A Deep Dive Into Neil Young's 'Archives Vol. II: 1972-1976'

From the Stray Gators to the "Ditch Trilogy," Crazy Horse and Beyond...

Of course I remember the first time I read the greatest rock biography ever written. The year was 2009. I was still in the Army and had just recently transferred from Fort Bliss in El Paso, TX to Fort Lewis just south of Tacoma, WA. I hadn’t even been there two weeks however, when I was told to re-pack my rucksack and immediately catch a flight south to the National Training Center smack dab in the Mojave Desert for a month-long, pre-deployment exercise with my new unit.

Being the new guy, I really didn’t have much to do when I got there. The highlight of the entire experience was the day I drove a Colonel six hours there and back to Las Vegas and nearly got killed trying to pass a slow-moving Semi. “Pokerface” by Lady Gaga was on the radio. It was…very surreal.

With a 29 extra days to kill, and literally no where to go, I’d often crack open the 700-plus page biography of Neil Young I’d brought along to keep me company. It was called Shakey by a guy named Jimmy McDonough.

It blew my mind.

I’ve been a fan of Neil Young going back to forever. When I was still learning to play guitar I used to test new instruments at the nearby Guitar Center by revving up the riff to “Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)” over and over because it was one of maybe…three riffs I actually knew how to play. The other two were “Heart Full of Soul” by the Yardbirds and “Seven Nation Army” by the White Stripes.

But as much as I loved Neil and Everybody Knows This is Nowhere and “Old Man,” I really didn’t know much about the whole mythology that surrounded him. Honey slides, hearses, electric whizzers, and mercilessly owning Stephen Stills for decade after decade; these were the crucial revelations I discovered while waiting out my time in the Southern California swelter.

Shakey was also where I learned about Neil’s extensive shadow discography. What I had assumed was a near-complete collection of his entire recorded output on my 160GB iPod classic was actually far from it. Apparently, there were whole albums he recorded at the very height of his creative peak during the mid-1970s that were simply locked away somewhere in his Broken Arrow Ranch waiting for some undetermined day in the future when he would finally pick them up, dust them off and share them with the World. Hopefully.

It was just my luck that the first installment of his Archives series, Archives Vol. I dropped just a few months after I got back to Washington State. That set covered the earliest portions of his career and ended at 1972, right around the time he released of his blockbuster album Harvest. I listened to it ravenously, and was immediately eager for the next installment that I presumed would cover his infamous “Ditch Trilogy” era. That fabled period when he took the off-ramp away from mega-stardom to release a succession of increasingly dark, noisy and emotionally fraught rock and roll records with names like Time Fades Away, Tonight’s The Night and On The Beach.

So I waited. And waited. And waited. It ultimately took another dozen years, but finally, just before Thanksgiving in 2020, Neil finally unveiled Archives Vol. II: 1972-1976. 10 discs. 131 tracks. 63 of them previously unreleased. The whole thing is available right now on his official website. $20 buys you access for a whole year. I’ve been listening to portions of it almost daily ever since.

Now, I realize that not everyone is as enamored with Neil Young as I am. I don’t understand it, but I realize it. I also realize that a box set of this heft is really targeted for the truest of true diehards. Because, after all, as Neil himself told McDonough. “That’s what a fuckin’ archive is about, not ‘Here’s Neil Young in all his wonderfulness — the great, phenomenal fucking wonderfulness.’ I want people to know how fuckin’ terrible I was. How scared I was and how great I was. The real picture — that’s what I’m looking for. Not a product. And I think that’s what the die-hard fans want — the whole fuckin’ thing.”

If, on the other hand, you wanna cut through “the whole fuckin’ thing,” and get straight to the good parts, well, I hope this handy guide helps you on your journey through the past…

Disc 1 – Everybody’s Alone (1972–1973)

If Archives II accomplished only one thing, it really made me re-evaluate my opinion of the Stray Gators. I’ve always been a mind that Neil’s at his best when working with Crazy Horse — and it’s slight offshoot the Santa Monica Flyers — or as a member of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, but damn, the first two discs of this collection really put the lie to that theory.

The Stray Gators is the name Neil gave to the group of musicians that he collected together to help record his 1972 commercial goliath Harvest. On drums you’ve got Kenny Buttery, one of the greatest session drummers that Nashville has ever seen, and a frequent collaborator with Bob Dylan. That’s him on Blonde on Blonde, John Wesley Harding, and Nashville Skyline. On lap steel guitar, you’ve got Ben Keith, who Neil affectionally dubbed “Long Grain;” a play on Uncle Ben’s rice and Keith’s height. On bass, Tim Drummond who would go on to work with Neil on On the Beach, as well as tour with him in CSNY in ‘74.

Finally, on piano, Jack Nitzsche; a ‘60s pop music composer who worked extensively with the acclaimed Wrecking Crew while cooking up arrangements for Ike & Tina Turner, the Beach Boys, and the Monkees. He’d later win an Oscar for putting together the song "Up Where We Belong," in the Richard Gere film An Officer and a Gentleman. He also organized the famous 1964 T.A.M.I. Show where James Brown blew the doors off the Rolling Stones. I guess what I’m trying to say is that, the Stray Gators meant business.

The proof of their excellence can be heard in previously unreleased renditions of “Time Fades Away,” and “The Loner,” recorded at Neil’s Broken Arrow Ranch and out on the road in Oklahoma City, respectively. It’s even more evident in never-before-heard songs like “Come Along and Say You Will," and “Goodbye Christians on the Shore.” The latter is easily one of the most gorgeous pieces of music on this entire set. It’s a gloomy harmonica-fueled waltz, offset with springy slide guitar lines and delicate piano melodies in which Neil invokes an indifferent creator while awaiting Judgement Day.

But that’s hardly the only revelation. The disc opens with a tender, three pack of unreleased acoustic tracks that Neil laid down in a single day at A&M Recording Studios in LA on November 15, 1972. The first, “Letter From ‘Nam” was eventually repurposed years later as “Long Walk Home” on his 1987 album Life. The second, “Monday Morning,” was eventually electrified, renamed to “Last Dance,” and issued on the live album Time Fades Away. The third, however, “The Bridge,” is an entirely new piece of music; a tender lament for the end of a relationship. All three songs are bound together by some short, introductory banter captured between Young and his producer Henry Lewy. I especially enjoy Neil’s terse, “Well, fuck ‘em” after Lewy explains he can’t get the “rock and roll producer” in the next studio to turn down their volume.

I also have to shoutout the live version of “L.A.” which was recorded at Memorial Auditorium, Sacramento, CA. The song itself is fine. It’s more a personal trip for me to listen to something that occured in the same building where I picked up my High School diploma. Interesting Fact: Keith Richards almost died there from an electric shock in 1965.

Standout Song: “Goodbye Christians on the Shore.” It’s borderline criminal that it took 48 years to put this song out into the world.

Disc 2 – Tuscaloosa (1973)

“[The] Stray Gators, anchored by [bassist] Tim Drummond and [drummer] Kenny Buttrey, were unbelievable to play with!” Neil wrote on his Archives website. “They are all gone now but for me. So this is a special album personally, one I wish you had heard a long time ago as a ‘Harvest Greatest Hits’ live album or something. . . .but that was not to be.”

The second disc on Archives Vol. II is a recording taken from Neil’s performance with the Stray Gators at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa on February 5, 1973. It’s not a complete recording mind you. The soundboard tape console wasn’t rolling at the beginning of the show that night, and there are some additional tracks that ultimately didn’t make the cut because…reasons. Nevertheless, it’s a sublime show featuring wicked renditions of some of Neil’s most beloved songs like “Old Man,” “Heart of Gold,” and “After The Gold Rush.”

This was the same tour that spawned the contemporary live album Time Fades Away; a project that Neil has sometimes described as “the worst record I ever made...but as a documentary of what was happening to me, it was a great record.” I love Time Fades Away — shocking, right? — but Tuscaloosa presents a compelling counter-point to that album’s purposefully ramshackle vibe.

I’m sure if you could go back in time and ask the A&R team at Reprise in ‘73 which collection they’d prefer to release, the question would barely leave your lips before they screamed TUSCALOOSA! Whereas Time Fades Away was in part Neil’s attempt to exhibit the toll that the runaway success of Harvest had taken on him — “I felt like a product, and I had this band of all-star musicians that couldn't even look at each other. It was a total joke." — Tuscaloosa is a rather tight run through of hits and cherished deep cuts.

The fact that this show occurred early in the tour is also to its immense benefit. The mood is loose, but the playing is tight. Drummer Kenny Buttery hadn’t departed the entourage yet to be replaced by Jefferson Airplane percussionist Johnny Barbata. No offense to Barbata, but Buttery is in a different realm. Also, Neil hadn’t worn down his voice from the dual effects of tequila and a slate of 62-shows across three months that left him hollowed out shell by the end. He eventually developed a throat infection that was so debilitating that he had to call in his buddies David Crosby and Graham Nash in to give him a hand with some auxiliary backing just to finish the tour.

Thus, into the ditch.

Standout Song: It’s pretty hard to pick against “Alabama” in Alabama, but the sprawling, eight-minute long rendition of “Don’t Be Denied” can’t be denied.

Disc 3 – Tonight's the Night (1973)

Here’s an unpublished excerpt from an interview I conducted many years ago with Santa Monica Flyers guitarist Nils Lofgren where he talked about the experience of recording Tonight’s the Night at SIR Studios in the late Summer of 1973.

“Tonight’s the Night was kind of an antithesis to production. There was no overdubbing. We all did everything live. It was always a live take on a song. Neil didn’t even want us to know the songs very well. He wanted to get a very powerful, emotional performance before the musicians had time to really craft parts, which happens inevitably if you work on a song long enough. It was kind of a theme record, kind of a wake for our friends that we had lost, Danny Whitten and Bruce Barry.”

There was nothing planned about that record. That was a record where he would show us a song, or three or four, and we would play a mini-set. We would shoot pool and drink tequila until midnight starting around dinner. We wouldn’t even play until after midnight and into the early morning hours. We’d get up and do a performance piece of four or five songs that we barely knew. Neil was looking for this really primitive, souful rough vocal and [Producer] David Briggs warned us that as soon as he got the vocal that was it, we weren’t going to change a note.

Ralphie Molina, the drummer, and I would often ask to re-sing our parts because we barely knew the words and we’re sitting there trying to sing harmonies and play a song that we had barely learned, or were learning. But that was the theme of the record, and that moment was a totally improvised moment that just happened and it just so happened to be on the track where he thought his vocal was right so we were done.”

Standout Song: Of all the discs included among this collection, this one has the least amount of revelatory material. It’s basically Tonight’s the Night, with a few extended intros and outros tacked on here and there. But as you no doubt gleaned from Nils description above, so much of this album was done recorded by the seat of their pants. It makes sense that there just isn’t much left in the can from those sessions.

And yet. And YET! You still have a gem like "Raised on Robbery," featuring no less than Joni Mitchell on lead vocals. The song would appear in its full, official version a year later on her masterpiece Court & Spark. At least here we're allowed three minutes and thirty-seven seconds to ponder an alternate timeline where she took over the Santa Monica Flyers and fronted the world’s most elegant barroom band while headlining MSG and the Forum in LA…

Disc 4 – Roxy: Tonight’s the Night Live (1973)

“The first topless girl up here gets one of these boots ladies and gentlemen.”

That was Neil Young’s opening promise to the crush of industry insiders gathered in front of him on the Roxy stage in September 1973. There is scant evidence that anyone took him up on the offer.

The scene onstage around him that night was pure, ‘70s bacchanalia. Over there, a fake, plastic palm tree that he and his band The Santa Monica Flyers had swiped from SIR Studios. There was also a sturdy cigar store Indian onstage with a Gibson Explored swaying around his shoulders, as well as about $900 worth of glittery boots that he left dangling from his baby grand piano. Maximum kitsch, because as the man himself said that night, “Everything’s cheaper than it looks.”

Neil had arrived at the intimate Roxy Theater on Sunset Boulevard to play a set of songs that practically no one had ever heard before. Songs that wouldn't officially get released until nearly two years later when Tonight’s the Night finally hit the shelves. Crushing, inspired songs like “World on a String,” “New Mama,” "Roll Another Number (For the Road)," and “Speakin’ Out.”

“That night at the Roxy, we did just what we did when we were recording, except there was an audience there,” Santa Monica Flyers/Crazy Horse bassist Billy Talbot once told me. “There was a lot of different people — not that I notice that kind of stuff — but you could feel it in the air. It was an eventful scene.” His bandmate, drummer Ralph Molina agreed. “When you’re tuned-in as one, we forget there’s a room,” he said. “Could’ve been the garage, living room…etc.”

This show is quite literally unlike any other live performance you’ve ever heard before, outside of maybe Townes van Zandt’s Live at the Old Quarter. Despite the heaviness of the material and his own slightly alarming appearance — he looked something like a demented preacher in his white suit and long stringy hair — Neil tried to keep things light while addressing the crowd. During the song introductions — “I wrote this song in Albuquerque, it’s called ‘Albuquerque,’” — a slight Tequila buzz lends his words an involuntary warble. At one point he asks the lighting guy for a spotlight for the fake palm tree. During the song introductions — “I wrote this song in Albuquerque, it’s called ‘Albuquerque,’” — a slight Tequila buzz lends his words an involuntary warble.

Ultimately, Roxy: Tonight’s the Night Live is the echo of the long, lost Irish wake that Danny Whitten truly deserved. Whitten was once the guitarist in Neil’s group Crazy Horse. He’s the guy going toe-to-toe with Neil on “Down by the River” and “Cowgirl in the Sand.” You can also hear him singing on “Cinnamon Girl” too.

Whitten battled an addiction to heroin for years. It got to be so bad that Neil eventually showed him the door, giving him $50 and a plane ticket back to Los Angeles. He died of an overdose later that night. Neil was understandably crushed and remained that way for a long time. The day after hearing the news he wrote the song “Don’t Be Denied.”

Standout Song: The band decided to open the show with the title track, but it’s the second rendition of “Tonight’s The Night,” near the end of the set that really takes the cake. Way looser, and far more emotional; verging on the edge of collapse at every moment. The band manages to hold it together though, and the final explosion of frenzied guitar at the climax brings the crowd to their feet.

Disc 5 – Walk On (1973–1974)

There are many people who consider On The Beach to be Neil Young’s best album. I’m not sure Neil himself necessarily feels that way, but artists themselves are hardly ever the greatest judges of their own work. Neil himself once called On The Beach, “One of the most depressing records I’ve ever made,” which is probably one of the reasons he spent so many years after its release trying to bury it.

On The Beach wasn’t exactly a monster hit when it debuted in the summer of 1974. Fans hoping that Neil might return to the homespun sound of Harvest, the No. 1 smash that cemented him as a superstar, were sadly disappointed by the despair-riddled jams with names like “Revolution Blues,” “Vampire Blues,” “Ambulance Blues.” Even the title is a seagull-strewn bummer. On The Beach eventually went out of print in vinyl in the ‘80s and was only released on CD in 2003 following an online, fan-driven petition that accrued 5,000 signatures.

One of the enduring legacies of On The Beach, is the semi-popularization of honey slides, a weed and honey concoction cooked in a pan and guaranteed to put you on your ass. Guitarist Rusty Kershaw and pedal steel player Ben Keith were the ones responsible for bringing them to the party. “When that stuff started smokin’, boy, it would stink like hell. The studio smelled like a marijuana farm!” Keith told Neil’s biographer Jimmy McDonough. “This stuff was, like, much worse than heroin,” Neil’s manager Eliot Roberts recalled. “Much heavier. Rusty would pour it down your throat and within ten minutes you were catatonic.” Suddenly all those molasses slow tempos make a lot more sense.

Just like the Tonight’s The Night disc, Walk On is filled with available studio cuts taken from On The Beach, re-arranged and fleshed out with a few interesting diversions recorded at the time. The alternate version of “Bad Fog of Loneliness” is a definite highlight. As is the sparse rendition of “Greensleeves” that closes the disc out. And I’m never mad about getting to hear “Winterlong,” which was originally included on Neil’s 1977, career-retrospective Decade.

Standout Song: I’m personally of the mind that the three-disc CSNY 1974 set is one of the greatest live albums ever released. As songwriters, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Stephen Stills, and especially Neil Young were near the height of their powers, playing three and four hour shows a night in front of 50, 60, and sometimes 70,000 people. Meanwhile, they were using that platform to debut tracks that no one had ever even heard before, like the song “Traces,” which is included in its initial, tender form here. I’m not sure how a song as obviously wounded as “Traces” might’ve fit among the gloom and doom of the original On The Beach, but I’m certainly glad it found a home amid this collection.

Disc 6 – The Old Homestead (1974)

More than any disc in Archives Vol. II, The Old Homestead is the one to listen to if you’re looking to hear some totally new stuff. With the exception of a few live tracks captured at Chicago Stadium with CSNY, almost everything on The Old Homstead was recorded between July and December in 1974 either at his Broken Arrow Ranch or at Quadrafonic Sound Studios, Nashville. Almost all of it has been totally unreleased.

Interestingly, Neil decided to include three different versions of the song “Love/Art Blues” on this disc. Even though he busted it out quite often on the road with CSNY in 1974 and has played it live in the years since, for some reason “Love/Art Blues” never received an official album release. Three versions of the same song in a box set filled with 10 CDs might seem like overkill, but it offers a truly unique look at how he workshopped and tweaked new material…before ultimately scrapping the entire thing in true Neil fashion.

The first take was recorded he recorded by himself and with a producer at Broken Arrow in June. The second, was laid down in Nashville, accompanied by Ben Keith on a dobro and Tim Drummond on bass several months later in December. The final version was also recorded at Broken Arrow nearly three weeks later, again with Keith and Drummond, but also joined by Kenny Buttrey on drums and Stan Szelest on bass. It shouldn’t come as a surprise but the first take is the most visceral and affecting. If he had decided to put out Homegrown in ‘75, that’s the one I would’ve recommended going with.

As for the other 16 songs on The Old Homestead, there’s a lot to love! “Homefires” is a totally new track that bears a passing resemblance to the Beatles’ “Nowhere Man.” “Frozen Man” is another stunning previously unheard song. It’s a painfully self-flaggelating ditty in which Neil wonders amid a chirp of pinched guitar harmonics, “Who could live inside this frozen man?” Then you have “L.A. Girls and Ocean Boys,” a meandering piano ballad which addresses the fall-out from a relationship torn apart by infidelity.

Standout Song: The completely unheard songs on this disc are truly compelling, but I have to go with “Vacancy” for this one. It’s a simple song — just Neil and an acoustic guitar — but there’s a lot of complexity in the arrangement. And the writing is just sublime. “I look in your eyes and I don't know what's there / You poison me with that long, vacant stare.”

Disc 7 – Homegrown (1974-1975)

In the middle of the ‘70s, Neil Young was faced with a choice. He had two full albums in the can ready to release. The first was of course the gloomy, electrified Tonight’s The Night. The second however was completely different. It had an acoustic bent like Harvest and overflowed with some tremendous backing vocals from Emmylou Harris. He called it called Homegrown.

“I had a playback party for Homegrown for me and about ten friends,” Neil explained to Cameron Crowe in 1975. “We were out of our minds. We all listened to the album and Tonight’s the Night happened to be on the same reel. So we listened to that too, just for laughs."

It was an interesting experiment to say the least. And a clarifying one. “By listening to those two albums back to back at the party, I started to see the weaknesses in Homegrown,” he added. “I took Tonight’s the Night because of its overall strength in performance and feeling. The theme may be a little depressing, but the general feeling is much more elevating than Homegrown.”

But with Neil, the true reasons behind his decision-making are never as simple as that. Homegrown was written largely while his marriage to the actress Carrie Snodgrass was falling apart. Naturally his inner-turmoil made its way into the music. “A lot of the songs had to do with me breaking up with my old lady,” he admitted to Crowe. “It was a little too personal…it scared me.”

Apparently 45 years proved enough time for Neil to move past his initial concerns and finally share Homegrown with the world. Think about that for a second. Forty. Five. Years. Who else but Neil Young?

Though Neil pillaged Homegrown through the decades, re-purposing different songs like “"Deep Forbidden Lake,” "The Old Homestead," and “Love is a Rose” for subsequent releases, there’s something genuinely thrilling about getting to hear this fully-baked album, in it’s entirety, the way it was originally meant to be. Well, maybe except for “Florida,” the long-winded, and extremely absurd story set right at the heart of the record. If I’m being honest, “Florida” kinda kills the momentum of the album, and the sound of Neil running his finger around the lip of a glass for three continuous minutes drives me up a wall. I'm sure there’s some deeper meaning behind its inclusion and content, but it’s a skip for me.

The rest of Homegrown though is genuinely enthralling, especially songs like the aching album opener “Separate Ways,” the boozy revelry of “We Don’t Smoke it No More,” and “White Line,” which, shockingly for ‘70s Neil Young is not about cocaine, but rather about the seductive allure of the highway and all the possibilities that the open road avails.

Standout Song: “Separate Ways” is one of the most crushing songs I’ve ever heard. And the way it opens, with that slight tape warble, is just so damn perfect. It truly sounds like a dream. Or maybe a nightmare you can't wake up from?

Disc 8 – Dume (1975)

Is it weird to say that Zuma is underrated? Coming hot on the heels of the end of the “Ditch Trilogy” it always seemed to me that people consider it a step-down from that vaunted triumvirate. Then again, I could be wrong. I’m not calling for a Trans-level critical evaluation on its behalf or anything. I think Pitchfork gave Zuma an 8.7 upon reflection many years later, but c’mon. Any album that has “Danger Bird” on the first side and “Cortez the Killer” on the other should be good for a 9.6 at least, right???

I’d absolutely recommend listening to Dume after you’ve run through Homegrown first if only so you can hear the effect that a band like Crazy Horse can have on a sparsely realized track like “Kansas.” What was once barely a whisper of a song on Homegrown is transformed here into a rollicking rocker, kissed off with a short, but elephantine guitar solo near the end. Again, why was this in the vault??

If you have a copy of Neil’s recently resurrected 1976 album Hitchhiker handy, you can hear the same phenomenon with the song “Hawaii.” Same goes for “Pocahontas.” When people wonder why Neil keeps returning to the Horse, even while he can play with…basically anybody on the planet, let this be exhibit A, B, and C.

Elsewhere, I’d be remiss if I didn’t shoutout “Born to Run.” Neil and Crazy Horse laid this one down a full two months before Bruce Springsteen unveiled his own single by the same name in the Summer of ‘76. I’d have to assume that a fear of confusion is what’s kept Neil’s “Born To Run” hidden away all these years, even if it bears zero sonic resemblance to The Boss’s era defining hit. Pretty cool riff, though!

Standout Song: “Ride My Llama” and it’s not particularly close. One of the great things about a collection like this is how it can open your ears to things you might have never noticed before. Like, I had listened to the album Rust Never Sleeps at least 50 times in my life, which means I’ve probably listened to “Ride My Llama” 50 times too. But only now, with the full backing of Crazy Horse, am I realizing how much “Ride My Llama” rules! How many songs open with a scene at the Alamo before introducing a guitar playing Martian who invites you onto his ship and offers you weed that is, and I quote, “old but it's good?” I rest my case.

Disc 9 – Look Out for My Love (1975-1976)

Throughout the 1970s, the four members of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young made multiple attempts to try and record a follow-up to their sensational second record Déjà Vu. In 1973, they hit Hawaii and tried to get it done there, but that eventually blew up. Then they tried again after finishing their massive world tour in 1974. That didn’t end well either.

Finally, in 1976, all four members found themselves at Criteria Studios in Hawaii and it seemed like this would be it. It was finally going to happen! But then in typical CSNY fashion, old resentments lingered, tempers flared, and what was supposed to be the foursome’s next album instead morphed into the Stills-Young band’s first and only release Long May You Run. Legend had it that in a fit of pique, Crosby and Nash’s vocals were totally erased from the songs they had in the can and any hope of hearing Human Highway — the tentative title for their next album — was snuffed out forever.

As Archives II reveals however, the legend was overstated. Right there, tucked at the very end of this disc are two songs, “Ocean Girl” and “Midnight on the Bay” from Long May You Run that, despite all we had been told, include some stunning harmonies courtesy Graham Nash and David Crosby. Neil’s also ends this disc with the song “Human Highway,” giving us a peek at what might’ve been the title track and centerpiece to an album that only exists in our collective imagination.

It’s honestly a real shame they weren’t able to get it together and finish Human Highway. As recounted by David Browne in this fantastic piece for Rolling Stone, it had all the potential in the world to be one of the greatest collections of music in the entire ‘70s had they gotten it together. Instead we are left to listen to Look Out For My Love, Long May You Run, and the CSNY 1974 box set and wonder…

Standout Song: Outside of “Midnight on the Bay,” I was really struck by the version of “Stringman,” included here. It was recorded live at the Hammersmith Apollo, London on March 31, 1976, and tackles the personal fallout experienced by so many after the end of the 1960s. From the “the simple case of the sarge / Who can't go back to war,” to the “lovers on the blankets / That the city turned to whores.” The romanticism of the sparse piano performance initially obscures the song’s central message, but a few listens in and the wreckage becomes clear. Better to burn out than to fade away indeed…

Disc 10 – Odeon/Budokan (1976)

Odeon Budokan has been floating around in bootleg form for more years than I can even remember. It’s essentially a 10-track mashup of two different shows that Neil performed in the Spring of 1976 first at the Budokan in Japan, then a couple of weeks later at the Odeon in London. The recordings themselves are pristine, and the performances superb. It’s small wonder that Neil decided to clean it up and give it the official release it so obviously deserves.

This tour was many people’s first opportunity to hear Neil mix it up with Crazy Horse’s new rhythm guitarist Frank “Pancho” Sampredo, who took the position over four years after the death of Danny Whitten. The first half is mostly stacked with solo pieces, so you’ll have to wait a little bit until “Don’t Cry No Tears” to hear the newly reconfigured Crazy Horse in all their ragged glory, but trust that it’s entirely worth it.

One of my low-key favorite moments on this set comes right near the end of the first song “The Old Laughing Lady,” when the crowd starts yelling out requests. One dude, in the most exasperated voice you’ve ever heard, flatly asks, “Neil, do ‘I Am a Child.’ Please?’ Neil doesn't give a fuck. “You’ll have to elect a leader among you, to speak for you.” Then there’s an abrupt cut to the next song “After The Goldrush.”

If you aren’t fully Neil-d out by this point, I’d also recommend checking out the live album Songs For Judy. It’s a sublime collection of live, solo performances recorded around America just a few months after the Odeon Budokan gigs. Though it went by different names, Songs For Judy was another set that floated around in the underground for years before it was finally, officially released in 2018. The whole thing was personally curated by Neil’s longtime friend and photographer Joel Bernstein along with Cameron Crowe, and truly highlights his unique ability to hold an entire captive with just his voice and an acoustic guitar…and sometimes a piano.

Standout Song: Jeff Rosenstock called me out once for being into Neil for the jams. And while that’s not *entirely* true, if you’re gonna go with a standout from a live Crazy Horse set, you almost, kinda have to go with a jam right? In this case, gimme the last song “Cortez The Killer.” Nice to meet you Pancho!