Tag: Nils Lofgren

February 1971 – Crazy Horse Debuts

February 1971: Crazy Horse – Crazy Horse

Some of the most enjoyable discoveries for me as a music fan are the ones that come about by chance. With Crazy Horse, it happened a number of years back while wading through used discs in a store I no longer recall. There appeared before me a title which simply read Crazy Horse. I wondered to myself, “As in Neil Young & Crazy Horse?” It hadn’t occurred to me that the group had recorded albums without Neil, but here was evidence they had. Noticing the release year and recognizing two of the track titles as songs performed with Neil (Dance, Dance, Dance & Downtown) it was an obvious purchase, and I was not disappointed. The core band that emerged from ashes of The Rockets – Danny Whitten, Billy Talbot, and Ralph Molina, plus Jack Nitzsche and Nils Lofgren – first as backing band to Neil Young on Everybody Knows This is Nowhere and in a more limited role on After the Gold Rush, released their eponymous debut 50 years ago this month.

Crazy Horse (band) - Wikipedia

One thing that stands out to me when perusing the liner notes is that the name Neil Young appears only twice, first with sole songwriting credit on Dance, Dance, Dance, and then with a co-credit along with Danny Whitten on Downtown – a song that would eerily reappear on Young’s Tonight’s the Night album a few years later as a live track featuring Whitten, who’d passed away in 1972. From a music standpoint, Crazy Horse is a damn fine rock album from start to finish, and I wonder if the band’s best-known status as “one of Neil’s bands” helps or hinders the album’s place in the pantheon of albums from the 1960’s and 70’s.

Neil Young News: A Conversation with Ralph Molina | North of the Internet
Molina & Talbot

I’d known about the sad demise of Danny Whitten strictly within the context of his involvement with Young but listening to this album brings home just how talented he was, especially as a rock vocalist. He wrote five of the eleven tracks, and all but three feature him as lead singer. Among my favorite Whitten vocals are the opener Gone Dead Train (subtly driven by Jack Nitzsche’s piano), Look at All the Things (which could’ve been a blueprint for much of their work with Neil), Nitzsche’s Carolay (which hints at Jack’s experience as conductor/arranger for the now late Phil Spector), and his signature song, the sad ballad I Don’t Want to Talk About It – a track made somewhat famous when recorded by Rod Stewart in 1975. This original is enhanced by the sweet slide guitar work of guest player Ry Cooder, who also appears on Whitten’s Dirty Dirty and Nitzsche’s Crow Jane Lady.

Whitten
Lofgren

Then-nineteen-year-old Nils Lofgren contributed two tracks, including one of my favorites on the album, Beggars Day, which features a much more gravelly, experienced sounding vocal than might be expected from someone so young. It’s somewhat reminiscent of Joe Walsh in his James Gang days. Even the guitar solo is familiar in that regard. Crazy Horse is a no-frills rock band, and saying anything else about this album would just be unnecessary hyperbole. If you like the Horse with Neil Young, listen to this album. The louder the better.

Tracklist

Side One:

  1. Gone Dead Train
  2. Dance, Dance, Dance
  3. Look at All the Things
  4. Beggars Day
  5. I Don’t Want to Talk About It

Side Two:

  1. Downtown
  2. Carolay
  3. Dirty, Dirty
  4. Nobody
  5. I’ll Get By
  6. Crow Jane Lady

-Stephen

https://www.allmusic.com/album/crazy-horse-mw0000113305

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Horse_(album)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Don%27t_Want_to_Talk_About_It

September 19 – After the Gold Rush at 50

9/19/70: Neil Young –  After the Gold Rush

Today I’m celebrating one of my favorite albums of all time. Albums the caliber of Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush, released 50 years ago today, are what inspired me to start this blog. Yet ironically with albums such as this I have to overcome the constraints of my “What can I possibly say about it that isn’t already known?” mentality. Then I recall that it’s a mighty big world out there, and not everyone worships at the altar of (insert applicable band or artist name). In this case, it’s Neil Young arguably hovering around his creative peak. And that’s saying something considering the overall quality of his output over the past 55-ish years.

Neil Young Releasing 1970 'Cellar Door' Concerts - Rolling Stone

The album was inspired by a Dean Stockwell-Herb Bermann screenplay of an unmade movie of the same title. Neil was going to produce its soundtrack with the title track and Cripple Creek Ferry being written specifically for it. Most of the recording took place in the basement studio of Young’s Topanga Canyon home with the perfect combination of musicians for this particular collection of songs. Jimmy McDonough suggested in his bio of Neil, Shakey, that Young intentionally wanted to combine the folk rock of CSNY with the heavier sound of Crazy Horse, hence an album roster which includes Stephen Stills and Greg Reeves from CSNY, Ralph Molina, Billy Talbot, and a fading Danny Whitten from the Horse, and Jack Nitzsche. But to me the most interesting personnel decision was the inclusion of 18 year old Nils Lofgren, mostly on piano – an instrument he didn’t even regularly play. It all worked, and Nils obviously made the most of the opportunity.

Neil Young's former house in Topanga for sale for $1.45M - Curbed LA

Thinking of the various times over the years in which Neil has changed his mind about what musicians to work with (or what album he wanted to work on or release) – sometimes in mid-recording or even mid-tour – After the Gold Rush sounds like the perfect melding of musicians and styles that have helped him create his best music over the years. I don’t know if it was as harmonious as all that, but that’s how I like to think of it. The various styles are evident from the start: Tell Me Why could be a CSNY song, as could Only Love Can Break Your Heart. The title track hearkens back in my mind to his Buffalo Springfield days (think Expecting to Fly or Broken Arrow).

Then we have driving Crazy Horse-sounding rockers When You Dance… and Southern Man, the latter song deserving a post of its own if not a book. And with tracks such as Don’t Let it Bring You Down,  Birds, I Believe in You, and his cover of Don Gibson’s Oh, Lonesome Me, we hear a warmth in his music that was a bit sparse during his turbulent-to-dark songwriting which was soon to follow in his “Ditch” years. Yet despite the diverse styles, these songs form a very cohesive album.

▷ ACORDES de NEIL YOUNG: Todas sus canciones

Neil Young’s music – especially his singing voice – is not for everyone, that’s understood. But as with his kindred spirit Bob Dylan, for those of us who are touched by his music, it can cut deeply at times. After the Gold Rush is a perfect combination of songs which display his personal and societal angst, along with reminders that things can also be o.k. All in a shade under 35 minutes. And while I’m not an audiophile, this album has always just sounded damn good from a production standpoint, whether it was my first listens on cassette, or later on CD or LP. Perhaps it’s simply one of the better examples of Neil’s “less is more” approach in the studio.

After the Gold Rush by Neil Young (Album; Reprise; M 56383): Reviews, Ratings, Credits, Song list - Rate Your Music

Extrees:

-The album reached number eight on the Billboard Pop Chart. Only Love Can Break Your Heart and When You Dance I Can Really Love were issued as singles, reaching 33 and 93, respectively.

-The original Rolling Stone review referred to the album as dull, but within a short number of years considered it a masterpiece. Numerous magazines now rate After the Gold Rush among the top 100 albums of all time.

-The solarized album cover photo of Neil passing an elderly woman next to the NYU Law School campus originally included Graham Nash, who was cropped.

Tracklist

Side One:

  1. Tell Me Why
  2. After the Gold Rush
  3. Only Love Can Break Your Heart
  4. Southern Man
  5. ‘Til the Morning Comes

Side Two:

  1. Oh, Lonesome Me
  2. Don’t Let it Bring You Down
  3. Birds
  4. When You Dance I Can Really Love
  5. I Believe in You
  6. Cripple Creek Ferry

-Stephen

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/neil-young-after-the-gold-rush/

https://www.allmusic.com/album/after-the-gold-rush-mw0000192439

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_the_Gold_Rush

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/111265/shakey-neil-youngs-biography-by-jimmy-mcdonough/

After The Gold Rush