Hot August Night is a 1972

1972 in music

-Events:*January 17 – Highway 51 South in Memphis, Tennessee is renamed "Elvis Presley Boulevard"*January 20 – The début of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon at The Dome, Brighton, is halted by technical difficulties,...

 live double album by Neil Diamond

Neil Diamond

Neil Leslie Diamond is an American singer-songwriter with a career spanning over five decades from the 1960s until the present....

. ("Hot August night" is also the opening lyric to Diamond's 1969 single, "Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show

Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show (song)

"Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show" is a 1969 song written and recorded by Neil Diamond. It hit number 22 on the U.S. pop singles chart.-History:The song tells the story of Brother Love, an evangelist who travels from town to town preaching...

".) The album is a recording of a Diamond concert on Thursday August 24, 1972, one of ten sold out concerts that Diamond performed that month at The Greek Theatre

Greek Theatre (Los Angeles)

The Greek Theatre is a 5,700-seat amphitheater, located at Griffith Park, in Los Angeles, California. It was built in 1929, opening on September 29 of that year...

 in Los Angeles. Critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Stephen Thomas Erlewine is a senior editor for Allmusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for Allmusic, as well as a freelance writer, occasionally contributing liner notes. He is also frontman and guitarist for the Ann Arbor-based band Who Dat?Erlewine is the nephew...

 calls Hot August Night "the ultimate Neil Diamond record ... [which] shows Diamond the icon in full glory."

The album has become a great success for Diamond, and in Australia, it spent 29 weeks at number 1 on the album charts during 1973 & 1974, a feat only reachieved by Delta Goodrem

Delta Goodrem

Delta Lea Goodrem is an Australian singer-songwriter, pianist, and actress. Signed to Sony at the age of 15, Goodrem rose to prominence in 2002, starring in the Australian soap opera Neighbours as Nina Tucker. Goodrem has achieved eight number-one singles and three number-one albums in her home...

 with her Sony BMG-based album Innocent Eyes in 2003. This figure was surpassed in the 1980s by Dire Straits

Dire Straits

Dire Straits were a British rock band active from 1977 to 1995, composed of Mark Knopfler , his younger brother David Knopfler , John Illsley , and Pick Withers .Dire Straits' sound drew from a variety of musical influences, including jazz, folk, blues, and came closest...

 with their album Brothers in Arms

Brothers in Arms (Dire Straits album)

- Original LP track listing :- 2005 Re-Issue 2 LP track listing :The 2005 Limited Edition Deluxe 180 gram High Performance Vinyl reissue contained the full-length versions of all songs by spreading out the songs over two half speed mastered LPs....

spending 34 weeks at number one on the album charts.

It was the number one charting album in Australia for the 1970s, entering the Australian album charts in late 1972 and was still charting in the top 20 in 1976. It re-entered the Australian top 10 in 1982.

This album, and its predecessor album Moods, are generally acknowledged to be the two most important recording projects of Diamond's career in terms of defining his signature sound, and in the case of Hot August Night his live performance style, for the future.

Diamond later released two live "sequel" albums, Hot August Night II

Hot August Night 2

Hot August Night II is a live album by Neil Diamond. This is a follow up to Diamond's 1972 double album Hot August Night, which is also a live album.-Track listing:# Song Of The Whales # Headed For The Future# September Morn...

(1987) and Hot August Night/NYC

Hot August Night/NYC

Hot August Night/NYC is a DVD release from Neil Diamond released on August 14, 2009. The DVD features songs from Diamond's four shows at Madison Square Garden during his 2008 tour. An accompanying 2-CD album was released at the same time....

(2009).

Track listing

1972 Vinyl Edition
Side 1:

1. "Prologue"
2. "Crunchy Granola Suite"
3. "Done Too Soon"
4. "Dialogue"
5. "Solitary Man"
6. "Cherry, Cherry
   Cherry, Cherry
   "Cherry, Cherry" is a song written, composed, and recorded by Neil Diamond. The song was arranged by Artie Butler and produced by Jeff Barry & Ellie Greenwich. It was issued as a 45 single in 1966 and became Diamond's first big hit, reaching #6 on both the Billboard Hot 100 chart, in October 1966,...
   
   "
7. "Sweet Caroline
   Sweet Caroline
   "Sweet Caroline" is a pop song written and performed by Neil Diamond and officially released on September 16, 1969, as a single. It was later released on December 9, 1972 as a part of Diamond's Hot August Night album. There are three distinct mixes of this song...
   
   "

Side 2:

1. "Porcupine Pie"
2. "You're So Sweet"
3. "Red, Red Wine"
4. "Soggy Pretzels"
5. "And The Grass Won't Pay No Mind"
6. "Shilo
   Shilo (song)
   "Shilo" is a song written and recorded by Neil Diamond.It was originally recorded in 1967 for Bang Records, but Diamond and Bang founder Bert Berns disagreed over Diamond's career path...
   
   "
7. "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon
   Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon
   "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon" is a song written by Neil Diamond, whose recording of it on Bang Records reached #10 on the U.S. pop singles chart in 1967. The song garnered a second life span when it appeared on the 1994 Pulp Fiction soundtrack, performed by rock band Urge Overkill...
   
   "

Side 3:

1. "Play Me"
2. "Canta Libre"
3. "Morningside"
4. "Song Sung Blue
   Song Sung Blue
   "Song Sung Blue" is a 1972 song written and recorded by Neil Diamond. The song was released off his album, Moods and later appeared on many of Diamond's live and compilation albums....
   
   "
5. "Cracklin' Rosie
   Cracklin' Rosie
   "Cracklin' Rosie" is a 1970 song written and performed by Neil Diamond in 1970, from his album Tap Root Manuscript. This was Neil Diamond's first American #1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in October 1970, and his third to sell a million copies. It become Diamond's breakthrough single on the UK...
   
   "

Side 4:

1. "Holly Holy
   Holly Holy
   "Holly Holy" is a song written and recorded by Neil Diamond. Released as a single in October 1969, it was quite successful as the follow-on to "Sweet Caroline", reaching number 6 on the U.S. pop singles chart by December...
   
   "
2. "I Am... I Said"
3. "Soolaimon" / "Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show
   Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show (song)
   "Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show" is a 1969 song written and recorded by Neil Diamond. It hit number 22 on the U.S. pop singles chart.-History:The song tells the story of Brother Love, an evangelist who travels from town to town preaching...
   
   "

2000 Compact Disc Release
Disc 1:

1. "Prologue"
2. "Crunchy Granola Suite"
3. "Done Too Soon"
4. "Dialogue"
5. "Solitary Man"
6. "Cherry, Cherry"
7. "Sweet Caroline"
8. "Porcupine Pie"
9. "You're So Sweet"
10. "Red, Red Wine"
11. "Soggy Pretzels"
12. "And The Grass Won't Pay No Mind"
13. "Shilo"
14. "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon"

Bonus tracks (previously unreleased, included on 2000 CD reissue):

• "Walk On Water"
• "Kentucky Woman
  Kentucky Woman
  "Kentucky Woman" is a 1967 song written and originally recorded by Neil Diamond. Another well-known version is the 1968 recording by Deep Purple....
  
  "
• "Stones"

Disc 2:

1. "Play Me"
2. "Canta Libre"
3. "Morningside"
4. "Song Sung Blue"
5. "Cracklin' Rosie"
6. "Holly Holy"
7. "I Am... I Said"
8. "Soolaimon" / "Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show"

Personnel

• Neil Diamond - vocals and guitar
• Richard Bennett
  Richard Bennett (guitarist)
  Richard Bennett is a touring sideman, session veteran, and record producer. As a touring sideman, he performed with Neil Diamond for 17 years, and Mark Knopfler since 1994. As a session player, he has worked with artists ranging from Billy Joel and Barbra Streisand to Rodney Crowell and Vince Gill...
  
   - guitar
• Danny Nicholson - guitar
• Emory Gordy, Jr.
  Emory Gordy, Jr.
  Emory Gordy, Jr., born December 25, 1944, in Atlanta, Georgia, is an American musician and music producer. Since 1989, he has been married to country music artist Patty Loveless. Gordy was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 1992...
  
   - guitar and vibraphone
• Alan Lindgren - keyboards
• Reinie Press - bass
• Dennis St. John - drums
• Jefferson Kewley - percussion
• String section - Sidney Sharp, Philip Candreva, Paulo Alencar, Baldassare Ferlazzo, Robert Lipsett, Haim Shtrum, Ron Folsom, Henry Ferber, Hyman Goodman, William Henderson, John DeVoogdt, Wilbert Nuttycombe, Jay Rosen, Walter Wiemeyer, Shari Zippert, Ralph Schaeffer, Tibor Zelig, Walter Rower, Salvatore Crimi, Richard Kaufman, David Turner (violins), Linn Subotnick, Philip Goldberg, Sven Reher, Myron Sandler, Marilyn Baker, Samuel Boghossian (violas), Jesse Ehrlich, Jerome Kessler, Raymond Kelley, Nathan Gershman, Alice Ober, Giacinto Nardulli (violoncelli), Timothy Barr, Jess Bourgeois, Don Bagley (bass violins)

Orchestra conducted by Lee Holdridge

Lee Holdridge

Lee Holdridge is a Haitian-born American television composer and orchestrator.-Biography:He was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, of a Puerto-Rican mother and an American father, the botanist an climatologist Leslie Holdridge...

Chart positions

Year	Chart	Position
1973	Australian Kent Music Report Kent Music Report The Kent Music Report was a weekly record chart of Australian music singles and albums which was compiled by music enthusiast David Kent from May 1974 through to 1998... Albums Chart	1
1974