Silver & Gold

By David E. Thigpen

Anyone who recalls classic Young songs like Ohio knows that the singer-songwriter does his best work when hypocrites and blowhards come into his sights. He's beautiful when he's teed off. Judging from Silver & Gold, Young is a contented man now. He fills this CD with quiet, almost austere acoustic-guitar picking and with gently upbeat meditations on his home, his family, where he's been and where he's at. In Buffalo Springfield Again, Young even gets misty about the past. The result is an album of lovely music, for sure, but one that's blanketed in a strange calm that leaves you itching for the ornery storyteller of old.

--By David E. Thigpen