You can buy 'Here We Are In The Years - The Alan's Album Archives Guide To The Music Of Neil Young' in e-book form by clicking here
"Decade"
(Warner Brothers, October 1977)
Down To The Wire* (Buffalo
Springfield)/Burned (Buffalo Springfield)/Mr Soul (Buffalo Springfield)/Broken
Arrow (Buffalo Springfield)/Expecting To Fly (Buffalo Springfield)/Sugar
Mountain//I Am A Child (Buffalo Springfield)/The Loner/The Old Laughing
Lady/Cinnamon Girl/Down By The River//Cowgirl In The Sand/I Believe In
You/After The Gold Rush/Southern Man/Helpless (CSNY)//Ohio (CSNY)/Soldier/Old
Man/A Man Needs A Maid/Harvest/Heart Of Gold/A Star Of Bethlehem//The Needle
and the Damage Done/Tonight's The Night (Part One)/Tired Eyes/Walk On/For The
Turnstiles/Winterlong*/Deep Forbidden Lake*//Like A Hurricane (Alternate
Vocal)/Love Is A Rose*/Cortez The Killer/Campaigner*/Long May You Run (CSNY)
(Unreleased Mix)
* = Previously Unreleased Recording
"There
you stood on the edge of your feather, expecting to fly..."
Every artist had best-ofs released in the
1970s, big or small or indifferent, as back in the day vinyl tended to wear out
(especially on 45 rpm singles) and there were so many albums around they all
went off-catalogue relatively quickly. Neil was never going to do things the
normal way and when he learnt Reprise wanted to release a collection of his own
works he got involved, setting the track listing, throwing in some unreleased
songs from his own tape vaults (this is when we began to hear the famous words
'one day there'll be a box set named 'Archives'...', something which won't
happen until 2009) and writing his own esoteric sleevenotes. Somehow, it works.
Despite the fact that, even before the genre-hopping Geffen days, no two Neil
Young albums sounded anything alike and the fact that this set also contains
works by Buffalo Springfield and CSNY who sound nothing like Neil as a solo
act, this triple album set is full of cohesion and much stronger than the sum
of its parts, the way all good best-ofs should be. Neil isn't one of those
artists who wants everyone to forget everything but the hits with Neil spending
as much time in the 'ditch' as he did in the 'middle of the road' with nearly
as many tracks from the 'Doom Trilogy' as mega-hits 'After The Goldrush' and
'Harvest' (though sadly there's nothing from 'Time Fades Away' here, not even
career highlight 'Don't Be Denied'). Neil gives precious space over to no less
than four lengthy guitar-based ten minute epics ('Down By The Roiver' 'Cowgirl
In The Sand' 'Cortez The Killer' and 'Like A Hurricane' which between them last
as long as your average 1970s compilation would anyway) plus lots of rarities
such as B-side 'Sugar Mountain' and a full five unreleased songs, all of them
up to the high standard of the rest of the set.
The set even starts with one (what other
best-of has ever done that?) with the Springfield outtake 'Down To The Wire'
the perfect place to start - energetic and catchy but also quirky and unusual;
then towards the end we get a couple from 1974's 'Homegrown' with both
'Winterlong' and 'Deep Forbidden Lake' the perfect transition from the gloomy
'Doom Trilogy' years to the happier good time rock of 'Zuma' while 'Love Is A
Rose' is a sweet song intended for 1977's 'Chrome Dreams' that's simple but
sweet and 'Campaigner', a brand new song at the time, was Neil having second
thoughts about damning Nixon to Hell on 'Ohio'. If ever a record covered Neil's
extremes of thoughts successfully it's this one, taking in everything from
heavy rock to folky Dylanesque ballads to sweet solo songs to the wake of
'Tonight's The Night'. There's a little bit of everything here, which makes
'decade' one of the most rounded and eclectic best-ofs out there, always
delivering something different which each turn of the vinyl.
That said, this set isn't perfect. The running
order is close to being chronological but isn't strictly so that for instance
1974's gloomy 'Star Of Bethlehem' takes place straight after the joyful abandon
of 'Heart Of Gold' (where the two don't really fit) and we end unconvincingly
on probably the set's weakest choice 'Long May You Run' (in an abandoned mix
with full CSNY harmonies despite rumours Stills had slahed the master-tapes
with a razor blade so they couldn't be released following a big fallout between
the quartet!) though really we should be closing on either the gloom of
'Campaigner' or the delight of 'Hurricane' (depending on whether you're going
by recording dates or release dates). There are several key songs missing too:
as well as 'Don't Be Denied' it's a real shame that 'Ambulance Blues' 'World On
A String' 'Dangerbird' and 'Will To Love' aren't here to name just five truly
essential Young songs of the period, or 'Country Girl' so that Neil's CSNY
works up to 1977 could have been collected together in one handy place. The
packaging too is dreadful for such an important release - terribly ugly unlike
the music which is mainly beautiful - and that isn't even Neil pictured on the
front cover, hiding Jesus-like behind a guitar covered in travel stamps (at
least they could have given the desert setting a Crazy Horse in the
background?!)
Neil's sleevenotes however rescue even that. In
handwriting as messy as most of the songs (and even messier than mine), Neil
tells us little titbits about each of the songs - not enough to explain them,
but enough to pique our interest. Many of these remain his most quotable
sayings to this day (on 'Heart of Gold': 'This song put me in the middle of the
road. Travelling there became a bore so I headed for the ditch', on 'Ohio':
'Perhaps the greatest lesson ever learned at an American place of learning')
while others are better still (on his first vocal on 'Burned' : 'I was staying
in a $12.50 a month apartment at the time and everybody on the floor liked it too!'
or Cinnamon Girl: 'I wrote this for a city girl on Peeling Pavement coming at
me through Phil Ochs eyes playing finger cymbals - it was hard to explain to my
wife!' or 'I remember Crazy Horse the way Roy Orbison remembers Leah and Blue
Bayou!' - Roy's songs were both about happier memories of bandmates left
behind, tellingly, with Neil still in mourning for Danny Whitten across much of
the set five years on). Young also remembers to whet our appetite with
unreleased material, telling us 'Bethlehem' should have been on 'Homegrown'
('sort of a sequel to Harvest') and 'Hurricane' on 'Chrome Dreams'. For Neil,
then, 'Decade' was a holding operation until Neil got around to releasing the
near-complete and comprehensive box set he really wanted to make - for everyone
else it was a reminder of just how many roads Neil had taken already in his
career and how brave he was to have taken most of them at all. A fine
compilation, for it's vintage rarely matched and never bettered and still the
best place for any fan to start their collection (notably the single disc
'Greatest Hits' set only adds three songs despite all the years that have gone
by since 1977).
Crazy
Horse "Crazy Moon"
(One Way, November 1978)
She's Hot/Going Down Again/Lost and
Lonely Feelin'/Dancin' Lady/End Of The Line/New Orleans//Love Don't Come
Easy/Downhill/Too Late Now/That Day/Thunder and Lightning
"Too
deep to quit, gotta keep looking and searching for a way to be free
again!"
Not
a 'Harvest' Moon exactly, but for the Horse out in the fields of opportunity
it's ploughing time again. The only thing the Horse were missing to make a full
career out of their sideline trips was the boost of a guest appearance of Neil
Young and a new lead guitarist who could help the band with new material, which
they got in spades once Frank Sampedro joined in 1975. Some of this album dates
back to the sessions the Horse were working on when Neil joined them and they
made 'Zuma' instead, while some others are from late 1975 when the band went
back to work on this record and some date from sessions in 1978 when The Horse
were taking a break between 'Stars n Bars' and 'Rust Never Sleeps'. By far the
most Young-like of all the Horse albums, this set is still nowhere near up to
the level of the Danny Whitten era (Frank, Ralph and Billy aren't songwriting
giants by any stretch of the imagination and aren't exactly born lead singers
either, taking it in turns here) but it's an atmospheric set that makes up in
energy and instrumentation what it lacks in material. Ralph is the surprise
star of the set, having never sung a note except on occasional harmonies or
written a song bar a co-write on the first record in 1968 prior to this album
but he has a real feel for moody expressive ballads based on tricky rhythm
structures. Billy and Frank write songs more in keeping with what you'd expect
- dumb songs about dumb women more often than not drinking some dumb drink, but
then nobody expected art from Crazy Horse and Ralph's songs are just arty
enough to make this more than the dumb record it could have been. The set
really comes alive when Neil turns up, playing blistering leads on five of the
album's better songs and you can hear the Horse gain confidence on all of them.
Kind of the missing link between the joy of 'Zuma' and the belief of 'Rust'
this set is recommended to Horse fans as long as you don't expect miracles or
an album on a par with their 1971 debut. Even so, this is arguably the group's
second best LP and desperately in need of a CD re-issue sometime soon (there
was one in Australia in 1997 that made it a twin pack with 'The Rockets' and
threw a couple of songs from 'Crooked Lake' in there too!)
Neil's
guitar rings like a bell on Sampedro rocker 'She's Hot', a song that doesn't have any bigger
ambition than fancying a girl but somehow sounds cool anyway thanks to a
variation on the band's favourite 'Drive Back' rhythm and riff and some
impressively tight harmonies. If The Rolling Stones had done it (and they did release
a song of the same name) people would be falling on themselves to say how good
it sounded.
Ralph
shines on 'Going Down Again',
a slow torturous ballad about falling on bad times and picking yourselves up
again. The song is made special thanks to some 'Dangerbird' style Young guitar
and some really lovely vocals, both Ralph's emoting lead and Frank and Billy's
oh so angelic backing. The Horse haven't sounded this beautiful since 'I Don't
Want To Talk About It'.
Sampedro
country-rocker 'Lost and
Lonely Feelin' is one of the album's weakest songs though, sounding like
bad Poco (or good Eagles). It temporarily returns the Horse to their 1972-1973
period as a country band and fittingly features their old member Greg LeRoy on
guest guitar.
Frank
and Billy together were never going to come up with an intellectual number and
so it proves as the downright stupid 'Dancin' Lady' hops from foot to foot as the narrator watches his
girl dance. A lot of Horse songs involve dancing ('When You Dance I Can Really
Love' and 'Dance Dance Dance' among them, while that's the central theme of
'Cinnamon Girl'), but this is their worst and rather finds them falling over.
Ralph's
'End Of The Line' is a
lovely ballad though, as the drummer gets to show off his lovely falsetto (ignored
on album for far too long). Talking about how every relationship has a
time-clock of when it's meant to start and meant to end, Ralph admits that
there's nothing he can do to put things right and sadly stands back to let
things take their course. This song gets a bit OTT at times but sports a rather
lovely tune.
Billy
wrote 'New Orleans' in
collaboration with old pal Ben Keith - presumably he wrote the girl-seducing
lyrics and Ben the more sophisticated tune. Some nice Young lead guitar
brightens up the song considerably, though the track itself isn't up to much.
Ralph
writes more country-rock on 'Love
Don't Come Easy' as he goes from gruff despondency to Franki Valli style
falsetto hope. If only the Horse could have afforded to make this a bigger, more
epic sounding arrangement this song about misery in love could have been really
special - however it still sounds pretty good, mainly thanks to Molina's pretty
singing.
'Downhill'
is Sampedro's best song on the album, in which Neil re-creates the mystery of
'Dangerbird' on a similar track about feeling hemmed in and trapped by life,
the narrator n the losing end as it were. Frank's vocal, though not
conventionally beautiful, is sung with real raw passion and feeling.
'Too Late Now' is Sampedro's worst song on the album though, as he tries to
revive Jack Nietzsche's country honky tonk style from the 1971 LP. Mourning the
loss of a lover but determined to move on and forget her, this song's slightly
woozy boozy feel prevents it from being as tight as some of the others on the
album.
Billy's
'That Day' is the most
Young track here and very much sounds like it's recycling the riff from 'Let It
Shine', a track on Stills-Young Band album 'Long May You Run'. Billy's
unconventional singing and rather deep lyric about trying to come to terms with
tragedy are winners though in any setting.
The
album ends with more bursting Young guitar howls on 'Thunder and Lightning', a simple Frank/Billy
rocker that doesn't do much but has great fun doing it, taking a riff that
sounds a little like 'Lotta Love' and playing around with the lovely chord
changes.
Overall,
then, 'Crazy Moon' isn't perfect by any means, but considering it was recorded
in part by a band that had only just met back in 1975, that it features three
people making their album debut as both writers and singers and that it comes
after a full six year gap, it's all good reason for a party. 'Crazy Moon'
maintains the old Crazy Horse imagery and genre without being just a limp
copycat of a Neil Young album, with Ralph's ballads especially giving the album
a real emotional heart most of the other Horse albums lack.
A major improvement
on both 'Loose' and 'Crooked Lake', it's just a shame that the Horse didn't go
on to record a whole string of albums like this as, sadly, fans will have to
wait a full eleven years for another Horse album which is looking increasingly
like their swansong as the years tick by. Like 'Harvest Moon', 'Crazy Moon'
isn't the best thing the band ever delivered, but it harks back to glory days
most prettily while breaking a few boundaries too and it's an album that
deserved to sell much better than it did.
"Live
Rust"
(Reprise, November 1979)
Sugar Mountain/I Am A Child/Comes A
Time/After The Gold Rush/My My Hey Hey (Out Of The Blue)//When You Dance I Can
Really Love/The Loner/The Needle and the Damage Done/Lotta Love/Sedan
Delivery//Powderfinger/Cortez The Killer/Cinnamon Girl//Like A Hurricane/Hey
Hey My My (Into The Black)/Tonight's The Night
"Hey
hey my my, rock and roll can never die!"
Forget
the compilations - if you really want to know if Neil Young is for you then
'Live Rust' is the place to start, with a teasing opening quarter chock-full of
most of Neil's best acoustic songs, followed by three-quarters filled with
Crazy Horse at their most raucous and energetic. The 'Rust Never Sleeps' tour
was a fun show, with Neil enjoying his time back in the spotlight and a popular
new album, though he was still eccentric enough to give the audience something
they couldn't get anywhere else. The theme was 'a history of rock and roll'
with Neil waking up as a 'baby' surrounded by giant 20 foot microphones and
amplifiers, while snatches of old classic moments from rock history played
between songs (Hendrix doing the Star Spangled Banner, quotes from Woodstock
about 'bad acid' and - in the film not the record - bursts of Chuck Berry and
The Beatles' 'A Day In The Life'). Then there's 'road-eyes' roadies dresses as
Ewok Ninjas. 'There's nobody else I'd wear this goddamn hood for' said a
hardened burly roadie backstage before pausing and saying 'come to think of it,
there's nobody else who'd goddamned ask'!' Then there's Neil's invention of
'Rustovision' glasses as he laughingly invites the audience to see the 'rust'
falling from the band's instruments as they play their older material. The
point would be a stupid one to make if the new songs failed to match up to the
old ones, but generally they do with a pair of acoustic and electric versions
of new anthem 'Hey Hey My My' and new rockers like 'Powderfinger' and 'Sedan
Delivery' sounding very at home rubbing shoulders with a particularly on-form
'Cinnamon Girl' and a spooky version of 'Tonight's The Night' (heard, in the
film, as an encore after the credits have played and everyone was meant to go
home - very Neil...)
Where
this set doesn't quite work is on the long monster jams. Frank Sampedro's
biggest moment in the sun since 'Zuma' finds him struggling to maintain the
improvisation and run of ideas that Danny Whitten once brought to the band (as
heard on 'Live At Fillmore East') and the album's intended 'big' events 'Cortez
The Killer' and 'Like A Hurricane' both fall a little flat (especially
'Cortez', which is given a 'reggae' makeover and the new chorus 'he come
dancing across da water man!') 'Lotta Love' is also out of place, a sweet poppy
tune that simply doesn't work buried between the acoustic sorrow of 'Needle'
and the punk thrash of 'Sedan Delivery'. Neil's played several better acoustic
sets than this down the years too and compared to later shows the setlists
seems unusually obvious and 'safe', with no then-unreleased material for once
(this is the only live Young set that doesn't feature anything in the way of
unreleased songs) and nothing that true into-the-blue fans haven't heard a
million times already. However that's small fry compared to what does work in
this set, which is much of it with Crazy Horse at the top of their game and
raising Neil to close to the top of his with fun performances of songs that
range from the very heavy to the very silly. True fans will probably get more
out of the on-the-edge power of 'Weld' and maybe even the surprises of 'Year Of
The Horse', but this is easily Young's most consistent live album and as such
the perfect introduction to new fans. As older fans know, consistency is
something of a rarity in Young's works, which actually makes 'Live Rust' all
the more special. Do be warned, though, that this set hasn't always been
catered for properly in the digital age, with the only CD issue cut down to fit on a single disc (the
electric 'Hey Hey' and 'Cortez' are the casualties, though bizarrely
'Hurricane' runs a fraction longer thanks to a 'false start' cut from the
original vinyl album). I'd get the download version which runs full-length if I
were you, but of course the gap in your collection if you have all the other
CDs is something of a pain!
Various
Artists "Where The Buffalo Roam" (Film Soundtrack)
(Backstreet-MCA, '1980')
Buffalo Stomp*/Ode To Wild Bill #1*/All
Along The Watchtower/Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds/Ode To Wild Bill #2*/Papa
Was A Rolling Stone/Home On The Range*/Straight Answers (Film
Dialogue)//Highway 61 Revisited/I can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch Squid
Face)/Ode To Wild Bill #3*/Keep On Chooglin'/Ode To Wild Bill #4*/Purple
Haze/Buffalo Stomp Refrain*
* = Neil Young Perfomances
"Never
is heard a discouraging word...or is it?"
Have
you ever longed to hear what 'Home On The Range' would sound like played in
Neil's guitar and - occasionally - in his voice? If so then 'Where The Buffalo
Roam' is for you! And yes it is every bit as weird as it sounds - especially as
the follow-up to the all-singing all-dancing return to cult status with 'Rust
Never Sleeps'. Nobody seems to know quite why Neil was asked to write the score
(or ten minutes of it at least) for this low budget biography based on the life
of Hunter S Thompson. The film wasn't a happy experience from the first - the
writer agreed to the film without really thinking about it, having tried so
hard for so many years to turn his own books into movies, and was horrified
when he read the script and found out he couldn't stop it. Producer Art Linson
decided to direct the film even though he had no prior experience, while
principle actor Bill Murray had something of a nervous breakdown during the
making of it, scaring his old Saturday Night Live mates by still thinking he
really was Hunter S Thompson a few months after making it. Critics hated
everything about it - even the music,
which to be fair probably didn't take Neil a lot of time to think about. Any
credit for this soundtrack album should really go to arranger David Blumberg,
who somehow manages to make the orchestra rock (something Neil never quite managed
on his own) and yet still leaves enough space for 'Old Black' to start properly
howling. The result is another of those records that only a fan could love,
though at least there are chances to hear Neil sing a traditional folk standard
some thirty years before 'Americana' (he sings 'Home On The Range' rather
better than anything on that album too), while the guitar-based instrumentals
are far prettier and more sophisticated than anything on Neil's second film
soundtrack 'Dead Man'. As for the rest of the soundtrack, it's awful and most
of it is cut from the DVD of the film for licensing issues anyway (only Neil
and Creedence Clearwater Revival said yes) while Bill Murray mangles 'Lucy In
The Sky With Diamonds' with all the subtlety of a Rottweiler. Put this one down
to experience and don't pay too much for it (though that said the soundtrack is
rather rare - Neil's only just allowed 'On The Beach' out on CD so he's not
going to let this one through any time soon!)
To
take the songs in order, such as they are: 'Buffalo Stomp' is the most complete instrumental
here, with some lively strings and brass set to the tune of 'Home On The Range'
while Neil's guitar fizzles along; 'Ode To Wild Bill #1' doesn't do a lot in its fifty seconds but
after twenty seconds of drumming Neil starts rehearsing his solo 'Home On The
Range' lines; 'Ode To Wild
Bill #2' is a spacier version of the same song with Neil playing like
Hendrix on 'The Star Spangled Banner' until he gives up midway through and the
orchestra join in; 'Home On
The Range' starts with a big fanfare before we get the anti-climax of
Neil's wobbly voice singing a capella, sounding vulnerable like never before.
Even though it's probably meant as a joke this version, so wistful and lonely,
is actually quite affecting; 'Ode
To Wild Bill #3' has Neil warming up and improvising around the 'Home'
chords and sounding not unlike the spaced-out stomp of 'Sedan Delivery'.
Unfortunately we get some dumb speech from the film over the top just as the
track gets interesting; 'Ode
To Wild Bill #4' is a pointless thirty second reprise featuring just the
orchestra but it's credit to Neil anyway even though his guitar isn't on the
track; Finally 'Buffalo Stomp Refrain' is a virtual re-run of the opening
track, with Neil playing first before the orchestra take over, with only
minimal differences in Neil's performance. It's arguably the best money he ever
got for the shortest working day of his life!
Note: 'A Treasure' was previously reviewed and can be read here: http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/news-views-and-music-issue-147-neil.html
"Bluenote
Cafe"
(Archives
Volume 11)
(Reprise, Recorded November 1987-August
1998, Released November 2015)
CD One: Welcome To The Big Room*/Don't
Take Your Love Away From Me/This Note's For You/Ten Men Workin'/Life In The City/Hello
Lonely Woman*/Soul Of A Woman*/Married Man/Bad News Comes To Town/Ain't It The
Truth?/One Thing/Twilight
CD Two: I'm Goin'*/Ordinary
People/Crime In The City/Crime Of The Heart*/Welcome Rap (Spoken
Word)/Doghouse*/Fool For Your Love/Encore Rap (Spoken Word)/On The Way
Home/Sunny Inside/Tonight's The Night
* = Unreleased Composition
"What
starts out weak might get too strong if you can't tell foul from fair"
Trust
Neil to give me a second album to write about in the dying moments of the first
drafts of these books...but trust it, too, to be an archives set that yet again
beats the flimsy original to smithereens. I can't say I'm a big fan of the
Bluenotes album 'This Note's For You'. Smart alecky title track aside, there
isn't really too much on that album worth saving - just generic blues songs
played by a band who've all too clearly only just met each other. We've known
that these tapes existed for years - this version of Neil's first ever
song 'Ain't It The Truth?' and the
mournful cry 'Don't Take Your Love Away From Me' both appeared on Geffen
compilation 'Lucky Thirteen' (even though strictly they were written in the
second Reprise era - not that I'm complaining given that they're the highlights
of the record, except of course that I just have). Could the rest of the gig
live up to this pair of tracks? Yes - actually the average of the set is if
anything even higher. Not for the first or last time the resulting tour was a
much more interesting beast with a whole slew of new songs written too late to
make the record, old favourites dressed up in the newer style and album tracks
played by a band who have a much clearer sense of what they're doing. Suddenly
this era is a revelation: new songs like the heavy hitting 'I'm Goin', the
swinging 'Welcome To The Big Room', the mournful ballad 'Crime Of The Heart',
the fun 'Hello Lonely Woman' and the hilarious 'Doghouse' (complete with sound
effects) are all as good as anything on the record proper and suggest that Neil
was contemplating a follow-up volume before the multi-faceted genre-hopping of
'Freedom' caught his muse instead. As for the oldies, the Springfield's 'On The
Way Home' is a surprise candidate for being drenched in horns but comes off
rather well, while the title track of 'Tonight's The Night' almost works as an
elongated nineteen minute jamming session that just won't shut up, complete
with a pained cry to inspiration and roadie Bruce Berry that's positively
chilling.
Album
tracks like 'Ten Men Workin' (now an eight minute jam) and 'Twilight' (now a
moody eight minutes too with an extended guitar solo) sound far more 'real'
than they ever did on record and work far better, with only 'Sunny Inside' and
'Married Man' sounding a little dashed off. Better yet is two early previews of
songs that will become key to Neil's concerts and eventually albums in the
coming years: an intense 'Crime In The
City's is halfway between the epic nineteen minute original and the shortened
version on Freedom/Weld, with lots of 'missing' verses restored at the
beginning. It's not quite the best version out there, but it's still a great
version of possibly Neil's best song of the decade. 'Ordinary People' - finally
released as late as 2006 - also sounds far more natural back in the time it was
written, a thirteen minute jog drenched in horns and irony that finally sounds
as good as fans lucky enough to hear this song in concert always said it was.
In fact the only minus number the whole night is the between song raps - Neil's
have always been weird but are usually at least interesting and unique to him.
Here, though, he's just trying old blues shtick (sample quote: 'Life is easier
with a beautiful woman by your side!') or simply being rude ('You weren't
clapping loud enough for an encore but we came out anyway because we like New
York!') and even when posing as a 'character' this falls flat. Still, that's
peanuts compared to the vast greatness compared on this set which matches the
real greats already released in the archive sets: 'Massey Hall' 'Cellar Door'
and 'A Treasure'. Neil's done it again, keeping the great moments from ghastly
eras back in the vaults - on this basis the Shocking Pinks and 'Landing on
Water' sets (even worse studio albums in their original form) are going to be amazing!
"Eldorado"
(CD EP)
(Reprise, April 1989)
Cocaine Eyes/Don't Cry/Heavy Love/On
Broadway/Eldorado
"I
may just slip by you, with your eyes turned up above"
Neil's
muse took him from the bluesy laidback horns of The Blue Notes to thrash heavy
metal in the late 1980s, but somewhere early on in the sessions Neil realised
he didn't want to make his next album another genre-hopping exercise. Back in
1986 during an interview for New Zealand TV Neil told the reporter that his
favourite format had always been the EP - they were smaller, cheaper, came with
less 'filler' and didn't take as long to make. As it happened the invention of
the CD saw a brief revival of the EP format as artists realised they could add
all sorts of interesting extras to their singles thanks to the extended running
time. So Neil made his new work an EP and to make sure that people didn't get
too excited about it or name it as his big new release, he promptly released it
only in a few limited countries where his following wasn't quite as strong as
elsewhere - in Japan and Australia mostly. Neil added that there were enough
copies printed so his real loyal followers would be able to 'beg, borrow or
steal one' and as a big passionate collector of music himself realised the
thrill of owning something not everyone else did.
Perhaps
it's just as well that 'Eldorado' didn't become a full work because even at
twenty-five minutes it's a very wearing listen. All five songs are incredibly
noisy, with Neil improving on the half-heavy primitive beat of 'Landing On
Water' made with the same rhythm section of Rick Rosas and Chad Cromwell by
actually throwing in some actual songs this time. Each one is moody, dramatic
and performed as if Neil's heart is breaking as he harrangues another great
enetertainer for falling prey to drugs on 'Cocaine Eyes' (Stephen Stills?),
guiltily bids goodbye to a loved one on 'Don't Cry' to the sound of feedback
and hearts breaking, complains 'Like A Hurricane' style that he can't get away
from a hypnotic lover on 'Heavy Love', sees a bullfighter risk his life for no
good reason on 'Eldorado' and tries to become a star 'On Broadway' even though
he's living penniless on skid row, his dreams in tatters. All songs feature
some of the most extraordinary guitar playing of Neil's long career, as he
bypasses melody and goes instead for the sort of fireworks that will later be
more famous on 'Weld' and 'Arc', while his vocals too are amongst his best as
Neil doesn't sing so much as howl, utterly committed to his art (especially
'Don't Cry' which might just be the saddest song of his whole career, way out
on a limb). The sheer weight and oppression of the atmosphere makes these songs
utterly moving, but that said the three songs remixed and edited slightly for
release on 'Freedom' ('Don't Cry' - the most changed, losing 45 seconds of
feedback at the end - 'Eldorado' and 'On Broadway') make more sense there as
the 'heavy dishes' served up amongst some of Neil's sweetest and most melodic
works. Though the two songs left behind are amongst the best (certainly better
than bullfight 'Eldorado' and the Drifters cover) hearing all five together is
just too much passion for one work. Still worth seeking out though, as long as
you don't pay a fortune for the set.
Crazy
Horse "Left For Dead"
(Capitol, 'Mid 1989')
Left For Dead/Child Of War/You and
I/Mountain Man/I Could Never Lose Your Love/In The Middle/If I Ever Do/World Of
Love/Show A Little Faith
"Ahmmmm
a maaaahntaaaaahn maaaaan!"
The
second AAA-related album to use sculptor James Earle Fraser's piece 'End Of The
Trail' featuring a wounded Indian on horseback as it's front cover (the first
was The Beach Boys' 'Surf's Up in 1971), 'Left For Dead' has a bitter point to
make from packaging to contents. People often ask how Crazy Horse feel when
Neil runs off to play with another band and leaves them stranded. Generally the
band have come to accept it, as usually they have their own things to do and have
known, at least since 1975, that even though Neil abandons every other group he
always comes back to the Horse eventually. However if ever the band felt the
rift it was in the late 1980s. Neil asked more of the Horse than they were able
to provide on 1987's 'Life' and in hindsight should probably have found a
different band to work with on that record's technical arrangements and
elaborate use of keyboards and drum sounds. Neil lost his temper a lot and the
Horse felt bitter. Neil then decided to break off and play with his new band
'The Bluenotes' but instead of leaving the Horse to their own devices he
decided to pinch Frank Sampedro for his new project too, leaving Billy and
Ralph again without a real band. They figured that after the row Neil would never
work with them again - as it happens they'll be back together again on the much
more Horse-based 'Ragged Glory' in 1990, but they weren't to know that at the
time. So, for the fifth and last time, we get a whole new Crazy Horse album
with an entirely different line-up to the one that made the previous record.
The band recruited singer-songwriter and rhythm guitarist Sonny Mone and lead
guitarist and harmony vocalist Matt Piucci, with both members having been in
the band Rain Parade. As with 'Loose' and 'Crooked Lake'the result doesn't
sound much like the Horse and you wonder what the band might have achieved had
they ever been allowed to have some consistency, but it's about the best that
could be done in the circumstances even if, most distressingly of all, Billy
and Ralph's contributions are again overlooked despite the eleven year writing
gap since 'Crazy Moon'. The result is a rather noisy, abrasive album that
treats the Horse's usual plod as cannon fodder in a war of heavy metal guitars
and vocals that only a fan could love. However, as with all the Horse albums,
this is an under-rated set too and is far from terrible, with Billy and Ralph
proving once and for all that they may be the third best garage band in the
world (possibly slipping to fourth here!)
'Left For Dead' itself is an angry snarling Sonny Mone song about being
overlooked, bass-heavy and slow and brooding. It's not terribly memorable, even
for this album.
'Child Of War' has some great guitar interplay and coaxes the best out of Ralph's
rat-a-tat drumming. It's also rather clichéd and noisy, like 'Landing On Water'
if remixed by a producer who considered it too 'subtle' (!) Stills, I prefer
this shouting to the similar and more famous efforts by Guns and Roses, that's
for sure...
'You and I'
is quieter - in the same way that being run over by a motorbike is quieter than
being run over by a steamroller - and almost poetic in its debates about what
it means to be in love. Billy wrote this with Matt.
'Mountain Man' There's a cheeky lift from the Young catalogue as Mone wails
'you'll never be an opera star!' and Piucci plays a pretty convincing facsimile
of Young's lead guitar work but otherwise this is just standard noisy heavy
metal. The track features the album's best riff, a gritty singalong piece of
heavy metal fluff, but this 'Gone Dead Train' turned diesel lacks beauty
somehow.
'I Could Never Lose Your Love' is more noisy thrashing about to no real end - by now I'm
beginning to get a headache!
'In The Middle' is perhaps the best song, starting with atmospheric sound
effects that recall either old English folk songs or American Indian campfires
before turning into subtle sweet pop with some lovely harmonies. You can tell
without looking that this is Billy and Ralph's track, mixing Billy's 'party'
style with Ralph's pretty sweetness.
Maybe
I'm becoming immune to this album, but I rather liked the rock funk of 'If I Ever Do' even if it
sounds as simple and cliched as all the rest. It's less about posing though and
more about rocking and Crazy Horse are a band built for taking a simple riff
and having fun with it like this, while the lyrics about 'wanting something you
can't have' fit the band's rebellious feel.
'World Of Love' cheekily nicks its entire structure from Neil's 'Weight Of The
World' (off 'Landing On Water' in 1986). I actually prefer this song though,
with its lyrics about waiting for the world to change in 1963 and a passion and
hope that still runs through certain hippies. 'Were you standing in the rain at
Yasgur's farm?' run the lyrics. The 'I was alone for all my life' part is then
given a new lyric about 'tin soldiers coming' that nicks from another Young
classic, 'Ohio'. This could have been clumsy but actually it's rather good -
assuming Neil's lawyers don't get to hear about it...
'Show A Little Faith' is a pretty ballad to end on, if a little drab. It's a song,
like the first, about not being overlooked which fits with the 'mood' of the
band at the time but like most things here a little anonymous.
Still,
the album isn't all bad by any means. Had Billy and Ralph been allowed to write
(and sing!) more songs and had the album had more of the cleverness of 'If I
Ever Do' and 'World Of Love' this could have been a respectable effort. Instead
it's a reminder that Crazy Horse can only really be at their best performing a
certain kind of rock and roll and heavy metal is another genre they can't do,
to follow the psychedelic of The Rockets and the country-honk of 'Loose'.
'Weld' is also previously reviewed and can be read here: http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-95-neil-young-weld-1991.html
"Arc"
(Reprise, November 1991)
Arc (A Compilation Composition)
"I
want to love you, but I get so blown away!"
For
fans who didn't think the ear-drum-breaking 'Weld' was noisy enough, Neil
included a 'free' avant garde disc amongst original copies which with a limited
edition of just 25,000 copies now sells for quite a bit to collectors. This
record isn't really made for easy listening and is more of a self-indulgent
whim like the John 'n' Yoko albums, mixing and matching bits of feedback and
howls of guitar from the end of songs into one great whole as if the 'collapse'
near the end is more important than the song itself. Occasionally you'll also
get ghostly vocals as Neil reprises some song in his haste to bring a song to
conclusion (there's a slow mournful reprise of the first verse of 'Hurricane'
played over thunderous feedback three minutes in that's quite affecting, at
least until Neil and Billy duet on the 'I wanna love you' refrain for a further
five; a later sequence has Neil sighing sadly 'love and only love...' after one
of the noisiest sequences in his canon; the ending is an even noisier finale to
'Welfare Mothers' than the one on 'Weld' as Crazy Horse have a nervous
breakdown on stage), though mostly all you get is criss-crossing thrash chords
and noisy drumming that could have been from anything or anywhere and mainly
sounds like a hippo with a megaphone in childbirth while an octopus playing the
drums has a fit. No wonder Neil lost his hearing after this tour - I have a
theory we'd lose ours too if we played this set enough times, but then 'Arc'
isn't really a set built for repeated listening. After thirty-five minutes of
continual segues you've all but lost the will to live, but heard in the right
frame of mind and perhaps seen alongside the Gulf War news footage that was fed
into the gigs live night after night, this set makes a lot more sense. This is a
war, a war that nobody's winning and Neil's given up trying to sing pretty
songs about love and peace. This isn't for everyone though - it's clearly not
the middle of the road any longer and it's not even the ditch, it's the sewer
running under the ditch that's a stage further away from public consumption. At
least the front cover's fun though, a parody of the 'Weld' covers as Neil
stands in front of his overgrown amplifiers, only this time he's a zombie.
Don't have nightmares...
"Dreamin'
Man - Harvest Moon Live 1992"
(Archives
Volume 12)
(Reprise, Recorded January-November
1992 Released December 2009)
Dreamin' Man/Such A Woman/One Of These
Days/Harvest Moon/You and Me/From Hank To Hendrix/Unknown Legend/Old
King/Natural Beauty/War Of Man
"No
one else can thrill me like you do - but no one else can kill me like you
do"
'Dreamin' Man' is the least interesting release
in the 'Archives' series so far - not because the performance is bad (Neil's on
good form throughout) but because this album sounds so similar to the one we
did get named 'Harvest Moon'. Other Young live sets either mix and match albums
or provide full band performances of solo studio albums or vice versa, but
'Harvest Moon' was nearly all acoustic anyway so hearing Neil on his own isn't
that different to hearing Neil, an accordion and a man with a broom. The set
might have been more interesting if Neil had done what he's done with some of
the others and released everything from a single show (hits, rarities, newbies
and all) but instead this show is a compilation of various moments from the
1992 tour (between January and November) and only features the new songs.
Impressively Neil performs everything from the album (even a rather rambling
version of 'Natural Beauty', which is still the highlight even without all the
crickets and sound effects), but oddly Neil puts this album together in a
different way, with a different running order that doesn't work anywhere near
as well - despite the fact that, as a compilation set, he could easily have put
them in any order he liked. The result is worth buying if you happen to be a
huge mega fan of this era of Young or you really want to know what 'Old King'
sounds like played on a guitar rather than a banjo or you want to hear 'Such A
Woman' without the strings (actually I'm not sure I do - without them the song
is surprisingly bare and ugly, even if the strings did seem like a bad idea on
the record). Plus the 'Unplugged' set featured better 'live' versions of most
of these songs anyway, given that it was the album Neil just had out at the
time. If 'Harvest Moon' had never existed then this would be a fine album and
Neil is clearly inspired throughout the set, with the performances chosen with
care. But there are no songs here that improve or even differ that much from
the parent album which all makes this release rather pointless.
"Lucky
Thirteen"
(Geffen, January 1993)
Sample and Hold (Alternate
Version)*/Transformer Man/Depression Blues*/Get Gone (Live)*/Don't Take Your
Love Away From Me (Live)*/Once An Angel/Where Is The Highway Tonight?/Hippie
Dream/Pressure/Around The World/Mideast Vacation/Ain't It The Truth?
(Live)*/This Note's For You (Live)*
* = Previously Unreleased Recordings
"The
thought never struck me I'd be black and white for life"
Fans
weren't expecting much from a 'Geffen' best-of set: Neil had no real hits in
this period, most albums released in this 1982-1988 period were unpopular and
the thought of sticking all those different generic styles seemed like
disaster. Instead Geffen did the sensible thing - arguably for the first time
since hiring Neil in the first place - and allowed the guitarist to get
involved. Figuring that without his input the label would just stick any old
rubbish out Neil got busy, rummaging through his tape box for a few unreleased
gems and making sure that each album was equally represented, whether fans
hated it or not. Hearing the Geffen albums reduced to two songs per album
rather than ten is a good move, as most of Neil's choices are spot on
(including the best songs from classic albums like 'Trans' and the only two
listenable songs from 'Landing On Water') and even those that aren't (why isn't
'Misfits' here from 'Old Ways'?) pass by before you have a chance to get sick
of them. Typically many of the albums abandoned on the way sound far more
interesting than what we got: 'Depression Blues' from the original, lighter
'Old Ways' is one of the best things on the album, while 'Everybody's Rockin'
might yet have become a popular album with fans had Neil actually included the
two best tracks from the project 'Get Gone' and 'Don't Take Your Love Away From
Me', both songs making their debut appearance here. Better still there's a
stunning alternate take of the already pretty stunning 'Sample and Hold' that
just has to be heard to be believed (many fans consider this one superior - and
Geffen included it on their 'Trans' CD re-issue controversially - not as a
bonus track but as a direct replacement for the old one). The timing is also
skewed slightly so that we get a couple of pretty fine live recordings with The
Bluenotes that are way more lively than anything on the studio 'This Note's For
You' record (an album released when Neil was back on Reprise, but technically
this live shows dates from the very end of the Geffen period), especially the
unexpected revival of SAquires song 'Ain't It The truth?' Even the title and
cover (featuring a vocoder-wearing, short-haired Young that doesn't look much
like himself) is clever and doesn't try to hide the fact that this is an
attempt to get right Neil's most misunderstood period. A shame the set doesn't
run for longer of course (it would have been nice to hear a couple of songs
from the abandoned 'Island In The Sun' album that was intended to be Neil's
Geffen debut or more from the original 'Old Ways'), but this set does include
more rarities than most best-ofs already and the outtakes are easily up to the
released stuff. A solid introduction to an era most fans are wary of getting
involved with, 'Lucky Thirteen' can only be as good as the albums it's taken
from but unlike the album themselves most of the time it's delivered with care
and kindness. Surprisingly good and almost equal to 'Decade' as a second
hits-with-extras set.
"Unplugged"
(TV Soundtrack)
(Reprise, Recorded February Released June
1992)
The Old Laughing Lady/Mr Soul/World On
A String/Pocahontas/Stringman*/Like A Hurricane/The Needle and the Damage
Done/Helpless/Harvest Moon/Transformer Man/Unknown Legend/Look Out For My
Love/Long May You Run/From Hank To Hendrix
* = Previously Unreleased Composition
"You
know I lose, you know I win, you know I call for the shape I'm in...Only real
in the way that I feel from day to day"
There was an unspoken rule amongst 'Unplugged'
performers to provide a little something extra for fans of these MTV-broadcast
shows. Not just making everything acoustic, but tossing in songs that wouldn't
normally be part of a group's setlist - obscure album tracks, rare B-sides or
unreleased songs. Neil, clearly, had a lot more unreleased material than most
so hopes were high that Neil was going to play a whole set of unheard songs -
or at least parts of his catalogue that he hadn't played live before. Instead
we got a depressingly average set that's high on 'Harvest Moon' numbers and fan
favourites and relatively low on surprises. Neil was also in rather a surly
mood throughout - he actually abandoned an entire first recorded show (even
more reliant on 'Harvest Moon' but actually not bad at all) before complaining
about the technology and the crowd and his own performances and asking for
another go - this time he brought out some old friends to help him (like Nils
Lofgren and Nicolette Larsson) but still Neil didn't really acknowledge the
audience (apart from grinning at a cry of 'thankyou Neil' and saying 'aww, it
was nothing!') and the mood backstage was reportedly pretty grim.
In retrospect Young was probably already
getting fed up of the attention that his career was suddenly getting and was
already in the gloomy place that would be heard on his next dark and foreboding
record 'Sleeps With Angels'. He certainly sounds that way on the more intense
moments of this set, where the dark and edgy numbers sound far more convincing
than the lighter singalongs. A surprise
revival of 'The World On A String' had real memories of 'Tonight's The Night'
for instance, while 'Look Out For My Love' is nicely dark and menacing and the
set's one unreleased moment 'Stringman' is a gorgeous piano ballad that could
easily have found a home on that album, a desperate cry about being powerless
to help a friend in need struggling to cope that many fans think is about
Stephen Stills. Best of all, though, was a stunning re-interpretation of 'Like
A Hurricane' which was performed on Neil's 'new' favourite instrument, a pump
organ (you'll be hearing a lot of that sound in the albums to come!) Still
intense and unrelenting, but in a completely different way, this performance
points to just how different and brilliant this set could have been if
approached in the same way. In contrast 'Transformer Man' was performed at last
as a 'straight' song rather than through a vocoder and sounded almost
celebratory as Neil's son Ben was now a teenager with all of the song's worries
about communicating and being close to him through his Cerebral Palsy illness now
a distant memory. A little more of the dark side or a little more of that
healing of old songs would have made 'Unplugged' truly a night to remember, but
even on half-form this set has much going for it and more than deserved it's
release as a standalone album (one of the first in the series to be released in
this way in fact, with Neil's recording following Paul McCartney's into the
shops by a matter of months). Not essential like many live Young performances,
but an intriguing and often revealing sideways look at most eras of Neil's
lengthy career.
"Dead
Man" (Film Soundtrack)
(Vapor, February 1996)
Guitar Solo #1/The Round Stones Beneath
The Earth/Guitar Solo #2/Why Dost Thou Hide Thyself In Clouds?/Organ Solo/Do
You Know How To Use This Weapon?/Guitar Solo #3/Nobody's Story/Guitar Solo
#4/Stupid White Men/Guitar Solo #5/Time For You To Leave William Blake/Guitar
Solo #6
"Dead
man, look at my life, I'm nothing at all like you were"
Neil
isn't exactly well known for his film soundtrack works ( 'Journey Thru The
Past' and 'Where The Buffalo Roam' are both weird and overlong) and 'Dead Man'
is one of those films that's pretty to look at but where hardly anything ever
happens, so this didn't bode well that a full film soundtrack album was going
to be a career highlight. So it proves: Neil sticks to guitar to the whole
album and doesn't sing a note (though Depp gets to read out some poetry, badly).
That should be thrilling, but he's come up with at best one or two ideas worth
playing and extends them out for the whole record - which is either more
inventive or less inventive that warbling 'Home On The Range' five different
ways as he did on 'Buffalo' depending on your point of view. The two albums are
very similar in fact. Neil isn't here to play tunes or provide the story or
give the listener any emotion whatsoever - he's here for colour. Seen in the
context of the film the music works quite well: whenever Jim Jarmusch has yet
another gunslinger on the prowl in the ol' Wild Western Neil's on hand to
announce his arrival, usually with a scratchy guitar sound. Whenever somebody
is saved Neil plays something a bit lighter, albeit still with a scratchy sound.
Whenever there's a silence in the film (which is most of the time to be honest)
Neil's there to fill it with something and he captures the oppressed, unspoken
feelings of the characters quite well, with tensions lurking below the surface.
Where this album doesn't work is when this is all released as a full complete
soundtrack album to be enjoyed in it's own right. Unless you happen to leave
near enough the Wild West to expect to see retired gunslingers prowling the
territory outside as you listen to the album, it's null and void. For fans only
- and even then not all of them. This is also the start, you could argue, of
Neil's fall from grace after scoring big with every album since about 1989. In
retrospect maybe director Jim Jarmusch should have got his new lead Johnny Depp
to play guitar instead as he's arguably a better musician than actor. Note that
a special edition of this album was available too, made to look like a
leather-bound 19th century notebook, although none of the tracks were different.
'Guitar Solo no 1' sets the tone, with Neil scratching away at his guitar as if
it's got a bad itch - for five whole minutes.
'Round Stones Beneath The Earth' is Johnny Depp coughing mostly while characters read out spooky
ghost stories.
'Guitar Solo no 2' is more
memorable and sounds like the rolling chord finale to 'When Your Lonely Heart
Breaks', albeit with more noise.
'Why Dost Thou Hide Yourself?' is just guitar solo no 2 buried by some dialogue.
'Organ Solo'
is 90 seconds of 'What Happened Yesterday' from 'Mirrorball' without the lyrics
and is rather lovely if not very substantial.
'Do You Know How To use This Weapon?' No. Not unless it's the pump organ again, drowned out by
dialogue and thunderstorm effects.
'Guitar Solo no 3' has Neil feverish from scratching by now, interrupting his
picked parts for some occasional bluesy howls from 'Old Black'. This is
arguably the most interesting piece on the album as it's the one most like the
'traditional' Neil and sounds like a great solo from a song that hasn't been
written yet.
'Nobody's Story' is Guitar Solo no 2' behind yet more boring dialogue. I don't
remember anybody speaking that much in the film - is all the dialogue on the
album?
'Guitar Solo no 5' is slower and moodier but quite impressive once it gets going,
slowly bursting into life little bit by little bit.
'Stupid White Men' is a full nine minutes of listening to two mean eat and talk in
front of a roaring fire and some very unconvincing sounding crickets.
'Guitar Solo no 5' sounds like the start of 'Love and Only Love' with Neil at his
loudest, his guitar screaming for justice, longing and safety. It's quite
affecting, though it should perhaps have been edited down from nearly fifteen
full minutes.
'Time For You To Leave William Blake' barely features anything at all - just Johnny Depp speaking so
slowly you wonder if he's forgotten his lines while Neil's guitar howls in the
background.
'Guitar Solo no 6' ends the record on sadly rather anticlimactic form as Neil
sounds as if he's tuning his guitar more than he's playing it. So ends one of
the weirdest releases in the Young discography and, to date, the last time the
guitarist was ever asked to write a film soundtrack. Even for a songwriter who
made his name writing songs on behalf of the American Indians, Neil seems a
strange choice to ask for this record and comes up with something a lot
stranger than he was probably asked to provide. I'd give this one a miss unless
you're big on Westerns, Neil's guitar or having a complete collection. Sadly I
fear that's most of us, so back on the shelf this one goes to be played in
another decade or so when I'm feeling strong enough!
"Year
Of The Horse"
(Reprise, June 1997)
When You Dance I Can Really
Love/Barstool Blues/When Your Lonely Heart Breaks/Mr Soul/Big
Time/Pocahontas/Human Highway//Slip Away/Scattered (Let's Think About
Livin')/Dangerbird/Prisoners Of Rock 'n' Roll
CD Bonus Track: Sedan Delivery
"Some
people tell us that we play too loud, but they don't know what our music's
about!"
The
Horse are struggling to win the crowd over, unlike their triumphant 'Weld' tour
of 1991, as unfamiliar songs merge into lumpy new ones. 'It all sounds the
same!' declares one unhappy punter. 'It's all one song!' shouts back Neil. And
he's right - never before has Neil's canon come with such cohesion or has his
jumping of styles made so much sense. This live record is Crazy Horse doing
what Crazy Horse do best - playing everything loud, slightly slow and turning
even the simplest riff into a ten minute jamming session. Where 'Live Rust' and
especially 'Weld' came with lots of colour and shade in between the noise,
'Year Of The Horse' comes with no real variety just noise (it was released - of
course it was - in the Chinese New Year of the Ox; The next Year Of The Horse
was 2002 which makes a lot of sense; this set is stubborn and unmoving
throughout). The sound bored audience members after Neil's prettier acoustic
side to tears and this album got some of the first steamingly angry reviews
Neil had received in a decade - and yet this set makes sense to me. It's like a
sampler of all of Neil's various styles strung together and played at the same
intense volume, whether it's beautiful ballads like 'When Your Lonely Heart
Breaks' or a slow bluesy version of 'Mr Soul' or an acoustic countryside ramble
like 'Human Highway'. Despite the differences and the often thirty year age gap
between songs, here they do sound all the same - as Neil's career is all one
song.
There
are, as always on Young live albums, great moments and ghastly moments,
depending how inspired the end jam the Horse fall into seems and how rare the
material is, with in-concert debuts for several classic songs. A bonkers 'When
You Dance' and 'Barstool Blues' are the perfect way to start, while 'Lonely
Heart' is beautiful despite or perhaps because of all the noise and the revival
of 'Mr Soul' in a third completely different style may be the best of the lot -
acoustic, wild and a little sad. The 'Broken Arrow' tunes, meanwhile sound
dreadful as they're over-extended even further than on the album and the Horse
utterly lose the plot during a distracted 'Scattered' where nobody seems to be
playing the same tune. One of my favourite moments in this entire book comes
next though as Neil picks his way out of the chaos, wakes up from the choodling
along and suddenly charges into a beautiful but painful and oh so real version
of 'Dangerbird' you will ever hear. Suddenly Crazy Horse are right with him,
switching from a cantor to a gallop, as Neil revisits his mid-1970s nervous
breakdown and howls out his pain with such intensity you think he's having
another one. The original 'Dangerbird' is one of the most brilliant Young
moments anyway, but this sudden moment of reality and hurt in an otherwise
pretty awful second disc performed on automatic pilot is astonishing as Neil
takes a full quarter of an hour to somehow bring himself back to normal and
take the Horse into a demented fun version of 'Prisoners Of Rock 'n' Roll'
instead. 'Year Of The Horse' isn't the best Crazy Horse live album - it lacks
the consistency of 'Live Rust' and the sheer brilliance of the best of 'Weld'
(which stays in a similarly committed vein for a good two-thirds of the
record), but 'Year Of The Horse' isn't as far behind as some reviewers and fans
reckoned at the time, unfairly shunting it to the lower end of Neil's catalogue.
Half the record is a huge disappointment, but oh the other half might be better
than anything released on either record. It's always the years of the horse, then,
and it's all one song, good and bad, performed brilliantly or indifferently. At
least, too, this live album skipped the famous songs already featured on the
two previous albums for something a little meatier than just the greatest hits
again, despite the fact the Horse were being filmed for a big feature film also
released as 'Year Of The Horse' - like the album, it's a bit of a muddle with
some boring quarter hours but some truly great moments.
"Road
Rock Vol 1: Friends and Relatives"
(Reprise, Recorded September-October
Released December 2000)
Cowgirl In The Sand/Walk On/Fool For
Your Love/Peace Of Mind/Words (Between The Lines Of Age)/Motorcycle
Mama/Tonight's The Night/All Along The Watchtower
"When
so many love you is it the same? It's the artist in you that makes us want to
play this game!"
Here
we are again with yet another case of 'wrong tour, wrong live album'. Instead
of Pearl Jam's concerts live in 1995 (far better than the 'Mirrorball' album)
or the rather good solo acoustic concert tour to promote 'Silver and Gold' in
2000 comes possibly the weakest Young live album of them all. In many ways this
album is as big a curio and as deliberately audience-provoking as 'Journey Thru
The Past' or 'Everybody's Rockin' as Neil revives several songs commonly voted
on by fans as his worst songs ev-uh (does anybody out there like 'Words' or
'Motorcycle Mama'?) and even they sound more palatable than past classics like
'Cowgirl In The Sand' and 'Walk ON' being bludgeoned to death through feedback
and indifference. It's also the logical conclusion of the 'wretched song, bad
sound quality bootleg' indulgence of 'Baby What You Want Me To Do?' released on
the end of 'Broken Arrow' - a badly recorded set of songs that no fan ever
wanted to hear in the first place performed with a sort of petulant glee from
someone who no longer needed to care how good or bad his records were because
he knew they would sell regardless from a fanbase who actually relished the
'challenges' he gave them. It's as if Neil held a poll to find the songs that
fans were sick of either though overkill or because they didn't work and
decided to record them all.
For
me there are several no-nos when it comes to live albums that never work no
matter how hard the artist tries and Neil commits several cardinal sins here:
endless pointless Dylan covers ('All Along The Watchtower' is far too obvious a
choice and given a terribly wooden arrangement), revived songs that were
abandoned the first time through audience request (the so-simple-it's-stupid
'Fool For Your Love' first played live with The Bluenotes in 1988 and so
generic it could have been written by anyone), special guest stars who sound
completely lost as to why they're there (Pretender Chrissie Hynde just shrieks
her way through her part of the show - which as a shame as she'd be a big
benefit to a Neil acoustic show), family members on backing vocals (wife Pegi and
half-sister Astrid are clearly on tour to keep an eye on their husband/brother
and though they're as worthy a singer as Linda Ronstadt or Nicolette Larsson in
the studio they're not natural live singers) and endless self-indulgent jamming
sessions that stretch songs past breaking length ('Tonight's The Night' goes on
for so long that it must surely be 'Tomorrow Night' by the time it ends).
Throughout Neil sounds distracted, as if unwilling or unable to give his all to
songs he once sang with such venom and passion. His backing band (made up of
old friends Spooner Oldham, Jim Keltner and Donald 'Duck' Dunn from Booker T
and the MGs) are wooden and clearly under-rehearsed - a usual complaint for
Neil's backing bands but this one sounds genuinely lost in places and this
triumvirate work much better in the studio on 'Are You Passionate?' Only a
sweet and laidback 'Peace Of Mind' cuts through the sonic mud and that might be
more because it's the lightest and shortest song here than any real musical
merit. As tuneless as the worst of Neil's back catalogue without the invention,
drive or heart that usually allows him to get away with similarly sloppy
moments, this is a terrible record that deserved its place as one of Neil's
worst sellers with virtually nothing about it to recommend. Was it really only
ten years since 'Weld' showed Neil coming so alive? You may notice that the
subtitle of this record is 'Volume One' - to date there's never been a 'Volume
Two', for which fans have so far been very grateful.
Billy
Talbot "Alive In The Spirit World"
(**, September 2004)
The Way Life Is/Painting Of A Man/On
The Horizon/His Song/Security Girl/Dreamer/Rainy Days/Stress
Release/Stained/Living In The Spirit World
"Like
a picture of a man walking through a door..."
Well,
that was a surprise to say the least. In the previous thirty-six years' worth
of recordings Crazy Horse's Billy Talbot had released only half a side' worth
of original music and none pof the Horse had ever made a solo album. Billy was
going through some fairly hefty changes in his life, including moving house to
a new state and moving in with a new wife and the big decisions seem to have
been playing on his mind across this likeable if moody album. Billy isn't a
natural lead singer but his scar-worn vocals suit these songs of innocence and
joy, giving them a more lived-in feel than would be the case if a prettier
singer had covered them. Though Talbot is famous in Horse circles for only playing
occasionally and then playing loud, what impresses most about this album is the
subtlety. 'Painting Of A Man' is a real surrealist take on life that works a
lot better than Neil's similar go the next year on 'The Painter'; the eleven
minute epic 'Security Girl' recalls 'Cowgirl In The Sand' with a stomping
collection of backwards guitar loops and 'Dreamer' and 'Rainy Days' are both
achingly pretty tracks. Only the contemporary-sounding 'Stress Release' sounds
a little desperate for radio-play. The album's closest twin album in the Young
discography is 'Sleeps With Angels' with its similarly skewed-vision of a world
seen through a fog and the same oppressive feel of claustrophobia. However
'Alive' is a prettier album by far, with moments when the world seems bright
and everything is right as Billy expresses his thoughts that everything comes
good eventually if you can keep going long enough. Talbot is famous for putting
the 'crazy' in crazy horse about actually he's the band's 'dark' horse, with
far more sensitivity and intelligence under all that head-banging and joking
than anyone would have guessed. Better than every Young album since around 1995
and every Crazy Horse album since 1971, Billy isn't just alive but alive and
well. A much recommended listen.
"Greatest
Hits"
(Reprise, November 2004)
Down By The River/Cowgirl In The
Sand/Cinnamon Girl/Helpless (CSNY)/After The Goldrush/Only Love Can Break Your
Heart/Southern Man/Ohio (CSNY)/The Needle and the Damage Done/Old Man/Heart Of
Gold/Like A Hurricane/Comes A Time/Hey Hey My My (Into The Black)/Rockin' In
The Free World/Harvest Moon
"There
was a band playing in my head and I felt like getting high"
Most
AAA artists we cover are onto about their twentieth compilation by now; Neil's
only ever had three (if we ignore the box set which only covers the first few
years). Maybe that's because being a Young fan has never been about the hits or
even the singles - or maybe that's because 'Decade' pretty well got things
right the first time round. Or maybe that's because everybody knew trying to
get Neil's entire career down to a single disc was a terrible idea - which it
is. 'Greatest Hits' has only four songs not already on 'Decade' (the last four,
this set being in strict chronological order), while it misses out on several
must-have greats already on that record such as 'The Loner' 'Laughing Old Lady'
and 'Cortez The Killer', not to mention a far more comprehensive understanding
of Neil's career as a whole. Not to mention songs that fan realise are the
'true' classics: 'World On A String' 'Ambulance Blues' 'Will To Love'
'Pocahontas' 'Natural Beauty' and pretty much anything off 'Sleeps With
Angels'. Starting with the two lengthy Crazy Horse jams really unbalances the
album too - surely 'Cinnamon Girl' was a more natural opening song? Newcomer
fans would be much better off with 'Decade' and oldtimer fans get nothing new
except the cover (a nice arty black and white shot of a 1970 era Young
backstage), which makes this set rather pointless although if you really want
just the hits then this will do I suppose, with most of the obvious songs here.
That's probably because Neil went out of his way to do so market research and
got not just fans but non-fans to vote on the songs they expected to see
included here and looked at his most popular songs on download listens. Which
is sensible and what most artists would do, but not exactly courageous - and
being brave and expecting the unexpected is, after all, pretty much the whole
point of being a Neil Young fan in the first place. Better newbies learn that
from the beginning rather than later!
"Living
With War: The Beginning"
(Reprise, November 2006)
After The Garden/Living With War/The
Restless Consumer/Shock and Awe/Families/Flags Of Freedom/Let's Impeach The
President/Lookin' For A Leader/Roger and Out
"I see a light ahead but there's a chill
wind blowin' in my head..."
"Pegi
Young"
(**, June 2007)
Fake/Heterosexual Masses/When The Wild
Life Betrays Me/Hold On/Love Like Water/Key To Love/Sometimes/Sometimes Like A
River/I Like The Party Life/White Line In The Sun/I'm Not Through Loving You
Yet
"For
a time I can feel the heat...give us the courage to get things said"
One
of the things that made Neil fall for third wife Pegi was her passionate love
of music and her pretty voice, so it seems odd that it wasn't until after five
years of marriage (1983's 'Everybody's Rockin') that Pegi made her recording
debut. Since then Mrs Young ended up in quite a few of Neil's bands over the
years and often accompanied him on tour and her pretty backing vocals (along
with Neil's half-sister Astrid's) were the highlight of many a set. What people
hadn't realised was that Pegi was also a songwriter, taking keen interest in
what her husband was up to and learning many of his tricks of the trade. Though
Pegi is more in the folkie singer-songwriter 'After The Goldrush' bracket of
Neil's work and doesn't share his eclecticism, her songs are pretty excellent
all round and she could have become a star in her own right had she never met
her husband. Neil does guest on the album and plays some subtle guitar (plus
duet vocals on 'Love Like Water'), but fans are more likely to recognise the
contributions of long-standing Young friends Ben Keith and Spooner Oldham who
between them re-create much of the 'Harvest' vibe. Highlights include the
pretty country ballad cover 'Sometimes Like A River', Pegi's own moody 'Key To
Love' (a reflection on growing older as Neil forgets his glasses). Plus the two
songs that bookend the album and appear to comment on her marriage - 'Fake'
with it's mirror of 'I Believe In You' ('I wonder do you believe in me at
all?') and Spooner's pretty blues song 'I'm Not Through Loving You Yet'. In retrospect it feels as if Neil was helping
his wife find a career and a voice for herself before taking the courage to
leave her for Darryl Hannah; however it sounds here as if Pegi doesn't need any
help - she's more than capable enough herself. No classic perhaps, but a lovely
listen that's a lot better than quite a few of Neil's own albums.
Crazy
Horse "Trick Horse"
(iTunes, '2009')
Part Of You/Rock House/Loving You The
Way I Do/People Talkin'/Mexicali/Lookin' For Somebody/I Miss You/It's So
Easy/Back In The City
"How
can we survive when we're the only ones alive?!?"
I know a lot of Neil Young fans and rely on
them to fill in any holes in my own knowledge (there are a few, even if I pride
myself on knowing about the CSNY end of things). Not one of them even knew this
album existed, never mind where it comes from and I must confess I'd never
heard of it either at the time of release - only a single teasing reference to
something else I assumed was a mistake or something else mis-titled. But no:
there really is a Crazy Horse album released quietly on iTunes, with no known
CD or vinyl or anything physical, and no as this is a download there aren't any
sleevenotes. Even the always excellent (even when they're being rude about
CSN!) fansite 'Thresher's Wheat' can only surmise and guess what this is.
However, I believe they're right (though I'm waiting to hear if they're not...)
Back in 1986 the Poncho-Billy-Ralph Crazy Horse tried to record their much delayed
follow-up to 'Crazy Moon'. They didn't get very far, writing a few songs and
deciding that recording sounded too much like hard work so they 'hired' a bunch
of session musicians to play for them instead while they concentrated on
singing (meaning that this album, technically the sixth Horse album instead of
'Left For Dead' I guess, technically does feature an entirely different line-up
yet again). That would certainly explain why this album sounds even less like
the Horse than normal, even with all their wobbly trademarks and Frank and
Bill's rasping gruff leads contrasting against Ralph's sweet falsetto. It would
explain why, rather than taking the Horse into the 21st century, the whole
project sounds so 1980s with digital drums, banks of keyboards and heavy metal
style guitar parts. The only real question then is why release it this way and
why in 2009? (Did Frank have time on his hands after an accident left him
unable to tour? Did iTunes offer the Horse a deal we don't know about? Were the
Horse jealous of how many unreleased records were coming out on Neil's 'Archive'?!)
The only name credit on the entire sleeve doesn't help by the way, though I'm
willing to bet producer 'Poncho Villa' has something to do with Frank
Sampedro...Anyway, even as an iTunes exclusive there isn't an awful lot to get
excited about and you're not missing a lot if you don't own this album. Lacking
even the occasional good taste of 'Loose' 'Crooked Lake' and 'Left For Dead' and
way below par compared to 'Crazy Moon' (bring back the ballads!) even the
biggest presence yet of Frank as a singer and (presumably - there are no
credits) writer can't rescue this from being another case of Horseplay with the
wrong genre, style and instruments. One for committed fans only - and even then
they'll want to keep some painkiller handy after all that noise...
'Part Of
You' is a twisty Billy-sung
song with a big fat ugly riff and a squawking 'oh-oh-oh' chorus that makes this
sound like country and heavy metal combined in the same track. hearing this
you'll realise why more bands haven't done this down the years.
'Rock House' is rather good though,
with Sampedro's vocals rather sweet above Billy's rattling throbbing basslines.
There are two pioneering inventions here too, assuming that our 1986 hypothesis
is correct: one is the idea of a 'rock house' that somehow manages to hide away
from the ravages of time outside (Neil's 1990 song 'Mansion On The Hill' is a
dead ringer for this song lyrically...) and some bluesy horns which recall The
Bluenotes of 1988 (and which Frank had a lot to do with).
'Loving You
The Way I Do'
is one of the best songs on the album, a lovely Ralph weepie that's up to the
standard of his songs fror 'Crazy Moon' but with a bigger production. Ralph's
wife is off all the time - he mopes around at home alone wondering whether to
go out himself but he cares too much to risk the consequences. There's a long
held note on the word 'doooooo' that instantly recalls the doo-wop era of Danny
and the Memories. I'd swear that's not Ralph playing the drums though - they're
awful!
'People
Talkin' is a noisy thrash a
minute heavy metal track with (I think) Billy screaming a song of violent rage
that suggests the Horse had heard tapes of Neil's recently released 'Landing On
Water' album. There's a gonzo guitar solo that's all flashy pyrotechnics that
sounds like a heavy metal reincarnation of Nils Lofgren.
'Mexicali' has Frank cooling his
heels to some Mexican horns but sadly he seems to have forgotten to write a
song to go with the riff and all we get is some plodding heavy metal beats and
some 'oooohs'. Admittedly the 'oohs' sound rather nice, but if 'oohs' were all
I wanted to hear I'd go listen to some pigeons - at least they don't play heavy
metal at the same time.
'Looking For
Somebody'
has Ralph sweetly singing about having so much love he wants to give to
somebody. This is another of the album's better songs, somehow getting t=over
the heavy metal posing to be a song with real integrity and some more lovely
backing vocals, singing 'awwwwww' this time round!
'I Miss You' is Billy's best song on
the album and this slower, more contemplative track is much closer in style to
his two solo albums to come (or in the past - this time-travelling release date
is difficult to cope with!) A couple shared so much that even though they hate
each other they miss each other and casn't help thinking of the olden times.
This time the backing vocals sing 'o-ohhhh' like a crying teletubby. The best
song on the album.
Frank's 'It's So Easy' borrows heavily from Buddy Holly's
'It's So Easy To Fall In Love' but adds more horns and more heavy metal guitar to
no real effect, though the horn riff and another bonkers guitar solo is pretty
fun.
Billy gets the last word with the muted
singalong pop of 'Back In The
City', a forgettable track about a man trying to cope after a holiday
fling has ended. The lovers vow to be together one day but you kind of sense
from the misery in his voice that this isn't going to happen anytime soon. This
time the harmonies sing 'wo-o-o-o-o-ah'.
Overall, then, 'Trick Horse' isn't actually
that much of a trick - it's the Horse rolling over and playing dead, albeit
with more unusual instruments than normal. And frankly there are too many
moments when the Horse does that. The band were probably right to leave it in
the can, then, but it makes for an interesting oddity at least and it's always
better to have these albums out than hidden away somewhere. Plus the cover (a
horse draped in an American flag) is a clever one, whatever decade it comes
from (for once the packaging hasn't dated as quickly as the music if we assume
that both are from 1986). Yet again how great would this album have been if
Crazy Horse had, you know, played and written everything in their traditional
rock and roll style? Oh well, by 2009 that seemed like horses for courses and
another typically weird entry in the crazy tale of Crazy Horse.
"Archives
Volume One: 1963-1972"
(Reprise, June 2009)
CD One (1963-1965): Aurora (The
Squires)/The Sultan (The Squires)/I Wonder (The Squires)*/Mustang (The Squires)*/I'll
Love You Forever (The Squires)*/(I'm A Man And) I Cry (The Squires)*/Hello
Lonely Woman (Neil Young/Comrie Smith)*/Casting Me Away From You (Neil
Young/Comrie Smith)*/There Goes My Babe (Neil Young/Comrie Smith)*/Sugar
Mountain (Demo)*/Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing (Demo)*/Runaround Babe*/The
Ballad Of Peggy Grover*/The Rent Is Always Due*/Extra Extra*/I Wonder*/(Hidden
Bonus Track) Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing (Buffalo Springfield)
CD Two: Buffalo Springfield (1966-1968):
Flying On The Ground Is Wrong/Burned/Out Of My Mind/Down Down Down/Kahuna
Sunset/Mr Soul/Sell Out*/Down To The Wire/Expecting To Fly/Slowly Burning*/One
More Sign/Broken Arrow/I Am A Child/(Hidden Bonus Tracks): Do I Have To Come
Right Out and Say It?/Flying On The Ground Is Wrong/For What It's Worth/This Is
It! (Farewell Gig Extracts)*
CD Three (1968-1969): Everybody Knows
This Is Nowhere (Alternate Version)*/The Loner/Birds (Alternate Version)*/What
Did You Do To My Life? (Alternate Mix)/The Last Trip To Tulsa/Here We Are In
The Years/I've Been Waiting For You (Alternate Mix)/The Old Laughing Lady/I've
Loved Her So Long/Live At Canterbury House 1968 (Sugar Mountain/Nowadays Clancy
Can't Even Sing)/Down By The River/Cowgirl In The Sand/Everybody Knows This Is
Nowhere/(Hidden Bonus Track): The Emperor Of Wyoming
CD Four: Live At The Riverboat (Toronto
1969): Emcee Intro-Sugar Mountain Intro/Sugar Mountain/Incredible Doctor
Rap/The Old Laughing Lady/Audience Observation-Dope Song-Band Names Rap/Flying
On The Ground Is Wrong/On The Way Home Intro/On The Way Home/Set Break-Emcee
Intro/I've Loved Her So Long/Allen-A-Dale-Rap/I Am A Child/1956 Bubblegum
Disaster/The Last Trip To Tulsa/Words Rap/Broken Arrow/Turn The Lights Down
Rap/Whiskey Boot Hill/Expecting To Fly Intro/Expecting To Fly
CD Five (1969-1970): Cinnamon
Girl/Running Dry (Requiem For The Rockets)/Round and Round (It Won't Be
Long)/Oh! Lonesome Me (Alternate Mix)/Birds/Everybody's Alone*/I Believe In
You/Sea Of Madness (CSNY)/Dance Dance Dance*/Country Girl (CSNY)/Helpless
(Alternate Mix) (CSNY)/It Might Have Been*/(Hidden Bonus Tracks): I Believe In
You (Alternate Mix)/I've Loved Her So Long (CSNY)*
CD Six: Live At The Filmore East 1970:
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere/Winterlong/Down By The River/Wonderin'/(C'Mon
Baby Let's Go) Downtown/Cowgirl In The Sand
CD Seven (1970): Tell Me Why/After The
Goldrush/Only Love Can Break Your Heart/ Wonderin'*/Don't Let It Bring You
Down/Cripple Creek Ferry/Southern Man/Till The Morning Comes/When You Dance I
Can Really Love/Ohio (CSNY)/Only Love Can Break Your Heart (CSNY)*/Tell Me Why
(CSNY)*/Music Is Love (CNY)/See The Sky About To Rain*/(Hidden Bonus Tracks):
Don't Let It Bring You Down (Re-Issue Mix)/When You Dance I Can Really Love
(Re-Issue Mix)/Birds
CD Eight: Live At Massey Hall 1971: On
The Way Home/Tell Me Why/Old Man/Journey Through The Past/Helpless/Love In
Mind/A Man Needs A Man-Heart Of Gold/Cowgirl In The Sand/Don't Let It Bring You
Down/There's A World/Bad Fog Of Loneliness/The Needle and the Damage
Done/Ohio/See The Sky About To Rain/Down By The River/Dance Dance Dance/I Am A
Child
CD Nine (1971-1972): Heart Of Gold*/The
Needle and the Damage Done/Bad Fog Of Loneliness*/Old Man/Heart Of Gold/Dance
Dance Dance*/A Man Needs A Maid (Alternate Mix)/Harvest/Journey Through The
Past*/Are You Ready For The Country?/Alabama/Words (Between The Lines Of
Age)/Soldier (Alternate Mix)/War Song (NY)
DVD Ten: Journey Through The Past
(Film)
Online Downloads Available After
Purchasing Set: I Wonder (The Squires Rehearsal)/Here We Are In The Years (New
Mix)/Cinnamon Girl (Filmore East 1970)/Mr Soul (Buffalo Springfield 1967)/The
Rent Is Always Due/Shakey Pictures Fanfare/It's My Time (The Mynah Birds)/Go On
and Cry (The Mynah Birds)/I Ain't Got The Blues*/Mustang (The Squires)
* = Previously Unreleased Recording
"I
will stay with you if you stay with me said the fiddler to the drum and we'll
make good time on a journey through the past"
Some thirty years in the making, 'Archives' is
a colossal exercise. Most box sets come in a small box - 'Archives' is a block
set which comes in a block. A majority of these sets tease fans with a few
tidbits of outtakes and rarities buried amongst a few choice highlights from
the catalogue - Neil's includes whole unreleased shows in between
ever-so-nearly completely everything he ever released between his first
recording decade. Many similar boxes contain a booklet with a few rare photos
or maybe a film clip or two - Neil's come with cd-roms on each disc leading to
a 'virtual filing cabinet' full of unseen photos, lyrics, scraps of paper and
odds and ends, as well as a full film and various easter eggs of him working on
his project. Most box sets give you some idea about an artist and takes up a
few hours of your life - this one demands your attention and relies on your
patience and it can takes days or weeks to get through it all - and at first
'getting through it' is what this set feels like. This is no best-of with extra
thrown in. You have to be a huge Neil Young nut to make the most out of it
rather than a casual fan and of course the set only covers the years through to
1972 before many of his biggest songs ('Cortez The Killer' 'Like A Hurricane'
and 'Harvest Moon') were even written.
As the title 'archives' implies, this isn't
meant to be a selection, but a 'whole' and it comes frustratingly close to
being complete with everything releasable recorded by Neil across his chosen
'decade'. Obviously the non-Young Springfield stuff is missing and you can
understand why Neil has only chosen to give us a selection of Squires songs and
early demos here even though another sixteen Squires recordings at least still
exist in his 'real' archives. The 'Mynah Birds' material too doesn't feature
much Young input and are hard if not impossible to get hold of licensing rights
for anyway. However how much greater would this set have been if we'd had every
single Young song from the Springfield days here (this set is missing such
classics as 'Do I Have To Come Right Out and Say It?' and 'On The Way Home')
and every single track from 'Neil Young' 'Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere'
'After The Goldrush' 'Harvest' and the increasingly rare 'Journey Thru The
Past'? Admittedly practically everything you'd ever want is here and most songs
can be heard in one version or another, but for the mammoth price and the
colossal commitment this set demands it would have been nice to have squeezed
an extra disc out of this set and really made it complete (by contrast all of
Neil's period CSNY songs are here, including some from the live '4 Way Street',
although then again there never were that many).
What we do get, however, is pretty good. The
first disc is especially fascinating featuring no less than fourteen unreleased
recordings (and kudos to you if you're one of about three people in the whole
world who own the only released material on the disc, the 1963 Squire single of
'The Sultan' and 'Aurora!') Yes these are earyl, simple, often surprisingly
cheesy songs and hearing Neil pretending he's Hank Marvin is less interesting
than Neil Young knowing he was put on this earth to be a second Bob Dylan, but
The Squires sound like a band who are going places - or should do places
further than Winnipeg anyway. 'Aurora' is especially good, with her posh spoken
announcement and Shadows dance-steps but so are some of the unreleased material
featuring Neil's first wobbly vocals on the Four Seasons style 'I'm A Man and I
Can't Cry' or the first stirrings of his own voice on 'I Wonder'. Three songs
with old Canadian school pal Comrie Smith on a sleepover-with-tape-recorders
(is there any other sort?) are also special, as Neil gets to rekindle an old
friendship through music and he gets to show his pal some new songs in the new
Dylan style while his mate passes on a love for the blues. The solo demos are
the weakest on the disc, being less interesting than most of the ones that made
it to the Buffalo Springfield box set (the couple that are the same songs are
earlier performances, not yet as strong) but these have their moments too with
'The Ballad Of Peggy Grover' showing that Neil wasn't just Dylan's disciple but
arguably his equal. Yes casual fans will just hear grotty tape hiss, simple
guitar-only songs and instrumentals that could be by anyone (well, by anyone
with a guitar and talent like Neil's, as you can still tell the Hank Marvin
licks are his) - but for true fans this first disc is a treasure trove, a
cornucopia of delights, that reveal Neil slowly going stage by stage from a
wannabe to a fully fledged artist like no one else around.
Thereafter the set is divided up between discs
that mix the mostly familiar and the occasional rare gem or unreleased tracks
and entire unheard live tapes. Most of these live shows were either released
separately at the time this box came out or shortly after (which must have been
a pain for fans who forked out for the full thing) and we've reviewed 'Live At
The Riverboat' 'The Fillmore East' and 'Live At Massey Hall' separately in this
book - odd that 'Sugar Mountain - Canterbury House' isn't here complete by the
way though we do get the two best songs, the title track and a moving 'Nowadays
Clancy Can't Even Sing', a song making its third appearance on the set). As for
the rarities and unissued material they include lots of hidden unlisted bonus
tracks, the most interesting ones being a blurry bootleg of ten minutes from
the Springfield's last live show in 1968 (labelled 'This Is It!'), a
fascinating live CSNY recording of 'I've Loved Her So Long' never released on
bootleg with characteristically pretty harmonies and an alternate early version
of 'Birds' alongside less interesting reproductions of already-famous
recordings of 'Clancy' yet again and 'The Emperor Of Wyoming, which Neil should
have just listed as part of the set
rather than trying to hide.
Scattered across the set are such rarities as
'Sea Of madness' (the rather good and funky Young song performed by CSNY the
week after Woodstock which somehow made it's way to the various artists first
Woodstock set anyway), the Nash collaboraton 'War Song' (which used to be about
the rarest Young release around and is a rather good Nixon-baiting sequel to
'Ohio'), 'Soldier' (the 'lost' song thrown away at the end of the 'Journey Thru
The Past' set), 'Music Is Love' from David Crosby's 'If I Could Only Remember
My Name' album which is a bit odd (Neil only provides some shrill harmonies and
some marimbas - overdubbed without the song's main composer's knowledge!) and a
couple of alternate mixes (with a less shrill 'A Man Needs A Maid' sounding
pretty good). In unreleased terms there's actually very little to be heard past
the live albums and the opening disc - especially given all the prior media
coverage and the hefty price-tag - but there are a few gems here too. 'Sell
Out' is a Stones-like Springfield jam that's silly and short but comes with
some nice stinging guitar from Stills and Young, 'Slowly Burning' is a
late-period Springfield number that's aiming for the orchestral loveliness of
'Expecting To Fly' using just rock and roll instruments that only falls a
fraction short, there's a rehearsal take of 'Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere'
cut during sessions for the debut album and in that album's more 'epic' style
complete with unexpected flute solo (!), the gorgeous post-Goldrush pre-Harvest
lament 'Everybody's Alone', the simple but fun 'Dance Dance Dance' later given
to Crazy Horse for their first album, an early 'See The Sky About To Rain',
weirdo country cover 'It Might Have Been' where Crazy Horse seem very lost and
confused, the moving 'Doom Trilogy' precursor 'Bad Fog Of Loneliness' and a
much more countryfied 'Heart Of Gold' in concert. Of these recordings, only
'Everybody's Alone' and 'Bad Fog' are unreleased material up to the standard of
what came out on the albums but for true fans all of them are interesting and
add up to our patchwork quilt knowledge of Young's many facets and styles.
As for the packaging, it all makes sense. From
the outside this box is drab, bland and dreary and looks a mess sitting on the
shelf (not least because it's about four times the size of any 'normal' box).
Inside the box doesn't look a lot better, seeming like a 'scrapbook' kept by a
ten year old whose as bad with scissors as I am and deliberately painted a
faded yellow. However the discs themselves are presented with care, each one
covering a different era in Neil's lifetime listed by where he lived rather
than by album or band (although 'Topanga Three' deserves a better name!) Rare
photographs abound and compared to the box the CDs are bright and energetic.
The discs get even more exciting if you play them on a computer hooked up to
the internet where each one 'unlocks' certain 'extras' that vary from yet more
unheard material not thought important enough to make the album (such as a
couple of Mynah Birds tracks and yet more Squires songs which are outtakes of
the ones that did make the set), plus numerous funny videos including Neil
buying a CSNY bootleg and ranting at the hapless record store owner for selling
it ('Who was that guy?' he asks the cameraman at the end, none the wiser), Neil
in 2008 opening an envelope of lyrics he posted to himself in 1962 as 'proof of
copyright' and the inevitable discussions of cars (presumably we'll get stuff
about trains when and if we ever get an 'Archives II'). Many of these are included
as 'easter eggs' so you can lose far too many hours of your life randomly
hitting buttons and watching clips through to the end to see if you get
anything hidden away - if ever a box was made for the nerdy fan who wants to
own everything then it's this one and I can see now why Neil kept delaying this
set (first discussed as early as 1977 when we got 'Decade' instead) until the
technology was 'right' Then there's the entire 'Journey Thru The Past' film
officially available for the first time in 45 years and it's, erm, well, let's
just say by the time you've flogged your way through the rest of this set
you're mind will be numb enough to sit through anything including this curious
collection of archive TV footage, dreamscapes and rehearsals. I thought my mind
was weird, but I feel a lot more 'normal' after seeing this film. 'Human
Highway', which might be on 'Archives II', will perform a similar function...
Overall, 'Archives' sometimes feels
overwhelming. Nine discs covering ten years (during the first five of which
Neil didn't actually release much music, condensed here to just two of the nine
discs) seems like a bit much for anyone - and at least Pink Floyd had the sense
to release everything old as well as the new stuff on their similar behemoth of
a set so future fans wouldn't still have to track other stuff down. In some
ways, after waiting so long and being teased with snippets and anecdotes across
the making of twenty odd albums since we first heard about it 'Archives' is an
anti-climax, with live discs we can buy elsewhere and a jumbled up running
order that could have done with another few months work to make it perfect.
However there's no denying the worth and brilliance of much of the material
here or the generosity of the early recordings and various online extras. Will
there ever be an 'Archives Two', as first promised when this set first came out
around a decade ago? Well, for the sake of my nerves and my bank balance I'm
not sure if I could go through this experience again - especially as that set
is likely to start with the 'Doom Trilogy' and will end around 'Re-Ac-Tor'
which will make Volume One easy listening by comparison. However the fan inme
loves the fact that, after years of talking about them, Neil's finally allowed
fans the chance to hear all these parallel Young albums that were either
discussed and abandoned or replaced by something better that came along. Many
of the live records here are better than any of the studiio albums (I'd take
'Massey Hall' over 'Harvest' any-day) and there's so much about this set to
enjoy. Perhaps a bit too much if I'm honest...This isn't a set this is a house,
this isn't a greatest hits it's (very nearly) everything - but then this isn't
just any old artist we're talking about here, this is Neil Young so of course
this set somehow makes perfect (if pricey) sense.
Pegi
Young "Foul Deeds"
(Warner Brothers, June 2010)
Pleasing To Me/Broken Vows/Foul
Deeds/Starting Over/Who Knew?/Side Of The Road/Blues Sunday/Travelling/Body
Breaks/Travelling (With The Band)/Love Like Water (Live)
"Body
aches and the head takes it's time, you'll get over yours and I'll get over
mine, and the sun will shine..."
Pegi's
second album is arguably more groundbreaking than her husband's contemporary
set 'Le Noise'. Rather than perform old songs solo Pegi has built a bigger band
around her and is much more open and honest as a writer, even if her singing is
sadly a little further down the road to country girl parody. As well as Neil,
Ben and Spooner Pegi has added her fellow Shocking Pink Anthony Crawford and
regular bass player Rick Rosas and the sound is even more Neil-like. So are the
songs, which are frequently tough and uncompromising as the Young's marriage
unravels and Pegi oozes a slow, tough, bravado across the album. 'Broken Vows'
is a slow, stately rocker in which a prim and proper Pegi sings about herself
in third person 'She never saw it coming, because she believed in your truth!'
The title track has Pegi digging out her inner blues singer as she pleads for a
second chance and that she's 'waiting by the door' for someone (whose clearly
Neil) just as soon as he's finished 'playing this game'. 'Who Knew' and 'Starting
Over' are both Shania Twain-style country-rocker about moving on despite 'an
ache in my heart'. However the best song is the most Young-like, the mournful
ballad 'Travellin' about feeling restless and moving on after being in one
place for too long - it's basically 'White Line' but sung from a sadder place.
Neil has never been this direct (even if 'Storytone', his 'goodbye' album to
Pegi from 2014, comes closest) and that honesty is what makes this album, even
when Pegi is trying out different characters rather than singing from the
heart. The covers aren't as strong as Pegi's own songs as she sings them the
same way too, but that doesn't matter - this is a fabulous album more than
worthy of the Young name.
Pegi
Young "Bracing For Impact"
(Warner Brothers, November 2011)
Flatline Mama/Med Line/Trouble In A
Bottle/No heartbeat Sounds/I Don't Want To Talk About It/ Lie/No 9 Train/Daddy
Married Satan/Doghouse/Gonna Walk Away/Song For A Baby Girl
"Trouble
in a bottle coursing through your veins, try and hide from it and it finds you
just the same"
Pegi
clearly got her prolificness from her husband too as she returns with a third
album within five years. By and large this is the weakest album of the four
Pegi has released so far. It's not that this album is bad, but it features more
cover songs than normal and lacks the innocence of the first album and the
knowing hurt of the second, sounding more like your average country-rock album.
That said it's still a superior
country-rock album and Pegi is singing more like herself across this album,
with a natural air that suits the bigger band sound behind her. There are also
two songs that every Neil fans needs to hear - Pegi's wicked take on
'Doghouse', a comedy song about having an affair that was first heard on the
BlueNotes tour in 1988 (Neil's version came out on 'Bluenote Cafe') and sung
with real bravado and a knowing sneer and a pretty take on Danny Whitten's 'I
Don't Want To Talk About It', a song that fits for so many circumstances
including this one. Though 'Braced For Impact' tries hard to be a cooler and
uncaring album, the misery of the period is still very much on show and infuses
all the best songs here once more, especially 'Gonna Walk Away' the best of the
originals in which Pegi takes a leaf from the 1971 Crazy Horse album and takes
a sad song and tries to make it better.
"Americana"
(Reprise, June 2012)
Oh! Susannah/Clementine/Tom
Duala/Gallows Pole/Get A Job/Travel On/High Flyin' Bird/Jesus Chariot/This Land
Is Your Land/Wayfarin' Stranger/God Save The Queen
"We'll
all sing Hallelujah when it ends, as Neil teams back up with some old friends,
but full of weirdo songs that go on for far too long, Neil's going not going
round the mountain but the bend!"
I'd
never realised how much I hated 'Oh! Susannah' before hearing the version on
this record. Or 'Clementine' come to that. Or 'Tom Dooley'. Or the hideously
right-wing 'Get A Job' (yeah, right, recording that in the middle of a credit
crunch was going to be a good idea). Or, heck, pretty much all of this record
(with the exception of 'God Save The Queen'. I'd always hated that, even though
Neil thankfully skips the racist second verse). To be honest even if Crazy
Horse had chosen a selection of favourites from the AAA catalogue to jam away
on as a 'warm up' for the 'Psychedelic Pill' album I don't think I'd have been
too pleased. Every song here, whatever century it comes from, whatever key the
original was in, whatever the story behind the words, just comes out sounding
like the same old Crazy Horse 'Ragged Glory' era jamming session. 'Americana'
is Crazy Horse at their most discordant, simplest and rawest and Neil even
fails his 'first thought only thought' litmus test thanks to some over-powered
overdubs of all-girl choirs. Also you've never heard a 'sha na na' as weak as
Crazy Horse's. Even the songs that have something going for them are dragged
out way past their bedtime, to the point when the Horse are playing the same
parts over and over because no one has the courage to stop yet (those of you
who've sat through the bootleg sessions of 'Ragged Glory' will already know what
this is like). This is one of those albums that absolutely anyone else would
have kept safely under lock and key in the vaults, getting out once a year at
Christmas to giggle at while drunk. Neil being Neil, it became a big publicity
blitz that actually hurt sales for the 'proper' album to come 'Psychedelic
Pill'. It's Neil's worst waste of vinyl/compact disc/pono player since
'Greendale'.
It's
also, on occasion, a lot of fun. Having Crazy Horse at their most primal tackle
some of the most famous songs in American folklore (and British with 'God Save
The Queen' segueing into 'My Country 'Tis Of Thee' at the end) is certainly a
new way of looking at your record collection and the band are their usual mix
of reverent and anarchic. Even more than most Crazy Horse albums this one
subtly glides from tongue-in-cheek parody to heartfelt protest in a matter of
seconds ('Get A Job' starts out as the most stupid song ever, before turning
sad somewhere about the third repeat, while murder tale 'Tom Dooley' goes from
ha-ha to oh-no in the time it takes Neil to raise a knife). Though everything
is played with same hard pounding backbeat familiar from any Crazy Horse album
from 'Zuma' onwards, there's more subtlety here than normal behind the
smokescreen of chunky chords and feedback. Plus in 'High Flyin' Bird' (the
Jefferson Airplane classic that gave Noel Gallagher his post-Oasis band name)
the Horse finally get a song to match their mood and they sound pretty good on
it. However the album should have been even better: in the lead-up to this
album Neil tried to give all sorts of reasons why he was riding the Horse
through some of the most over-heard and least-suitable songs he possibly could
by wanting to make this album a 'dark' take on America's history 'complete with
the ugly verses most versions cut'. Plus the packaging keeps making mention of
American Indians and Crazy Horse's namesake, making it seem as if this is going
to be an American Indian protest album on a footing with Johnny Cash's
greatest(and most Neil-ish) LP 'Bitter Tears'. Sadly that didn't happen (even
'God Save The Queen' cuts before we get to the really controversial bit about
the English having the right to rob the French because they're stupid - they so
should have written their own comeback for 'La Marseille'!) The result is an
interesting curio, which would have been a riot leaked on bootleg and which
might have gathered mild attention if released in decades to come as part of
the ongoing 'Archives' series of CDs, but falls apart badly when left to rise
and fall depending on its merits as 'Neil Young and Crazy Horse's new album'.
'Oh! Susannah' starts off like every other Young song for Crazy Horse in the
past twenty years so it's rather a surprise when it slowly meanders it's way
into Stephen Foster's folk standard 'Oh! Susannah' (via Tim Rose's arrangement
for The Big Three). Amazingly Neil is the second member of CSNY to record this
folk song about banjos and knees (The Byrds made it the lact track on 'Turn!
Turn! Turn!' where it was even more unexpected). This is one of the better
tracks, with Neil pronouncing the letters of 'banjo' rather than the word and
the backing choir getting mellow repeating the title over and over. However
even the most supportive fan is already thinking 'this album is a joke, right?'
from this opening number.
The
next pretty girl to get the heavy Horse treatment is 'Clementine', usually a children's song - people
forget that it's a dark song about murder (or at least drowning). The narrator
loses either his wife or his daughter (the song is vague) as she drowns in a
pool and he experiences guilt at being unable to save her. Neil's weedy vocal
and the rock solemnity with which the Horse play do weird things to the rather
pretty original sing-songy melody though and the result is a recording that's
likely to drive you to murder to be honest.
'Tom Dula'
- better known as 'Tom Dooley' -is worse. Crazy Horse scream his name over and
over for thirty seconds before anything interesting happens and even then it's
not that interesting, with Neil changing the melody to a slowed down version of
'Goin' Home' from 'Are You Passionate?' I've never understood why this 1860s
folk song about a murderer getting away with his crime was so popular
possessing neither clever words nor emotional drama and while the original tune
wasn't that great either at least it had one which is more than Crazy Horse's
does. Even for fans used to 27 minutes of 'Driftin' Back' and 14 of 'Change
Your Mind' this eight minute plod isn't half boring.
Finnish
folk song 'Gallows Pole'
(so much for this album being Americana!) is - as you might expect - more
gallows humour, performed by the band with a lighter step than usual on this
album as a woman tries to delay her death because she knows someone is coming
to her rescue and thinks she's spotted him in the crowd (the twist is he's come
to see her hang for a crime he committed himself!) The sudden purity of the
choir is distracting through and only Ralph's manic military drumming catches
the ear.
The
Silhouettes scored a big hit with 'Get A Job', perhaps because there was near record employment at
the time so more people got the 'joke'. Recording a song in which the
unemployed are dismissed as lazy and liars is dangerous ground indeed in 2011
when the job market was at an all-time low (and David Cameron and the right
wing press between them pushed many of the unemployed to suicide as it was).
Neil thinks he's having fun with all his yip-yip-yips and sha-na-na-nas but
really it sounds like he's vamping until he can remember what the original tune
was and never quite finds it. However by the final repeat of the last verse
everything is in sync and Neil sounds bitter and angry that his beloved doesn't
believe him. Crazy Horse get to relive their past as doo-wop band Danny and The
Memories for a few precious moments too.
'Travel On'
is the most Young-like song here, despite being another English standards
(again, most of 'Americana' isn't American!) Neil's narrator is getting
restless and leaving for a more interesting town with better weather -
presumably he's the 'Johnny' who refuses to 'come home' when 'papa' asks him
to. This lopsided jig isn't one of the album's better moments though and is
either too lightweight (when the Horse play on their own) or too heavy (when
they're joined by a choir). Only a gritty Young solo, delayed past it's natural
point to two minutes into the song, really excites.
Neil
learnt Billy Ed Wheeler's folk classic 'High Flyin' Bird' from Stephen Stills according to the album's
sleevenotes (although he means pre-Springfield band 'The Au Go Go Singers' not
'The Company' as he calls them here). Had Stills recorded a cover he'd have
done it like his other cover songs, throwing so much at the song to see what
would stick that it would be barely unrecognisable by the end (Stills did that
with many a Young song amongst others). But Neil simply slows the song down and
adds a choir. The song is the one track here good enough to survive the
bombardment though and Neil's howling guitar lines of desperation do show a
commitment and feeling rare for this album, making it easily the standout
track.
'Jesus' Chariot' marks the third time an AAA band recorded a variation on 'She'll
Be Comin' Round The Mountain'. Sadly Crazy Horse weren't produced by Shel Talmy
by the other two (The Kinks and The Who - being out of copyright it was a
sneaky way for the producer to get songwriting royalties for 'arranging' a song
everybody knew how to play already). On the plus side Neil sticks some of the
rarer verses in, which makes this more of a song than normal ('We'll all go out
to meet her when she comes', 'we will kill the old red rooster when she comes'
and most weirdly of all 'She will bring us to the portal when she comes' - is
this song about Stargate SG1?!) - on the minus side that means this song runs
for far longer than normal without any difference between melody on this very
repetitive song. Frank Sampedro's raspy backing vocals are a delight though. A
mistake in all copies of the lyric booklet mean that the lyrics are printed
twice, under the heading 'This Land Is My Land' as well.
'This Land Is My Land' is the album's other (relative) highlight thanks to a lighter
use of the amplifiers and a bigger cameo from the choir. That's wife Pegi and
one time sparring partner Stephen Stills on alternating verses where Pegi
sounds shy and Stills sounds hoarse. Woody Guthrie wrote the song in the 1940s
as a less prejudiced alternative to 'God Bless America' that actually welcomed
it's immigrants. Thankfully he didn't live to hear Neil's ragged version of his
song.
'Wayfarin' Stranger' is the shortest song here at three minutes (yay!) but feels like
one hell of a lot longer thanks to another repetitive performance and a Young
vocal best described as 'indecipherable' (boo!) Though a 19th century song
generally credited to 'anonymous', Neil gives credit in the sleevenotes to Burl
Ives' arrangement which the Horse borrowed word for word, though there aren't
actually that many of them as the song keeps going round and round instead. The
narrator travels towards a better place which is presumably death. We're not
that lucky though because we still have to sit through...
Finale
'God Save The Queen',
sped up nearly beyond all recognition and treated to the same gruff respect as
Hendrix's similar take on 'The Star Spangled Banner'. It's odd to hear a
Canadian, backed by a bunch of Americans (including one born to Spanish
immigrant parents) cheering on the English Queen with what sounds like
uncharacteristic reverence. Frankly, The Queen doesn't deserve even the two
minutes it must have taken the band to come up with the arrangement and Neil's
vocal is ugly and raw even for this album (she probably doesn't even own a Neil
Young album!) and covering, say, The Sex Pistols' 'God Save The Queen' would
have been a far better, erm, 'tribute' (The Sex Pistols have more in common
with Crazy Horse than people assume). The choir interrupt for a blast of 'My
Country 'Tis Of Thee' but this is too high and warbly and doesn't have the same
tender tones as Crosby's versions of the song (recording it with Nash twice, in
1989 and 2005).
Oh
Crazy Horse arise, take these tears from my eyes, before I scream. These covers
are too raw, I can't take any more, you've run out of steam. You should be
victorious, make us happy and glorious, instead I am furious - what happened to
the Crazy Horse team?! 'Americana' is a joke, that could have been made by any
bloke with guitar and amp, but it's Neil so of course it is, and so Crazy Horse
it is, they still sound like champs. But please no volume two, there's enough
good sets out there to review and I think I've spent longer on this album than
you, get back to those Crazy Horse themes!
The
Billy Talbot Band "On The Road To Spearfish"
(Vapor Records, May 2013)
Empty Stadium/Runnin' Around/Cold
Wind/On The Road To Spearfish/Big Rain/The Herd/Miller Drive/God and Me/Ring
The Bell
Halfway
to nowhere - and I'm not turning back, I'm talking about colours and old rock
and roll, I'm talking 'bout women and songs for the soul"
More
gruff beauty from Billy as this album about getting older and preserving the
old is even more consistent and brilliant than the debut nine years earlier. Billy
has really grown into his voice and he's found the best backing for it too,
with the sort of low-key spookiness of 'On The Beach' and the thoughtful lyrics
of 'Prairie Wind'. The album is a loose concept work, revolving around an old
house that Billy and his wife did up after finding it dilapidated and uncared
for, making it their new home. There are all sorts of lyrics about moving on
while looking back and realising how far you've come and how many houses you've
lived in, with Billy - a year before suffering a stroke - singing sweetly about
wanting to retire while people are still listening. 'Empty Stadium' is a
gorgeous opening song, funeralic, melancholy and realistic about how few years
the Talbots may have left to live in their new property, but also an upbeat
mood about how things will still live on. Other highlights include the
strutting horn-drenched rocker 'Runnin' Around' (which sounds like the
Bluenotes should have done), the messy 'Mirrorball' style title track and the
pretty ballad 'The Herd', which is like a Crazy Horse album with Brian Wilson
producing - simple, slow and really really beautiful. On the down side there's
only the dreary over-long ballad 'Cold Wind' (which sounds very much like
'Storytone', the album Neil was working on at the time). All in all this is
another fine effort as Billy comes to terms with love lost in the past and love
overflowing in the future, while working out what he's learnt from his life so
far. A special kind of album, easily the equal of any Young album of the era.
Billy published a lengthy 'making of' video for the entire album on his Youtube
channel which is well worth a look if you want to try the album out before
buying it first!
"A Letter Home"
(Reprise,
April 2014)
Intro
(Spoken Word)/Changes/Girl From The North Country/Needle Of Death/Early Morning
Rain/Crazy/Reason To Believe/On The Road Again/If You Could Read My Mind/Since
I Met You Baby/My Hometown/I Wonder If I Care As Much
Bonus
Tracks: Blowin' In The Wind/Crazy (Alternate Take)
"The hero would be me, but heroes
often fail"
There
are many moments when even as a fully paid-up, vinyl-carrying member of the
Neil Young community I still think to myself 'he's lost it - finally'. 'A
Letter Home' is perhaps the moment when I thought that the most: after years of
plugging away high technology and writing too many songs to fit on his own CDs,
Neil records a blurry badly recorded mono covers album. Taking a break from his
'pono' music player, Neil 'borrows' his new pal Jack White's new toy: a 1947 Vpoiuce-O-Graph
booth voice recording machine of the sort normally kept in the back of record
shops and which The Squires probably used when cutting their first single 'The
Sultan' back in 1963. Neil must have felt as if he was at 'home' after so many
years of cutting edge technology - and yet this album's theme of homesickness.
The first release after Neil's split with wife Pegi to move in with actress
Darryl Hannah, like the 'proper' main course to follow 'Storytone' it's full of
betrayal and one hell of a lot of guilt. Neil's weird spoken word passage was
taken by many fans at the time as more evidence of Neil's eccentricity, but in
retrospect it's deeply painful: Neil calls up his mum to apologise for not
being in touch more and chats away about nothing - about the weather in
Winnipeg and what's on TV and new inventions he's heard about as sons do. But
Rassy, of course, died in 1990 and Neil is actually speaking to her in heaven,
which gives lines like 'I'm sorry we
haven't spoken more' and 'I think you should start speaking to dad more' added
poignancy (Scott passed in 2005). Neil doesn't address his personal issues head
on (of course he doesn't - this is Neil Young after all!) but his voice drops
as he admits quietly 'Things haven't been that great lately - by day it's real
good, most of the time, but every once in a while all hell breaks loose ma and
it's not like anything I've ever seen before'. Neil passes on his best to 'Ben'
(pedal steel player Ben Keith who died in 2010) and says that he'll see his mum
soon 'But not too soon, because I have a lot of things down here I still really
need to do first'.
Most of
the songs are quietly sad too, with tearful performances by a man whose clearly
not himself and not usually this open with 'us' the listener (Neil probably
knows that, as a poorly promoted covers album
recorded in fuzzy one-speaker mono, this album is only going to sell to
true fans the way the 'Doom Trilogy' did) which in themselves makes them
interesting and better than usual covers albums. Rather than go for obvious
songs, Neil restricts himself to what would have been around, not necessarily
when this model of cylinder machine was in the shops but up to the mid 1960s
when this sort of thing were around and when Neil and his peers stopped using
them. Neil's choice of songs too occasionally strikes gold, such as the Bert
Jansch classic 'Needle Of Death' (the song that inspired 'The Needle and The
Damage Done' - Neil was friends with Bert and toured with him which gives this
song added poignancy given that Bert only died in 2011)and fellow Canadian
Gordon Lightfoot's lovely 'If You Could Only Read My Mind'. However even when
this album gets the song and performance write it's not exactly made for easy
listening with the 'gimmick' of the lo-fi quality and the choice of some
lacklustre and rather obvious songs ruining what could have been a sweet album.
The result is an album that will test your patience for the most part, even
more than usualm but unlike recent other experimental albums such as 'Dead Man'
or 'Americana' at least this one will make you cry. Neil's own website records
this album as 'an unheard collection of re-discovered songs from the past
recorded on ancient electro-mechanical technology that captures and unleashes
the essence of something that could have been gone forever'. Most fans will
remember it as 'That weird unlistenable album that sounds terrible even when
bought on a system that plays really good technology and on which Neil seems to
have the blues but won't tell us why'. This work was ignored by many but still
became the first all-mono work in decades to make the UK album top twenty!
We've
covered 'Introduction'
already - but did we mention Neil's weird rap about a machine that can control
the weather? He clearly knows something we don't but thinks it's a bad idea and
that there are parts of the world that are just going 'mad', 'not everywhere
but just little bits here and there some of the time'.
Like
Neil, Phil Ochs left a lot of fan favourites as mere in concert favourites
without recording them in the studio - 'Changes' is such a song. Sounding not unlike Neil's own 'Lost In
Space', this abstract love song tries to deal with moving on by taking comfort from the changing nature
of, well, nature. Neil often used such themes in his work but his vocal is far
sadder than the original and he's clearly pining for Pegi.
Bob
Dylan's over-heard 'Girl From
The North Country' is faster and jazzier than most cover versions (see
Pete Townshend and Stephen Stills for two AAA versions) and one of the album's
weaker songs thanks to a throwaway vocal and the fact this song doesn't really
fit the album's theme of loss. Neil's guitar playing is as strong as ever
though.
Bert
Jansch's 'Needle of Death'
is the perfect choice of song though, written by the future Pentangle star
after worrying about a pal and mentor during his coffee house days and heading
up to his flat after he failed to show for a gig, only to learn he'd died that
night. This bleak song of 'how could you?' mixed with 'why did you?' and 'what
do I do now?' would have slotted in just fine on 'Tonight's The Night' and even
in lo-fi mono Neil's big heart shines through on the single best song and
single best performance on the record.
Gordon
Lightfoot gets not one song on this album but two! 'Early Morning Rain' isn't quite as strong as
'Mind' but it's fine enough and recalls Neil songs such as 'White Line' about
looking forward to moving on whilst also being upset at what was being left
behind. Neil's voice cracks on the line 'I miss my loved one so'. The early
Grateful Dead recorded this song too.
Neil's
old pal Willie Nelson wrote 'Crazy',
a song that's more about loneliness than madness. Neil tries to pull himself
together and think straight but he's too lovestruck and knows in his heart his
lover was always going to leave him one day. This song is a little too simple
compared to the rest of the album but Neil's pained middle eight plea of 'what
in the world did I do?' still catches the ear.
'Hey
mom' Neil interrupts, 'I can still do this!' I'm not so sure. Neil's somehow
got a piano into the tiny music-booth but his honky tonk stylings don't suit
Tim Hardin's 'Reason To Believe', a song in which he confronts his lover about
being with another. Neil admits he finds it 'hard to live without somebody
else' but his lines about 'never thinking of myself' came as a surprise to fans
who knew what this album was really about and how much of the Youngs' split was
Neil's doing.
Everybody's
sung 'On The Road Again'
at one point in their career surely - here's Neil's take. Another piano-based
song, it's noisier and even less made for easy listening than the rest of the
album, with Jack White providing some ragged guitar. Having two musicians playing
loud rather overbalances the poor seventy year old machine and the harmonies
between Neil and Jack make Crazy Horse sound like Simon and Garfunkel. 'That
was a funky one!' Neil laughs at the end. That wasn't the word that sprang to
my mind...
Because Neil
is an expert at reading minds. 'If
You Could Read My Mind' is a gorgeous song from Gordon Lightfoot that
could easily be a Young composition with its surreal imagery of ghosts and
memories and it's slow burning romance that's too shy to come right out and say
it. Neil adds a nice acoustic guitar interlude that wasn't in the original but
otherwise sings this passionate song down a notch. The ending, too, is just too
hard to take, as it were, full of tape 'scratches' and suddenly collapsing in
the middle of the song's riff.
Ivory
Joe Hunter wrote 'Since I Met
You Baby' in 1956, a honky tonk song about how much the narrator has
changed since meeting a loved one. Typically, though, Neil doesn't sound all
that happy about the change and sings as if his heart is breaking. An odd
combination with the piano, which sounds as if it's laughing at him.
Bruce
Sporingsteen's 'My Hometown'
is the odd one out on this album, written a good twenty years after everything
else here. An album track taken from the best-selling 'Born To Run' album in
1985, maybe Neil heard it from mutual pal (and occasional bandmate) Nils
Lofgren? Frankly Neil's (and Nils' songs come to that) are superior and this
song's tale of childhood poverty doesn't sound as sincere as others on the record.
Neil probably chose it because he, too, had a paper round he took with his dad
and could identify with walking round a home town before anyone else was up as
if he owned it.
The
original album closed with the weakest recording, a hideous off-key version of
The Everly Brothers' 'I Wonder
If I Care As Much' (the B-side of breakthrough hit 'Bye Bye Love' in
1957). Such a pretty song deserves a better recording than Neil and Jack
pretending to sing and standing way too close to the microphone, but it's sad
tale of loss and lament and wondering if the narrator is going to regret his
mistake for the rest of his life does fit the album 'mood' better than most
('The Everlys' arrangement of Temptation' would have been a better fit yet
though and a better song!)
The
vinyl box set edition of the album included a rather dull version of Dylan's 'Blowin' In The Wind' - a
writer conspicuous by his absence from this acoustic covers set. Neil did the
song much more justice when performed as an angry electric ballad on 1991 live
album 'Weld', but it's no worse than the rest of the album and should really
have been included on there instead of a pricey box set collectors had to track
down.
Overall,
then, 'A Letter Home' is not for the fainthearted fan. Neil is lost, his usual
creativity seems to have deserted him and his only response to the recent major
changes in his life is to hire an antique recording device and hide away
singing songs that used to give him comfort back when he was little. No other
artist would dare release an album of such low fidelity and indeed invention,
but then Neil's not like other artists and this is actually quite a revealing
album in context as, like 'Trans before it, Neil hides away his very real
heartbreak even from 'us' until he's had time to process it. Sadly where
'Trans' simply made understanding what was going on in Neil's life hard work,
'A Letter Home' is written in code and almost impossible to read fully. Not a
great album by any means, but a great Neil Young record if that makes sense,
full of endearing eccentricity and appealing oddness.
Pegi
Young "Lonely In A Crowded Room"
(Warner Brothers, October 2014)
I Be Weary/Obsession/Better Livin'
Through Chemicals/Ruler Of My Heart/Lonely Women Make Good Lovers/Don't Let Me
Be Lonely/Feels Just Like A Memory/In My Dreams/Walking On A Tightrope/Blame It
On Me
"Want
to be like a little girl, crawl back in my cocoon, don't want to talk to
nobody, just sleep until noon"
Pegi's
latest record at the time of writing is her only one released after the news of
her divorce with Neil broke and it's kind of her version of 'Storytone',
wondering where things went wrong and wishing they hadn't. This album shares
that album's confused hurt and bittersweet memories, but lacks the guilt and
strings as Pegi ignores sweetness and goes instead for the blues jugular. In
the end both albums bring out the best in this husband and wife team, as each
lift their game acknowledging what they learnt from the other. Being direct was
never really Neil's style so it's left to Pegi to tell us just how she really
feels without imagery of plastic flowers or seeing her lover in the rare-view
mirror of their car; she tells us how weary she is, how much she wants this
difficult period to blow over and how she hates the world and everyone in it,
at the moment at least. She sings about breaking plates on the head of the one
who betrayed her, of her great fear of being on her own forevermore after
spending so much of her life as part of a couple and - via Spooner's song - the
bitter irony that being lonely makes her a better lover, more desperate for
human contact rather than taking it for granted. This is a tough album, too
sweet and too country to be 'Tonight's The Night'; but clearly closer to the
ditch than the middle of the road for once and the sound really suits Pegi on
what might well be her strongest album yet. Most songs are highlights,
including the teary 'I Be Weary', the finger-snapping 'Better Livin' Through
Chemicals' (because it's better than suicide) and the aching gorgeousness of
'Don't Let Me Be Lonely'. There are a few songs that don't work - tracks like
'In My Dreams' and 'Walking On A Tightrope' that are a bit too poppy for such a
heartfelt album. However by and large this is a strong album performed with
real passion and soul and even though it sounds less like Neil's work than the
others it's the record each of his fans should start with, presenting a whole
different side to the story.
"The
Wolves" (EP)
(released via billytalbot.com, '2014')
On The Run/Know Your Knot/Practising
Patience/Looking Up
"A
world under harm, with tentative charm, holding him back"
Well,
this is a surprise. In 2014 Billy and Ralph got together to make their first
recordings together since 1989 for what's effectively a Crazy Horse in Wolf's
clothing (the pair decided to put the Horse name out to pasture as Frank didn't
want to be a part of these sessions). The pair have so far only released a
'teaser' EP with a full album yet to follow - and even that can only be heard
via a page on Billy's website (though the music is free to hear, which is
always good). It's a shame the pair haven't had a higher profile though because
this their best non-Young work in decades - maybe even since 1971? Billy has
had a real revival of fortune of late, discovering his songwriting 'voice'
while in his sixties and the delightfully atmospheric thoughtfulness of his
solo albums can be heard here too. Throw in Ralph, always up for a pretty
ballad, plus George Whitsell back in the band for the first time since 1972 and
you have a very interesting set of recordings that don't sound much like The
Rockets would have done if the 'old' band had returned in 1968 perhaps, but
which sounds pretty fine anyway. 'On The Run' features some stinging Young-like guitar by Whitsell
and sounds much like 'Ragged Glory' playing at slow speed, with mournful lyrics
about death and saying farewell that sound more like 'Sleeps With Angels'. Only
lead vocalist Ryan James Holzer sounds out of place, the 'Eddie Vedder' to this
album's 'Mirrorball'. The backing harmonies are nice though. 'Know Your Knot' is funkier
but just as moody, as a teary ballad slowly stutters into life with some
stinging guitar duels between Holzer and Whitsell. It's a shame the song spends
so long as an instrumental (with ghostly harmonies) as there's a great song in
here somewhere trying to get out. 'Practising Patience' cuts midway in, on a wonky mouthorgan note
before slowly getting into gear on the back of a fine Billy 'n' Ralph rhythm
track. The mood is like the wigged-out acoustic songs on 'Broken Arrow'.
Finally 'Looking Up'
has shades of 'Dance Dance Dance' about it before the guitars spark into a sort
of slow-motion sprint so common to the Horse. Again only the vocals disappoint
on a surreal song that would have been better if the guitars had been left to
ring out instead. Still this EP shows promise - yet again - as the sixth
version of Crazy Horse make their sixth set of new music together and may well
prove to be the best since the Whitten days.
"Earth"
(Reprise, June 2016)
Mother
Earth/Seed Justice/My Country Home/The Monsanto Years/Western Hero/Vampire
Blues/Hippie Dream/After The Goldrush/Human Highway//Big Box/People Want To
Hear About Love/Wolf Moon/Love and Only Love
"Take my head and change
my mind, how could people get so unkind?"
A revival, of sorts, for the abandoned Crazy
Horse album 'Toast' from 2000 (a work Frank Sampedro once described as 'the
sound of lots of bees farting). Teaming up with The Promise Of The Real to
perform 'The Monsanto Years' it made sense to throw in a few older songs that
tied into the same 'ecological' spirit or which shared similar themes about
'decay'. Throughout the record you can hear not just audience applause and
comments but whole species of birds, animals and insects as if Neil and band
have come together not just with the human population of the planet but
everybody. On paper that sounds quite fun - in practise it means two hours of
straining to hear 'Vampire Blues' through the screeching of a mannatee and
wondering if Neil's guitar is bursting into feedback or has been overdubbed
with the sound of a macaw. The (presumably crazy) horse that snorts its way
through the end of 'Vampire Blues' also deserves a whole spin-off album to
himself. Even more distracting is the dreaded return of the massed choir -
overdubbed later in the studio and with an all-too-obviously different sound -
which are even more ill-fitting here than they were on 'Living With War' and
'Americana'. Part live and far too raw and part over-polished and tidy, this
album is neither pretty nor pretty exciting and sounds like one of those
artificially bred foodstuffs Neil was criticising Monsanto for releasing into
the wild. 'Earth' has an important message to say and Neil had more than enough
great songs to say it with (where's 'Here We Are In The Years', Neil's first
ecological song, or 'Natural Beauty', arguably his best?) but one again in
Neil's live discography this botch-job isn't it. Once again bootlegs recorded
of the tour sound far more exciting and energising than ever this album does.
On the plus side at least Neil's song selection
is genuinely interesting this time around. There are several welcome returns or
even first appearances in the setlists for several great Young songs from the
past: 'Vampire Blues' from 'On The Beach' 'Hippie Dream' from 'Landing On
Water', 'My Country Home' from 'Ragged Glory', 'Western Hero' from 'Sleeps With
Angels' and the first 'After The Goldrush' in ever such a long time. 'Mother
Earth' (also from 'Ragged Glory') is the only song that improves on the
original though., with some fine pump organ, a faster tempo and a much tighter
performance. In fact Promise Of The Real sound good all round on the shorter
songs, transporting 'Hippie Dream' from an angry snarl of hopelessness into a
mournful menacing song of warning and having a lot more fun with the
nonsensical 'Vampire Blues' than ever the 'On The Beach' band ever did. However
they're no Crazy Horse and struggle to keep up on the extended jams (such as a
full twenty-eight minute version of 'Love and Only Love' that's nearly
unlistenable).As for the 'Monsanto' songs they sound so like the original
record they're pretty pointless - and in many cases they're worse thanks to the
decision to add electronic trickery to Neil's voice (which is in keeping with
the 'tampering with nature' theme of the album but not really in keeping
with the nature of a 'live' album). I'm
not sure I can quite forgive the ugly choir stuck on top of 'Western Hero'
either, turning what should be a light and shade song into an ugly obvious one
(though the Promise have, well, promise and power in spades, they lack even the
Horse's occasional subtlety). I've never been much of a fan of 'Human Highway'
either but it's never sounded as wretched as here, as wobbly pure country
lament. There's one new song on offer here too which was written after the
album but (unusually for Neil) on much the same theme: 'Seed Justice' is no
great loss but it's nice to have with another singalong protest chorus, more
snarling rock and roll riffs and one of the better uses of the choir as the
'silent majority' get a say in how the world is handled at last. That's a
little like the album as a whole in fact: there are some great moments, some
brave moments and any album that included a ten second solo by a laughing hyena
has got to be good - but too many sections of this album test your patience and
it's both too raw and too polished to make it's point as well as it might.
A
now complete list of Neil Young and related articles at Alan’s Album Archives:
'Neil Young' (1968) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/neil-young-1968-album-review.html
'Everybody Knows This Is
Nowhere' (1969)
http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/neil-young-and-crazy-horse-everybody.html
‘After The Goldrush’ (1970)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/neil-young-after-goldrush-1970.html?utm_source=BP_recent
'Crazy Horse' (1971) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/news-views-and-music-issue-48-crazy.html
'Harvest' (1972)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/neil-young-harvest-1972.html
'Time Fades Away' (1973) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/neil-young-time-fades-away-1973.html
'Time Fades Away' (1973) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/neil-young-time-fades-away-1973.html
'On The Beach' (1974)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/neil-young-on-beach-1974.html
'Tonight's The Night' (1975) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-66-neil-young-tonights-night.html
'Zuma' (1975)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/neil-young-and-crazy-horse-zuma-1975.html
'American Stars 'n' Bars' (1977) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/news-views-and-music-issue-70-neil.html
'Comes A Time' (1978) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/news-views-and-music-issue-29-neil.html
'American Stars 'n' Bars' (1977) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/news-views-and-music-issue-70-neil.html
'Comes A Time' (1978) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/news-views-and-music-issue-29-neil.html
'Rust Never Sleeps' (1979)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2014/01/neil-young-rust-never-sleeps-1979-album.html
'Hawks and Doves' (1980) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/news-views-and-music-issue-26-neil.html
'Hawks and Doves' (1980) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/news-views-and-music-issue-26-neil.html
'RelAclTor'
(1981) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/neil-young-and-crazy-horse-re-ac-tor.html
'Trans' (1982) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-84-neil-young-trans-1982.html
'Trans' (1982) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-84-neil-young-trans-1982.html
'Everybody's Rockin'
(1983)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2017/01/neil-young-everybodys-rockin-1983.html
'Old Ways' (1985)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2016/10/neil-young-old-ways-1985.html
‘Landing On Water’ (1986) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/neil-young-landing-on-water-1986.html
‘Landing On Water’ (1986) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/neil-young-landing-on-water-1986.html
'Life' (1987) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/news-views-and-music-issue-56-neil.html
‘This Note’s For You’
(1988)
https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/neil-young-this-notes-for-you-1988.html
'Freedom' (1988) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-92-neil-young-freedom-1988.html
'Freedom' (1988) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-92-neil-young-freedom-1988.html
'Ragged Glory' (1990)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/neil-young-and-crazy-horse-ragged-glory.html
'Weld' (1991) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-95-neil-young-weld-1991.html
'Weld' (1991) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-95-neil-young-weld-1991.html
'Harvest Moon' (1992)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/neil-young-harvest-moon-1992.html
'Sleeps With Angels' (1993) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/news-views-and-music-issue-121-neil.html
'Mirror Ball' (1995) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/news-views-and-music-issue-103-neil.html
'Sleeps With Angels' (1993) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/news-views-and-music-issue-121-neil.html
'Mirror Ball' (1995) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/news-views-and-music-issue-103-neil.html
'Broken Arrow' (1997) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/neil-young-and-crazy-horse-broken-arrow.html
‘Silver and Gold’ (2000)
https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/neil-young-silver-and-gold-2000.html
‘Are You Passionate?’
(2002)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/neil-young-and-mgs-are-you-passionate.html
'Greendale' (2003)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2016/05/neil-young-and-crazy-horse-greendale.html
‘Prairie Wind’(2005) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/neil-young-prairie-wind-2005.html
‘Prairie Wind’(2005) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/neil-young-prairie-wind-2005.html
‘Living With War’ (2006)
https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/neil-young-living-with-war-2006.html
‘Chrome Dreams II’ (2007)
https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/neil-young-chrome-dreams-two-2007.html
'Fork In The Road' (2009)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/neil-young-fork-in-road-2009.html
'Le Noise' (2011) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/news-views-and-music-issue-94-neil.html
'A Treasure' (1986/2012) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/news-views-and-music-issue-147-neil.html
'Le Noise' (2011) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/news-views-and-music-issue-94-neil.html
'A Treasure' (1986/2012) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/news-views-and-music-issue-147-neil.html
‘Psychedelic Pill’ (2012) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/neil-young-and-crazy-horse-psychedelic.html
'Storytone' (2014)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/neil-young-storytone-2014.html
'The Monsanto Years'
(2015) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/neil-young-and-promise-of-real-monsanto.html
'Peace Trail' (2016) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2017/02/neil-young-peace-trail-2016.html
‘The Visitor’ (2017) https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/neil-young-and-promise-of-real-visitor.html
The Best Unreleased Neil
Young recordings http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/neil-young-best-unreleased-recordings.html
Five Unreleased Albums https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/neil-young-guide-to-five-unreleased.html
Non-Album
Recordings Part One 1963-1974 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/neil-young-non-album-recordings-part.html
Non-Album
Recordings Part Two 1977-2016 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/neil-young-non-album-recordings-part_27.html
Live/Compilation/Crazy
Horse Albums Part One 1968-1972
https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/neil-young-livecompilationarchivecrazy.html
Live/Compilation/Crazy
Horse Albums Part Two 1977-2016
https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/neil-young-livecompilationarchivecrazy_18.html
Surviving TV
Clips 1970-2016
Landmark Concerts and Key
Cover Versions https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2018/07/neil-young-five-landmark-concerts-and.html
Neil Essay: Will To Love –
Spiritualism and The Unseen In Neil’s Music
https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2018/07/neil-young-essay-will-to-love.html
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