St Giles Cripplegate

by Jack Nitzsche (artist)

While Neil Young's classic `Expecting to Fly' arguably resulted from arranger Jack Nitzsche's classical experimentations on his `Chopin '66' album, Nitszche's album of his own classical compositions, 1972's `St. Giles Cripplegate', was undoubtedly the product of Nitzsche's work with Young on his smash `Harvest' album, as two of its tracks, `A Man Needs a Maid' and `There's a World', utilized the services of the London Symphony Orchestra. Nitzsche then turned around and used the LSO for his `St. Giles Cripplegate' album, which Nitzsche recorded in the St. Giles Cripplegate church ("for the natural echo delay of six seconds," said Nitzsche in a later interview) with over 100 musicians. Of course, Reprise had no idea how to market this modern classical album, and it died commercially. But for the purest distillation of the man's vision and boundary-breaking creative spirit, start here. Includes `#6'; `#4 (for Mori)'; `#2'; `#3'; `#1', and `#5'.

Audio CD

Published October 31, 2006