A Letter Home (Deluxe Version)

Editors’ Notes One of the weirder albums from an artist who’s been known to throw some real curveballs, A Letter Home is Neil Young singing a collection of covers into Jack White’s refurbished 1947 Voice-O-Graph recording booth at Third Man Records’ Nashville headquarters. The deluxe edition includes video of the recordings from multiple camera angles. Fidelity is obviously low, though the acetates made from the process were quickly copied to a less deteriorating format. Jack White joins Young for The Everly Brothers’ “I Wonder If I Care as Much” and Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again,” but it’s primarily the Neil Young show, either with piano for Tim Hardin’s “Reason to Believe” and Gordon Lightfoot’s “Early Morning Rain” or acoustic guitar on Bob Dylan’s "Girl from the North Country,” Phil Ochs’ “Changes," and Bert Jansch’s “Needle of Death.” The results aren’t for everyone, but the hardcore Neil Young fans will likely find a majority of the performances quite touching. The “A Letter Home Intro” is Young talking to his late mother.