley — percussion
- String section — Sidney Sharp, Philip Candreva, Paulo Alencar, Baldassare Ferlazzo, Robert Lipsett, Haim Shtrum, Ron Folsom, Henry Ferber, Hyman Goodman, William Henderson, John DeVoogdt, Wilbert Nuttycombe, Jay Rosen, Walter Wiemeyer, Shari Zippert, Ralph Schaeffer, Tibor Zelig, Walter Rower, Salvatore Crimi, Richard Kaufman, David Turner (violins), Linn Subotnick, Philip Goldberg, Sven Reher, Myron Sandler, Marilyn Baker, Samuel Boghossian (violas), Jesse Ehrlich, Jerome Kessler, Raymond Kelley, Nathan Gershman, Alice Ober, Giacinto Nardulli (violoncelli), Timothy Barr, Jess Bourgeois, Don Bagley (bass violins)
Orchestra conducted by Lee Holdridge
Chart positions
| Year | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1972 | USA Billboard Album Top 200 | 5 |
| 1972 | UK Album Chart | 21 |
| 1973 | Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart | 1 |
| 1975 | Dutch LP Top 50 | 14 |
References
- ↑ Diamond, Neil (December 9, 1972). Hot August Night (album). MCA records. MCA 2-8000.
- ↑ "MCA Records Announcement". Billboard Magazine. Billboard: 16–17. November 25, 1972. Retrieved August 21, 2015.
- 1 2 Thomas, Stephen. "Hot August Night - Neil Diamond". AllMusic. Retrieved 2012-01-11.
- 1 2 Christgau, Robert (March 1973). "The Christgau Consumer Guide". Creem. Retrieved April 21, 2013.
- 1 2 Sheffield, Rob; et al. (November 2, 2004). Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian, eds. The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). Simon & Schuster. pp. 233–4. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
- ↑ Bangs, Lester (March 15, 1973). "Neil Diamond: Hot August Night". Rolling Stone. New York. Archived from the original on March 29, 2009. Retrieved April 21, 2013.
External links
- Hot August Night at Discogs (list of releases)
- "The Night Neil Diamond Whanged His Clanger" by Steven Hyden
| Preceded by Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player by Elton John |
Australian Kent Music Report number-one album May 21 - June 3, 1973 June 25 - July 8, 1973 July 30 - November 25, 1973 December 24, 1973 - January 27, 1974 February 25 - March 17, 1974 |
Succeeded by Houses of the Holy by Led Zeppelin |
