(Reprise)

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It's fascinating how to this day the myth persists that Neil Young's Harvest Moon, released in November of 1992, was a stripped-down acoustic record that represented a musical about-face for the songwriter. More than one reviewer has cast Harvest Moon as an artistic reversion to his folk roots that, coming on the heels of his 1991 all-guns-blazing Ragged Glory album with Crazy Horse (and accompanying tour that yielded the equally fiery Arc/Weld live set), directly refuted Young's so-called "godfather of grunge" status that those same reviewers had begun touting around the turn of the decade.

Nothing could be farther from the truth, of course. Harvest Moon, though distinctly lacking in feedback-laden skronk jams, was a lushly-produced affair as expansive in its own way as the Horse's cosmic rawk. Plus, if you look at Young's entire career trajectory, it clearly didn't represent a detour or backtracking, but rather yet another example of Young's restless muse finding expression; just to cite two proximate examples, a year prior to Ragged Glory brought the eclectic, all-over-the-map stylings of Freedom, while in 1994 he released the dark, brooding Sleeps With Angels.

Still, journalists over the years have continued putting forth inaccurate, at times inane, notions about Harvest Moon (one held that the record was a stylistic and aesthetic successor to 1972's Harvest, but a cursory listen to both will quickly dispel that idea, too, titular similarities notwithstanding). With the release of Dreamin' Man Live '92 the revisionism-on-repeat has already begun - check, for example, a recent Pitchfork review for DML92 that essentially parrots the above-cited common wisdom about Harvest Moon without bothering, apparently, to compare the actual music on the two albums.

Dreamin' Man helps put part of the myth to rest, however, due to its stripped-down, acoustic format. The latest installment in the ongoing, non-chronological Neil Young Archives Performance Series, the ten-song album offers live, unadorned versions of the same ten songs that appeared on HM, though not in the same sequence. By way of background: Beginning in early 1992 Young had embarked upon a solo tour of the U.S., showcasing tunes from the as-yet-unreleased album along with back catalog material, typically putting in two- and three-night residencies at a single, relatively intimate, venue - in the case of NYC's Beacon Theatre, he did a marathon six-night run. Later, in the summer and fall, he did selected solo shows in front of larger crowds, working an even more eclectic mix of material into the setlists. In December, with HM now in stores, Young also taped a performance for MTV's Unplugged series, but after listening to the recording he deemed it unsatisfactory and cancelled the broadcast; he subsequently re-staged the taping the following February, but this time he brought along a band that included some of the same musicians who'd appeared on HM.

For a good portion of Young's fanbase, the acoustic Harvest Moon tour remains the stuff of legend precisely because he was serving up a wealth of new, previously unheard songs alongside striking reinventions of familiar cuts. It's no coincidence that a number of the shows got bootlegged on CD, for not only was the era of digital bootlegs coming into its own around this time thanks to falling prices on recording gear and the rise of cheap duplication facilities, the venues themselves, chosen for the most part to enhance the solo format, offered superb acoustics for the enterprising DAT deck-wielding bootlegger. (Among the choice discs that surfaced: Live Under Harvest Moon, from one of the Beacon shows; Like a Musical Ride, recorded at Philly's Tower Theatre; and the two-CD Homefires, which chronicled most of two nights at Boston's Beacon Theatre, and an enduring favorite among Young collectors.)

DML92, then, presents somewhat belatedly (but now, officially) what you might have heard during the touring lead-up to Harvest Moon, minus the back catalog tunes. And the differences between these and the studio versions of HM songs are indeed striking. That's evident right from the get-go- with opening cut "Dreamin' Man": on the 1992 album, Young was accompanied by bass, drums, pedal steel and the warm backing vocal murmurs of the late Nicolette Larson and Young's sister Astrid Young, and the vibe was distinctly upbeat and countryish, whereas the live take is subtly but decisively slower, almost Brit-folkish, with the listener's attention drawn to Young's intricate fretboard flourishes. "Such A Woman," performed here on piano with a middle harmonica section, has a lonesome, ethereal quality, and although its studio counterpart shared some of that, the HM "Such A Woman" was fleshed out in the manner of a low key wall-of-sound production complete with echo effects, strings and girl-group-styled harmonies.

Some reviewers have suggested a redundancy between this live album's "Natural Beauty" and Harvest Moon's, which was also recorded live, at Portland's Civic Auditorium early in the tour. The difference in texture and vibe couldn't be greater, however; whereas the former is Young as his most solo intimate and confessional, the latter was subjected to studio overdubs - vibes, bass, additional guitar and Larson's lovely vocals - giving the entire 10-minute minute song a stately, almost antebellum vibe. Ironically, though, it's Dreamin' Man's final cut, "War of Man," that provides the aesthetic and stylistic link with Harvest Moon. For while both are totally different arrangement-wise (the studio version was a kind of sturdy folk-rocker with prominent bass and a luminous pedal steel figure), the tune's indelible melody and soaring chorus - not to mention Young's deft, demonstrative picking, which powers both arrangements - makes it one of the most recognizable, and lasting, compositions in the songwriter's entire catalog.

Call Harvest Moon and Dreamin' Man close siblings, then, separated by a temporal gulf of nearly two decades, but finally reunited and spiritual complements to each another - which is, one hopes, as siblings should be.

Standout Tracks: "War of Man," "Natural Beauty," "You and Me" FRED MILLS