Tear Down the Walls

Tear Down the Walls

Editorial Reviews
Product Description
Fred's debut 1964 release on Elektra with longtime partner Vince Martin! Collector's Choice Music.

Tracks:

Tear Down These Walls
Gun For Hire
Stand & Deliver
The Colour Of Love
Calypso Crazy
Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car
Soon As You're Ready
Pleasure
Because Of You
Here's To You

Customer Reviews:

Not one of his bests.......2007-03-02

I've only really heard three of Billy Ocean's albums, but this is probably not his best. Billy Ocean was one of my favorite singers back in the early '80's, so I may enjoy this album more than others. His popular ballad, "The Colour Of Love", is one of the better hits, but I think I like "Here's To You" better. "Here's To You" has better lyrics, more positive than "The Colour Of Love", and the rhythm sounded just a little more like a tender ballad. "Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car" was a song that was popular on the radio back then, but seems a little silly to listen to these days. As a whole, this album disappoints a bit, but isn't too bad. Perhaps with a couple more hits on this album, it would have been one worth keeping for the long run.

perfect album!!.......2006-10-09

Billy Ocean such as many other great artist , get so little recognition but these are the artist who actually paved the way for people r kelly and babyface , I suggest this album by far great when u in the mood with just that special person. I still listen to it till this day and play it like it was just new again!

This album is Awesome!.......2005-09-11

Wow, this album is off the chain. Probably the best 80's music I've ever heard. Billy Ocean is very underated, and this is definitely his best album. Every song is dynamite, and the production is fantastic. Buy the darn thing, its excellent feel good music and you won't be disappointed.

Great R&B!.......2005-02-24

Like 1984's SUDDENLY and 1986's LOVE ZONE,this album,released in February 1988,spawned four hits. They are the title track,the love ballads THE COLOR OF LOVE and HERE'S TO YOU,and the powerful-sounding GET OUTTA MY DREAMS GET INTO MY CAR. The other songs are good. I like STAND AND DELIVER also. I never saw the 1988 film starring Lou Diamond Phillips so I don't know if that song appeared in the film. The other songs are great. Billy Ocean put out a dozen hits in the five-year period in which this album and the two predecessors were released. After this album,Ocean would start slowing down recording. Two more hits followed this album,LICENSE TO CHILL and I SLEEP BETTER(IN SOMEONE ELSE'S BED) which appeared new on the GREATEST HITS album,released in 1989.

Excellent album to follow Love Zone!.......2004-11-07

This Billy Ocean album is still one of my favorites! For him to follow the very successful Love Zone album with this platinum album is an understatement. The big hits were Get Out of My Dreams, The Colour of Love, and Tear Down These Walls, but they're no contest to my favorites here. They are the grooving Gun For Hire and the rumbling Pleasure. Some other songs I like are Soon as You're Ready, Calypso Girl, and Because of You. But Gun is still strong today with that superb horn section, the danceable rhythms and other aspects. I played that song over and over on the tape in 1988! One of 1988's best albums to be released in at a time when 1987 songs and albums were number one hits in May, June and the summer of '88.

Tear Down the Walls/Bleecker & MacDougal

Average customer rating:

Stick with "Bleecker & MacDougal" alone
wonderfully resonant Voice of a forgotten singer
Superb early work
Fred Neil's Early Classics & Annoying Voice of Vince Martin

Tear Down the Walls/Bleecker & MacDougal
Fred Neil
Manufacturer: Wea International
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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The Many Sides of Fred Neil
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It's So Hard To Tell Who's Going To Love You The Best

ASIN: B00005OKOR
Release Date: 2001-10-29

Tracks:

I Know You Rider - Vince Martin, Fred Neil
Red Flowers - Vince Martin, Fred Neil
Tear Down the Walls - Vince Martin, Fred Neil
Weary Blues - Vince Martin, Fred Neil
Toy Balloon - Vince Martin, Fred Neil
Baby - Vince Martin, Fred Neil
Morning Dew - Vince Martin, Fred Neil
I'm a Drifter - Vince Martin, Fred Neil
Linin' Track - Vince Martin, Fred Neil
Wild Child in a World of Trouble - Vince Martin, Fred Neil
Dade County Jail - Vince Martin, Fred Neil
I Got 'Em - Vince Martin, Fred Neil
Lonesome Valley - Vince Martin, Fred Neil
Bleecker & MacDougal - Fred Neil
Blues on the Ceiling - Fred Neil
Sweet Mama - Fred Neil
Little Bit of Rain - Fred Neil
Country Boy - Fred Neil
Other Side of This Life - Fred Neil
Mississippi Train - Fred Neil
Travelin' Shoes - Fred Neil
Water Is Wide - Fred Neil
Yonder Comes the Blues - Fred Neil
Candy Man - Fred Neil
Handful of Gimme - Fred Neil
Gone Again - Fred Neil

Album Description

UK two-on-one reissue combines the late folk singer/songwriter's first two albums for Elektra, 'Tear Down The Walls' (1965) & 'Bleeker & MacDougal' (1964), both of which are out-of-print in domestically. 2001.

Album Details

Digitally Remastered Edtion of Two Original Albums Assembled on a Single CD from One of the Most Conscientious Songwriters of the Folk Movement. It was Interpretations by Harry Nilsson that Would Bring Him the Greatest Attention Outside Folkie Circles.

Customer Reviews:

Stick with "Bleecker & MacDougal" alone.......2007-02-07

Fred Neil was definitely one of the more unique figures in the Greenwich Village folk scene. In an era when the worlds of folk and rock were anathema to each other, he turned up with his twelve-string guitar after having committed the heresy of writing a hit rock song (Roy Orbison's "Candy Man," of which Neil's own version is included here), and became as much a mainstay of the scene as anyone.

The second half of this collection shows why. It features some great guitar and harmonica licks alongside Neil's stirring baritone, even working in the occasional electric guitar when folk rock hadn't quite hit the mainstream. Neil's biggest contribution to that genre, "Everybody's Talkin'," was several years away, but already his contribution to the folk revival was just as important as that evocative cover photo showing him on the title corner suggests. It's a four-star album, at least.

The problem with this collection is its first half. Vince Martin's vocals never get any less irritating throughout the album, and then there are the songs themselves. For the most part, the originals sound like the sort of stereotypical folksinging that was parodied so effectively in the movie "A Mighty Wind." The catch is, those songs were supposed to be so bad they were good, while these are meant sincerely. There is a fine line between the sincere and the silly, and an even finer line between poignant and depressing, and most of these songs are quite a way beyond both of those lines. Neil was fresh from his Brill Building stint at the time, and it shows. He still had a lot to learn about his new style, and most of his lyrics here sound like the insincere musings of someone who is trying much too hard to be the New Dylan. The one exception is the title track - "Tear Down the Walls" - but it's been done better elsewhere (notably Judy Collins' live version from a year or so after this one).

Bleecker & MacDougal is now avaiable on its own on CD. Buy that copy, and leave Tear Down the Walls in the obscurity it deserves.

wonderfully resonant Voice of a forgotten singer.......2006-11-21

Fred Neil was the King of the East Village coffee shop, pass-the-hat folksingers in the very early sixties and this 2cd set shows why. Much of his origins and late life are shrouded in rumour and mystery.

Sinatra, Johnny Cash, even Jim Morrison had great baritone voices, but Fred Neil's Sound was really something else. Neil had the most spectacularly deep resonant baritone voice, a voice that would sound wonderful reading the phone book! Everyone idolized him, everyone imitated him, everyone covered his songs: Roy Orbison, The Jefferson Airplane, the Youngbloods, Harry Nilsson, Tim Buckley, Tim Hardin, Judy Henske, John Sebastian, Gram Parsons, Linda Ronstadt, Tom Rush, Roger McGuinn. An unknown, awestruck, social climbing Bob Dylan used to play backup harmonica for Fred Neil and his ringing 12 string in the Village years before these albums. (Dylan mentions this in bio pic "No Direction Home") Fred was one of the main influences on David Crosby, Steven Stills (Crosby, Stills and Nash were going to call themselves "Sons of Neil" before Neil talked them out of it!).
Neil was a Brill Building song writer, like Carol King, for years before venturing out on his own.

The albums burst with early sixtes (there were TWO sixties!) folkie seriousness and energy. There is much more energy and precision here than "The Many Side of Fred Neil" which is also worth having.
The first album with Vince Martin is very closely sung duets of incredible precision, Martin singing tenor, with amazing parasing so they often sound like one singer (until Neil hits a deep, rich low note). Standouts are "I Know you Rider" "Tear down the Walls" "Linin Track".

A line from "Toy Balloon" so impressed Jefferson Airplane's Paul Kantner & Grace Slick that it found it's way into "The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil", in fact "PoohNeil" is a combination of Winnie the Pooh and the gentle Fred Neil. See also "House at Pooneil Corner".

Yes, "Red Flowers" and "Tear Down the Walls" are a protest songs that aren't sure what they are protesting about, and "Dade County Jail" is embarassingly silly but just listen to the Voice and ignore the lyrics there. (That was the early sixites - optimism and often silly protest.) But the others song are masterpieces.

The second album, Bleeker & MacDougal, gets even better, more bluesy. It is a Neil solo with includes his second most famous song "Other Side of This Life" which was covered by Jefferson Airplane and nearly everyone else. (His most famous is "Everybody's Takin at Me", a hit for Harry Nilsson, and the story on Neil's life. Not included here). "Blues on the Ceiling" has a deep world weary quality to it. "A little bit of Rain" is deeply melancholy. "Sweet Mama" is upbeat with ringing 12 string overtones. When he sings the word "home" on "Bleeker & MacDougal" his voice sets up bass standing waves all over the room! The famous line about dating golddigging women with a "Handful of Gimmie (and a mouthful of much obliged)" found it's way into Tom Rush's "Drop-Down Mama" from the same era. (I don't know if it was Fred Neil's first or not). "Yonder Come the Blues" (dressed in high-heeled shoes)! Not a bad cut on the bluesy second album.

Fred hated the music industry and its commercialism. He dropped out and didn't record for the last 30 years of his life or so, living frugally of the proceeds from "Everybody's Talking at Me", despite offers from Rock Giants to record duets again. Now his incredible talent is forgotten by nearly all but "a small band of admirers (many of them stars in their own right)".

The shy reclusive Fred Neil was the singer's singer. Just listen and let The Voice wash over you. Like deep rich chocolate. he represents the skill and purity of folk, with occational bluesy jazzy tone.

This album is the best example extant of his talent. (Lost somewhere is rumoured a tape of a young Bob Dylan and Fred Neil jamming).

Excellent sound on this import.

Superb early work.......2005-05-06

For anyone who has encountered the work of Fred Neil, nothing more need be said: here's one of our finest singers & songwriters, stretching his creative wings & preparing for full flight. There's truly a timeless quality to his work, a dark richness & depth which speaks to any generation. His own reluctance to take the limelight led to popular neglect of his impressive work & legacy, which continues to this day. But he's definitely not be be overlooked!

I would like to say a few words about the underrated Vince Martin. Today's more cynical view might find the sweetness of his voice & outlook a bit cloying & insincere; but I think the lack is in the contemporary listener. That's easy to understand: how can anyone who wasn't alive in those days really believe that grown men could be so earnest, without a trace of post-modern irony & glibness? But it's important not to forget that sort of open-hearted optimism, especially in these dreary times. In any case, Martin's voice provides a fine counterpoint to Neil's deeper, world-weary tones; and Martin is no slouch as a songwriter himself.

As for the second half of the CD, it's Fred Neil's show all the way, and it's a rich, soulful ride in the company of a quiet master. Follow it up with the 2-disc collection "The Many Sides of Fred Neil," and you'll understand why he was such an influence on an entire generation of singer-songwriters. Excellent, detailed liner notes & vintage photographs add much to the picture of this reclusive creator. Most highly recommended!

Fred Neil's Early Classics & Annoying Voice of Vince Martin.......2004-11-03

This is a beautifully packaged CD. It comes in a nice slip case, and is beautifully mastered. I owned the original vinyl albums and feel that the original recordings have been well served here. Not only are there new liner notes, but the original liner notes of both albums are included as well. Vince Martin's voice is an acquired taste, but Fred's songwriting in his first album "Tear Down the Walls" is still excellent. I particularly enjoyed Fred's compositions "I'm a Drifter", "Weary Blues", "Wild Child in a World of Trouble", "Dade County Jail", and the traditional "Morning Dew". The remaining tracks are from one of the truly great folk albums "Bleecker & MacDougal". There is a uniformity of quality on this album, but highlights include "Blues on the Ceiling", "Little Bit of Rain", "Other Side to This Life", "The Water is Wide", "Yonder Comes the Blues", "Candy Man", and "Handful of Gimmie". Fred is at his best when he plays his blues, his twelve string guitar weaving a tapestry of tonal textures, and his "whiskey and cigarettes" bass voice delivering the lyrics of his thoughtful compositions. Fred Neil was unappreciated in his time by the general public, but he had plenty of admirers like Bob Dylan. If you take the time to listen to his compositions, you will find a reclusive man sharing his innermost emotions & thoughts through his music.

Average customer rating:

I'm Satisfied
hootenanny annie
We won't see their like again!
Comment to Stephen Ryder
Remembering Freddie

Tear Down the Walls
Martin & Neil
Manufacturer: Collector's Choice
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Folk | Styles | Music

Traditional Folk | Folk | Styles | Music

Revival | Folk | Styles | Music

Singer-Songwriters | Pop | Styles | Music

Folk Rock | Rock | Styles | Music

General | Rock | Styles | Music

General | Folk | Indie Music | Stores | Music

Traditional Folk | Folk | Indie Music | Stores | Music
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Bleecker & MacDougal
The Sky Is Falling: The Complete Live Recordings 1965-1971
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Tear Down the Walls/Bleecker & MacDougal

ASIN: B000060P9I
Release Date: 2002-03-12

Tracks:

I Know You Rider
Red Flowers
Tear Down The Walls
Weary Blues
Toy Balloon
Baby
Morning Dew
I'm A Drifter
Linin' Track
Wild Child In A World Of Trouble
Dade County
I Got 'Em
Lonesome Valley

Album Description

Fred's debut 1964 release on Elektra with longtime partner Vince Martin! Collector's Choice Music.

Customer Reviews:

I'm Satisfied.......2006-08-16

You Have to give credit, these days to anyone who does what they promise. My order arrived at the price and well within the timeframe promised.

hootenanny annie.......2006-05-14

I am one of the lucky few who was a teenager when folk music first became popular. My dad would take my sister and I to the Flick in Miami and we would drink mocha w/ whipped cream and listen to Fred Neil, Vince Martin, Lynn Gold and other singers.
I've never heard a voice quite as deep and resonant and amazing as Fred's and Vince had this energy on stage that mezmerized the audience. This album takes me back to those times, it's SO good !

We won't see their like again!.......2005-11-17

I remember Fred and Vince at the Flick in Miami during the 60's. Each was amazing and talented in his own right, but together they created magic. This album captures at least some of the electricity that the blending of their two voices created when you heard them live.
One night Vince was playing at the Flick alone because Fred had done one of his occasional disappearing acts. All of a sudden, as Vince began a song up on stage, Fred's voice filled the small club and meshed with Vince's, causing all of us who knew and appreciated them to catch our breath and hold onto the moment. A little of that is on this disc. Not as much as I would like, but enough to remember the time and the two talents that make this album so special.

Comment to Stephen Ryder.......2005-01-21

Harry Nilsson was the artist who did the version of Everybody's talkin'. Definitely not a vastly inferior voice, Fred Neil wrote it, but Nilsson made it a hit. This mistake on your part was probably due to ignorance on the magnificent discography of Harry Nilsson. Nilsson was a huge influence on Lennon and McCartney.There is no comparison between the two artists, they are both great in there own way.

Remembering Freddie.......2003-09-04

Fred Neil is best (un)known for penning the theme from the award-winning film "MIDNIGHT COWBOY" (Dustin Hoffman/Jon Voigt). That tune "Everybody's Talking" was sung by someone else with a vastly inferior voice. It nonetheless broke out to a hit single and became a standard. Fred recieved no public recognition, as is the American tradition for writers of all stripes, but he got the royalties - and they were significant. His rendition of the famous tune is far better than the popular one.

I knew Freddie personally back in 1960, and watched his struggle to morph from his country roots to blues, to folk - to Fred Neil. My whole family attended his performances at the Cafe Wha? and the Bitter End in NYC's Greenwich Village. It was there that this album was recorded. It was Fred's 15 minutes. He deserved more, as the most casual aural perusal of this unique music will amply demonstrate.

"I've got a secret" is magical and nuanced as only Freddie could do it, and "That's the Bag I'm In" harkens back to the earliest folk/blues syntax and harmonies that spoke to the emergence of that unique fusion of lost cultures that typified the sixties.
Your musical education cannot be complete without an acquaintence with the one and only Fred Neil. This album is just one of his first, not his best work. Get the others as well. Thanks for the memory, Freddie.

Tear Down the Walls
Average customer rating:
Tear Down the Walls
Rick Recht
Manufacturer: ADL
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD
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ASIN: B000K2KN3M

Product Description

Track List: 1. Let It Be Me 2. imagine 3. Elu D'Varim 4. Elim Laslialom 5.

Average customer rating:

Tear Down the Walls

Manufacturer: London
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD
ASIN: B000ENFRBA

Product Description

Tracks: 1. Tear Down the Walls (edit) 3:41; 2. Tear Down the Walls (LP Version) 4:26.

Average customer rating:

Walk Me Out In The Morning Dew
Great fresh-sounding folk album
Tear Down The Walls

Tear Down The Walls
Martin , and Neil
Manufacturer: Elekt
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Traditional Folk | Folk | Styles | Music

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ASIN: B00000JA4K
Release Date: 1998-11-26

Album Description

Japanese-only reissue of their 1965 album. 13 tracks of well-balanced mixture of folk, R&B and rock. Features contributions from Felix Paparaldi and John Sebastian. Also includes the original cover art. 1998 Elektra Records release.

Album Details

JAPANESE EXCLUSIVE RELEASE

Customer Reviews:

Walk Me Out In The Morning Dew.......2001-12-11

This one comes right out the hootenany days of the early 60's Folk Revival. A time when being in a folk band meant you had a couple of banjos, a crew cut, and matching sweaters. The kind of songs in your repitoire were the grit Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly wrestled with decades earlier. Only they were sweetly harmonized now, with all the style and finesse of a barber shop quartet. That is, til Dylan went and got his fingers dirty.

But before Bob, you had The Kingston Trio--- The Chad Mitchell Trio--- Peter, Paul & Mary --- and a thousand other acts getting on the ark 3 by 3. On the surface, the duo of Fred Neil & Vince Martin were just another hackneyed folk outfit. But as the decade wore on, Neil proved he had something that set him apart from the rest. That being said, if you're curious about TEAR DOWN THE WALLS, chances are I don't have to tell you that.

Suffice it to say, 6 of the 13 tracks are Neil originals. Many of which are consistant with the stuff he laid down on the now classic, BLEECKER & MACDOUGAL. Fans won't be disappointed with offerings like "Baby" & "Wild Child In A World Of Trouble". Though more restrained, both have that loose, raga guitar style that became a signature of Neil's later work. "Linin'Track" & "Dade County Jail" may be more conventional but both songs give you insight into Neil's development.

"Red Flowers" is an exception. Trust me when I say it's god awful. A victim of the era in which it was written. Though he wrote a nice, mournful melody, the lyrics are so bad it's painful.

Another song that might make you wince, is an original from partner, Vince Martin called, "Toy Balloon". It's just as bad as "Red Flowers", if not worse. Thank God it only clocks in at 1:47 minutes. Martin's sweet-boy voice doesn't help matters either.

Both redeem themselves however, with a refreshing bit of harmonizing on the title track, "Tear Down The Walls"(another Neil original). After hearing it once, it's hard to get it out of your head. The kind of tune you can't help humming to yourself while waiting in line at the local DMV.

In spite of those 2 duds, Martin & Neil shine on traditional numbers like "I Know You Rider", "Morning Dew" and especially the closing track, "Lonesome Valley". SATAN IS REAL-era Louvin Brothers comes to mind.

All in all, if you're a Fred Neil fan this record is a must. An indespensible footnote in all-too-brief career. Even if it's datedness turns you off at first (like it did me), I'll bet you'll eventually warm up to it's charms. I find myself taking it down off the shelf far more often than I thought I would.

Great fresh-sounding folk album.......2000-07-19

This album often rates as a bit of a footnote in features on Fred Neil, showing some of the influences that really blossomed on his first Capitol album. However, I think that this view underestmates tha pleasures to be got from listening to this record. It's less intense and world weary than later records but it also sounds a lot fresher, which can be welcome in certain moods. Tear Down the Walls mixes some (now) folk standards such as Morning Dew and I Know You Rider with a number of, mainly Fred Neil, originals. One or two of these originals (Wild Child) hint at future developments and have a raga influence but all are listenable. Fred Neil and Vince Martin's guitar and vocal harmonies are ably supported by John Sebastian's harmonica and Felix Pappalardi's guitarron (like a bass). The popularity of some US folk music of the early 1960s is a bit of a mystery to us British listeners but this retains a fresh edge and a sense of why it might once have been groundbreaking.

Tear Down The Walls.......1999-12-04

I used to see Fred Neil and Vince Martin perform in Florida in the sixties. They were an outstanding Duo. This album is one of the best of that era. It is a must for all who love the music of that time. Vince Martin's albums are all out of issue but should be reissued for all folk afficionados of that time.