The Neil Young Archives - Part Three

 

THE NEIL YOUNG ARCHIVES BOX SETS – PART THREE

 By Raymond Benson

Continuing from Part Two, we now take a look at Neil Young Archives Volume III: 1976-1987, which was released in the fall of 2024. This is a humongous set with 17 CDs (plus a liner notes booklet and archives poster) covering the period beginning in the spring of 1976 through the summer of 1987. Eleven years. A deluxe edition added 5 Blu-ray disks with movies and videos made during the period plus a 160-page book. This review covers only the CD edition. The outer box (pictured) is the same long-box format Volume I came in, as opposed to Volume II’s cube-shaped box. Why there is inconsistency in the package designs aside from the similar newspaper-style artwork is unknown. Also in contrast to the previous Archives volumes, Neil has included sporadic “Raps” on several of the disks in which he briefly tells us where and when tracks were recorded and with who. Not sure these spoken liner notes are necessary as they tend to interrupt the flow of the music except in cases where the Rap is at the very beginning of the CD.

The latter half of the 1970s brought forth some of Neil’s greatest material with albums like Comes a Time and Rust Never Sleeps. But the 1980s are generally considered to be a rough decade for Neil Young. Not only was he going through some personal family stresses, but his musical output is not among his most memorable, at least as considered by the general public. They sold poorly. Die-hard fans like myself, though, stuck with Neil through that time and mostly have no problems with the experimentation and exploration of new directions and ideas that Neil embarked upon, especially on his five releases on Geffen Records. And that, in itself, was a major source of negativity for Neil.

After the lukewarm reception and promotion from his longtime label, Reprise, over his albums Hawks and Doves (1980) and Re-ac-tor (1981, with Crazy Horse), Neil accepted a lucrative offer from Geffen Records and changed labels. He had known David Geffen since the 1960s and thought it might be a good thing. Neil went about doing what he does—creating the music that his current mood and muse supports—and that happened to be very different kinds of sounds from what Geffen was expecting. While Neil and most of his fans considered the five records he made at Geffen to be “Neil Young Music,” Geffen sued him for delivering product that “didn’t sound like Neil Young.” Neil countersued, and it was a big ugly mess. The thing is, Neil simply decided to try some fresh approaches in the 80s. New technology was driving artists. Electronics. Synthesizers. Vocoders. Neil wanted to play with those things, do something different, broaden his horizons. Why not? So he made an electronic album (Trans, 1982) and got complaints from Geffen that they wanted a rock ‘n’ roll album. So he gave them a 1950s-style rockabilly album a la Elvis Presley (Everybody’s Rockin’, 1983). Then he gave them a country album (Old Ways, 1985) and a further electronic-based rock album (Landing on Water, 1986) and finally a rather tepid Crazy Horse record (Life, 1987). After that, Geffen released Neil from his contract and the artist happily went back to Reprise. 

Volume III covers the latter 1970s stuff, the early 80s material, and the Geffen years. While one might think this would not be a very good Archives box set… it’s terrific. Neil must have heard the criticisms of Volumes I and II for containing too many previously released tracks from albums fans already possessed plus previously released disks of Archival titles that many fans already owned. The bulk of Volume III is stuff we’ve never heard!

Disks 1a and 1b: Across the Water I, Across the Water II (1976). Two disks packaged in the same sleeve with one cover art. Archives Volume III begins where Volume II left off—on tour with Crazy Horse in England and Japan. You may recall that the final disk in Volume II was Odeon/Budokan, containing performances by Neil and the Horse in those countries. The first two disks of Volume III oddly continues with more live material from that same tour. Not only that, one song, “Cowgirl in the Sand,” from Volume II’s disk is repeated on Volume III in a different mix and length. Like Odeon/Budokan before them, each Across the Water disk begins with a few acoustic numbers featuring Neil alone, and then Crazy Horse joins him for electric stuff. It’s all very good, and one can see why this tour was considered one of the best in the Horse mythology. Most of the material highlights the recently released Zuma album plus earlier favorites.

 

Disk 2: Hitchhikin’ Judy (1976). This disk culls tracks from the Archival releases Hitchhiker (recorded 1976, released 2017), Songs for Judy (live recording 1976, released 2018), a couple of tracks of Neil with The Band at their “Last Waltz” concert (also with Joni Mitchell), and a couple of studio recordings that would show up on later albums. Certainly a great disk if you don’t already own Hitchhiker and Songs for Judy! The first comprised of “sketches” in a studio setting of new songs that would eventually appear, re-recorded, on albums Neil would release between 1977-1980. The second consists of live performances by Neil solo—and these are some of his unheard (at the time) tunes that would appear later. 

Disk 3a: Snapshot in Time (1977), Windward Passage (1977). Disks 3a and 3b are packaged in the same sleeve with different cover art on the front and back. Now it gets interesting. Neil apparently used recording equipment at Linda Ronstadt’s house in the Malibu area in California, and he “demo’d” new songs for Linda and Nicolette Larson for their possible involvement as backup singers on his upcoming recordings (that would appear on side one of American Stars ‘n’ Bars). As Neil plays his guitar and sings, the women attempt to harmonize on the fly. While the mix isn’t great (Linda and Nicolette sound a bit far away), and the whole thing has a bootleg quality to it, this is wonderful stuff. Indeed a “snapshot in time.” 

Windward Passage: During the summer of 1977, Neil, on a whim, joined forces with Moby Grape’s Bob Mosley and singer-songwriters Jeff Blackburn and Johnny Craviotto to form a live band called The Ducks. They performed only in clubs in and around Santa Cruz, California for seven weeks and then disbanded. Although they made no studio recordings, some of the shows were put on tape. An earlier Archival release, High Flyin’, was released in 2023. This disk culls tracks from that release plus others from these shows. The Ducks were a democratic group—each member contributed songs to the set lists, so it wasn’t just a “Neil Young Show.” This is good ol’ rock ‘n’ roll in the style of, say, the Eagles. The tunes by the other three members aren’t bad at all, but Neil’s numbers truly shine, some of which went on to be recorded for his later albums.

Disk 4: Oceanside Countryside (1977). Tracks recorded in Ft. Lauderdale (“oceanside”) and Nashville (“countryside”), solo or with a band, of tunes that would eventually appear on Comes a Time, Rust Never Sleeps, and Hawks and Doves, but these are all previously unreleased versions. (Note: Neil is putting out this title as a stand-alone archival release in February 2025). Slightly different in tone and feel from the Comes a Time versions, this is good stuff. Are they better than that classic studio album? Hard to say. This collection was originally intended to be the album of 1978, but Neil scrapped it and re-recorded most everything with a bigger band to make Comes a Time. Fans have long known of this “lost” album’s existence, and now here it is.

Disk 5: Union Hall (1977). This features some studio recordings but is mostly dominated by live performances with Nicolette Larson and the Comes a Time band at the Musicians Union Hall in Nashville. There are some unheard songs here, as well as old favorites plus Comes a Time material. One of the better disks in the box set. Nicolette and Neil made a good team there for a while.

Disk 6a and 6b: Boarding House I, Devo/Boarding House II (1978). Both disks housed in one sleeve with the covers on front and back. In the spring of 1978, Neil had a few days’ solo residency at the Boarding House in San Francisco, and most of the performances were recorded. The first disk is all Neil, all acoustic, with material from his whole career along with current, newer stuff. The second disk begins with one track (“Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)” performed with Devo. It’s a lot of fun, with Devo handling the vocals and instrumentation, Neil on lead guitar, and the tempo outrageously fast. The rest of the disk is Neil solo again. All of this is previously unreleased and terrific.

Disk 7a and 7b: Sedan Delivery (1978), Coastline (1980-1981). Both disks housed in one sleeve with the covers on front and back. Sedan Delivery documents the big Crazy Horse tour that also produced the albums Rust Never Sleeps and Live Rust. There are previously released tracks from those titles here, plus some alternate live versions from the tour. This famous era had to be documented on the Archives, but much of it is superfluous if you have both of those albums.

Coastline: Neil took a break in 1979 to concentrate on the issues surrounding his son, Ben, who was born with severe cerebral palsy. It wasn’t until summer of 1980 that he got back into the studio with a group of musicians (including Levon Helm) to record what became side two of Hawks and Doves (1980). That same year and in 1981, he recorded again with Crazy Horse the tracks that would become Re-ac-tor (1981). Much of this disk is all previously released material but with a handful of unreleased songs and alternate takes.

Disk 8: Trans/Johnny’s Garden (1981-1982). This is a single disk but with two artwork covers, front and back. Neil began experimenting with electronics and the vocoder in late 1981, recording much of what would become Trans, but he set it aside for the time being. Then, in the spring of 1982, he recorded in Hawaii a very commercial CSNY-style album originally called Johnny’s Garden, then changed the title to Island in the Sun. He submitted it to his new label, Geffen, and they rejected it. So he gave them Trans. Johnny’s Garden remained one of the “lost” albums until now. And it’s actually quite good, a sparkling piece of work in which the vocal harmonies really could have been a CSNY album. Two numbers from the sessions did wind up on Trans (the two non-electronic tracks). Some songs are here we’ve never heard, and others were re-worked and appeared on later albums, even as far ahead as Silver and Gold (2000)!

Disk 9a and 9b: Evolution (1983-1984), Touch the Night (1984). Both disks housed in one sleeve with the covers on front and back. Evolution covers Neil’s further (some would say) missteps with Geffen Records. His first attempt at an unreleased country album (called Old Ways 1 in hindsight) produced a few tracks save one included here for the first time, live material of his days with the “Shocking Pinks” doing songs from Everybody’s Rockin’ (1983) and early unreleased recordings of songs that would much later appear, re-recorded, on Landing on Water (1986)! Interesting stuff.

Touch the Night is a rather bootleg-quality live recording of Neil with Crazy Horse in Santa Cruz, in spring of 1984. Here, they perform mostly songs that would eventually appear on Landing on Water, re-recorded. A great set, but a better recording quality would have been welcome. 

Disk 10a and 10b: Grey Riders (1984-1985), Road of Plenty (1985-1986). Both disks housed in one sleeve with the covers on front and back. Grey Riders covers Neil’s work with the band he dubbed the “International Harvesters” and it’s all full-blown country music. He did live shows with them in 1984 and 1985, much of it previously released on the Archival disk A Treasure (2011). But there are some unheard tracks here, too. The official Old Ways (or Old Ways 2, as Neil would call it) studio album (1985) came about as a result of this work.

Road of Plenty has mostly previously released tracks from Landing on Water and some unreleased studio versions of a couple of tunes with Crazy Horse that would be re-recorded for Life (1987). There’s nothing wrong with the Landing on Water songs per se, but the electronica style simply are not very “Neil.” The earlier versions that appear on Evolution and Touch the Night are better!

Disk 11: Summer Songs (1987). These wonderful solo “sketches” of new songs would eventually be re-recorded and appear later on the CSNY album American Dream (1988), Neil’s Freedom (1989), and other works in the future. One of the best disks in the Archives box. Neil at his stripped-down, acoustic best.

All in all, Archives Volume III is a comprehensive overview of Neil’s excellent late 70s work and his “problematic” 1980s material. For Neil fans, you can’t go wrong. Compared to the previous box sets, this one’s on the right track with balancing previously released music with unheard music. The “Raps” were a bit jarring, but not a deal breaker.

How long will it be for Archives Volume IV to come out? A few years, probably, but Neil’s not getting any younger. Will it cover the rest of his career in one go, which would be a lot (likely more disks than Volume III) or will he break it up and do a Volume V, too? We shall see. One thing consistent with Neil Young is his unpredictability. Rock on.

The Neil Young Archives - Part Two

 THE NEIL YOUNG ARCHIVES BOX SETS – PART TWO

 By Raymond Benson

Continuing from Part One, we now take a look at Neil Young Archives Volume II, which was released in late 2020 to subscribers of Neil’s Archives website, and in early 2021 to the public. The period covered by the set is from the second half of 1972 to spring 1976. Differing from Volume I, the second box contains ten CD disks instead of eight, and there were no DVD or Blu-ray editions. However, a “deluxe edition” contained a 250-page book.

The years 1973-1975 were, at that time, thought of as Neil’s “lost weekend” period. It was when he released three consecutive albums that he later dubbed the “ditch trilogy” because some critics had said the artist had fallen “into the ditch” with sub-par releases that were not commercial successes. And while it’s true that the albums Time Fades Away (1973), On the Beach (1974), and Tonight’s the Night (1975) were not big sellers compared to Neil’s big hits of After the Gold Rush (1970) and especially Harvest (1972), they did all right. Furthermore, in hindsight, On the Beach and Tonight’s the Night are now considered by Neil’s hardcore fans, and critics who retro-review them, as masterpieces that are among Neil’s best works. Personally, I rank On the Beach as my number two Neil Young album behind After the Gold Rush!

Neil apparently got back on track with the general public in later 1975 and into ’76, and he would then enter a very fruitful and prolific period in the late 70s, which will be covered in Archives Volume III.

That said, Volume II is mostly wonderful. It’s my favorite of the three Archives sets that have so far been released. Was it a troubled period for Neil Young? Not when compared to his difficult years of the mid-1980s! In fact, 1972-1976 was filled with some of Neil’s most heartfelt and soul-searching work. The overnight success he achieved between 1969-1972 with Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, and with the two hit albums of Gold Rush and Harvest, suddenly made Neil a multi-millionaire. He hadn’t expected it and he wasn’t prepared for it. Added to all this fame was the fact that he lost close friends to heroin addiction (Danny Whitten of Crazy Horse and Bruce Berry, a beloved roadie), was over-indulging in alcohol and drugs (but never heroin), and dealing with a troubled personal relationship that was spiraling (with Carrie Snodgress). Neil took a deep dive into depression and uncertainty. Hence, his pain and angst all comes out in the music produced during the period. And we know that’s what makes good art.

Once again, as in Volume I, there were some repeat disks included that had already been released separately and there was a lot of studio material that had appeared on the various albums from the era. Still, what we hadn’t heard before is well worth the price of admission.

Disk 1: Everybody’s Alone (1972-1973). After the release of Harvest in the spring of ’72, Neil was recuperating from back surgery at his ranch in northern California. That didn’t keep him from recording demos in his home studio, and this disk presents many of them that are simply fabulous. A few are songs we’ve never heard before, such as “Come Along and Say You Will,” recorded with the backup band he dubbed the Stray Gators. A major tour was planned for early 1973, so a lot of these rehearsals appear here. The so-called “Time Fades Away Tour” of ’73, however, was pretty much a disaster. Neil and the band members apparently didn’t get along and Neil’s voice went out part-way through the tour. The live album Time Fades Away was recorded on the road, and Neil considers this his worst album. While I didn’t mind it at all at the time, and I still like parts of it, it’s true that this work doesn’t reflect Neil’s best. Other, better unreleased live material from the tour appears on Disk 1, though. At the end is an unreleased track from aborted recordings with CSNY in May 1973. “Human Highway,” which would be recorded again later by CSNY and by Neil himself, is simply gorgeous here.

Disk 2: Tuscaloosa (1973). This is one of the Archives disks that had been previously released separately (in 2019). It was recorded live with the Stray Gators, early in the ’73 tour while Neil’s voice was good and the band was gelling. This is pretty good stuff, and miles beyond the Time Fades Away live tracks. Why Neil didn’t release this back in 1973 instead of Time is a mystery. Half of it is Neil solo and acoustic, and the other half is with the band.

Disk 3: Tonight’s the Night (1973). Not to be confused with the album released with the same title. In May of ’73, Neil put together a band he dubbed the Santa Monica Flyers and recorded tracks that would end up as Tonight’s the Night, the album. However, the sessions were middle-of-the-night drunken debaucheries, apparently, with Neil’s voice cracking and the band playing in slow motion. The songs are hard-hitting, dark, foreboding, and meant as a “wake” for Neil’s friends who had died. He held back the album until early 1975, when some members of The Band heard it and convinced him to release it instead of his planned recently-made studio recording, Homegrown (see Disk 7). So Tonight’s the Night came out to the public in June ’75, two years after its production. Rolling Stone loved it, but just about everyone else didn’t (except for the fans who “got it”). This Archives disk contains some of the tracks from the album as well as outtakes and unreleased recordings, such as when Joni Mitchell popped into the studio and they recorded her song, “Raised on Robbery.” While the unheard tracks are welcome, there is too much here that we already have.

Disk 4: Roxy (1973). Another Archives disk that had been previously released separately (in 2018). This is a live concert presentation of the Tonight’s the Night material from around the time that album was recorded. The performances are sloppy, like the album tracks, but that’s what gives the darker material its charm. Neil is in sideshow barker form, probably drunk, and the album is certainly entertaining from an anthropomorphic standpoint! But in terms of the box set, it’s a superfluous disk.

Disk 5: Walk On (1973-1974). Now things get interesting as Neil records his studio album On the Beach, one of his greatest works, in my opinion. While there are tracks from the album included here, there are a few unreleased ones that are of note, like “Bad Fog of Loneliness” and “Traces.” Despite the familiarity of much of this disk, it’s very welcome after the over-saturation of Tonight’s the Night on the previous two disks.

Disk 6: The Old Homestead (1974). Easily the best disk in Volume II, it contains mostly unreleased material. Demos, recordings with Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young (their big summer tour was in 1974), and songs we’ve never heard before. Crazy Horse had also revamped with a new guitarist, Frank “Pedro” Sampedro, so Neil was doing some recordings with them as well. Neil was definitely out of the “ditch.” All great stuff.

Disk 7: Homegrown (1974-1975). This studio album, recorded in late ’74 and early ’75, was meant to be the album release of 1975. However, as noted above on Disk 3, Rick Danko of The Band allegedly convinced Neil to shelve Homegrown and release Tonight’s the Night instead. So Homegrown went into the vault. Over the next few years, though, Neil would cherry-pick some tracks from it and place them on other albums such as American Stars ‘n’ Bars (1977) and Hawks and Doves (1980). The other songs, though, are unheard! Frankly, I feel Homegrown should have been released in ’75, with or without Tonight’s the Night in the mix! The only issue here is that Homegrown had been previously released as a separate Archives disk in early 2020, making it the third gratuitous disk in the box set. Still… it’s quite worthwhile for those who had not purchased it earlier.

Disk 8: Dume (1975) covers Neil’s recordings with the new Crazy Horse lineup in the making of the 1975 album Zuma. Neil and the Horse are back, rocking and rolling, with some of the best material this outfit ever made. Yes, there are plenty of tracks from Zuma here, but also some outtakes and unreleased recordings. All fantastic stuff. Play it loud.

Disk 9: Look Out for My Love (1975-1976). Another great disk in the set, it includes more recordings, heard and unheard, with Crazy Horse. Neil also teamed up with Stephen Stills for a duo tour and album (Long May You Run, 1976), so some sessions from that are here. CSNY reformed briefly for a possible studio album, and there are a couple of discarded tracks from that, such as an updated version of “Human Highway” (compare it to the one on Disk 1!).

 

Disk 10: Odeon/Budokan (1976). In the spring of 1976, Neil and Crazy Horse went on a tour to England and Japan to promote Zuma. There are recordings here from the concerts at the Odeon in London and at Budokan in Japan. The tracks start off with Neil solo acoustic, and then the Horse joins him and they rock out. All great stuff, as these shows are considered legendary in the Neil/Horse mythology.

And then it all ends in the spring of ’76. Volume III actually begins with even more live material from the Odeon/Budokan shows, so it’s odd that these were separated into two different Archives sets. But more on that next time.

In closing… Even though Volume II had some redundant disks and material, the unheard stuff is absolutely marvelous… and it showcases Neil at a time when he was first devolving and then evolving into a triumphant artistic excellence that was not appreciated as such at the time.

To Be Continued. 

The Neil Young Archives - Part One

THE NEIL YOUNG ARCHIVES BOX SETS – PART ONE

By Raymond Benson

As a longtime fan of Neil Young, easily one of my favorite musical artists, I was overjoyed when his Archives project was set in motion, promising to release to the public gems from the vault—unreleased recordings and live material—that would document Neil’s life and career.

Neil has painstakingly documented that career since the beginning. He must have somehow knew he would be a major artist, so he kept everything. His career has also been such that his official album releases did not necessarily reflect a chronological progression. For example, his album recorded with the “Santa Monica Flyers” (as he dubbed them), Tonight’s the Night, was recorded in May of 1973, but it was held back and not released until two years later. Many of his studio albums were recorded piecemeal, sometimes using tracks recorded years earlier curated with a handful of newer tracks. American Stars ‘n’ Bars (1977) is a good example of this. Side One of that album consists of material recorded in 1977, but Side Two consists of earlier tracks recorded as far back as 1974.

The Archives project was going to be a very strict chronological journey through Neil’s years, and he teased us about it first in 1993 with the compilation album Lucky Thirteen. There were hints and clues that the Archives were coming, but then it turned out Neil decided to release his unreleased material in spurts along with the promised box sets. The first true Archives release came in 2006 with a live album recorded with Crazy Horse entitled Live at the Fillmore East 1970. This was followed in 2007 with a solo acoustic recording, Live at Massey Hall 1971. The first box set, Archives Volume I, was finally released in 2009. We would have to wait until 2020 to get Volume II, and then four more years to get Volume III (2024). There are still at least one, maybe two, volumes left to go. And in-between the releases of the box sets have been many standalone releases, some included in the box sets, but most of them not. These standalones also include what Neil calls “Special Releases” of albums that were recorded but never released, such as Hitchhiker (recorded 1976, not released until 2017).

Today I will concentrate on Neil Young Archives Volume I, which covers the decade 1963-1972.

First, I’d like to make it clear that the Archives are amazing presentations. The sound quality of all the tracks have been remastered and engineered such that they are the best sounding audiophile-pleasing renditions of familiar and unfamiliar versions of Neil’s music.

The frustrating thing about the Archives boxes, though, and this is true especially of Volume I and Volume II, is that Neil decided to include in the boxes disks that had already been standalone Archives disks. The thing is, his hardcore fans (like me) were going to buy the standalone releases as well as the box sets, so that meant we ended up with duplicate disks in some cases.

Another annoyance is that there is often too much “previously released” material from his studio albums over the years on the box sets. This is especially true of Volume I. Neil may have taken some fans’ criticisms to heart, for in Volume III, there are no duplicate Archives releases and very little previously released tracks from studio albums of that period.

That said, the Archives boxes are still a fan’s delight.

Volume I was released as a CD-only box, a CD and DVD box, and a CD and Blu-ray box. At the time, the cost of the Blu-ray box was quite prohibitive and limited, and today it sells for hundreds of dollars on the second hand market. While I would have wanted to view all the wonderful videos and films included in the Blu-ray box, I went with the CD-only box in all three cases of the Archives volumes. I’ll leave it to someone else to discuss the videos.

Disk 1: Early Years (1963-1968). Covering Neil’s beginnings from 1963 to 1968, both in Canada and Southern California, I find this disk truly fascinating. The first thing we hear are both sides of Neil’s first single record, recorded in 1963 with the band he began in high school, The Squires. “Aurora” and “The Sultan” are terrific surf-guitar instrumental pieces showcasing Neil’s burgeoning skills on the instrument. Other studio recordings by The Squires follow, but these were unreleased at the time. One of these is “I Wonder,” recorded in 1964, but is an early version of a song Neil later revamped and re-recorded with Crazy Horse as “Don’t Cry No Tears” from the 1975 Zuma album! In 1965, Neil teamed up with friend Comrie Smith and recorded some duos—all unreleased but featured here. Next up are a series of demos Neil recorded in late 1965 for Elektra as an audition. These have appeared on bootlegs in the past, but here they sound great. Just Neil and solo guitar, demoing such classics as “Sugar Mountain,” “Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing,” and several tunes we never knew. Finally, the disk closes with some of Neil’s work with Buffalo Springfield, recorded 1966-1968. Some of these tracks are direct from the three official studio albums by the Springfield, some from the archival Buffalo Springfield Box (2001), and a couple of unreleased tracks.

Disk 2: Topanga 1 (1968-1969). Neil was living in Topanga Canyon during the Buffalo Springfield period. In ’68 as the Springfield was disintegrating, he began working on his first solo album, Neil Young. Here we get several tracks directly from that album, some outtakes (different versions), and a couple of unreleased early versions of songs that would appear later. There is also early work with Crazy Horse that would appear on Everybody Knows This is Nowhere (1969). This disk suffers from too much material we already owned.

Disk 3: Live at the Riverboat 1969. A wonderful solo live acoustic set recorded in Toronto in early 1969 to promote the release of Neil Young, which first appeared in late 1968 and then re-released with a different pressing and cover in January 1969. An earlier standalone Archives release, Sugar Mountain: Live at Canterbury House 1968 (released 2008), had a similar set, but Riverboat sounds more confident. Good stuff.

Disk 4: Topanga 2 (1969-1970). The year 1969 was a big one for Neil. His work with Crazy Horse came into fruition and it was also when he joined Crosby, Stills and Nash to form CSNY. This disk contains more from Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, beginning recordings from Neil’s 1970 studio album After the Gold Rush, and live and studio work with CSNY, including an unreleased mix of “Helpless.” Again, a lot we already own, but a bit more variety.

Disk 5: Live at the Fillmore East 1970. This disk with Crazy Horse had already been released as a standalone in 2006, as mentioned above. Why was it included in the box when most of us already owned it? Who knows. That said, this is a GREAT live recording of the early Crazy Horse when Danny Whitten was second-guitar and vocalist. It rocks the house with material from Everybody Knows This is Nowhere and more. If you didn’t already own the standalone release, then this is a very welcome disk to have.

Disk 6: Topanga 3 (1970). This contains more direct tracks, different versions, and outtakes from After the Gold Rush, some unreleased live material with CSNY (“Only Love Can Break Your Heart” is absolutely wonderful), and other miscellaneous tracks recorded during the year. Still heavy on stuff we already owned, but enough variety to be an enjoyable listen.

Disk 7: Live at Massey Hall 1971. This solo acoustic live performance is one of Neil’s best. As mentioned above, it had already been released as a standalone disk in 2007, so its inclusion here is superfluous. Nevertheless, it can be counted as a live performance for the ages, recorded in early 1971 during a massive tour. He does Buffalo Springfield stuff, material from his three albums, and a couple of CSNY tracks. Truly remarkable.

Disk 8: North Country (1971-1972). In 1971, Neil purchased the Broken Arrow Ranch in northern California, so he moved there to live for many years. The home also contained a recording studio, so much of his next album, Harvest (1972), was recorded there. Some tracks were also recorded in Nashville. This disk covers this period with too many previously released tracks and a few outtakes/different versions. The rare “War Song” single Neil did with Graham Nash closes out the disk, and we’re left in the middle of 1972. Volume II would pick up the second half of that year.

The box comes with a poster-size “archives” chronology and a small booklet of liner notes. The DVD and Blu-ray editions also contained the soundtrack album Journey Through the Past (1972), which up to that point had never been released on CD. It’s a shame that was not included in the CD-box. A missed opportunity and unfair to purchasers of the CD-box! Live videos and the complete experimental film of Journey Through the Past could also be seen. The Blu-ray edition also contained many “hidden tracks” of unreleased material. The Blu-ray and DVD editions of the set are now out of print and hard to find, but as I understand it, much of the Blu-ray material is available (for a subscription) at Neil’s online “Neil Young Archives” website at www.neilyoungarchives.com.   

To Be Continued with Volume II…!

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