Neil Young: Neil Young Archives Vol 1, Crazy Horse at the Fillmore 1970 (Reprise)
I've written enough times on here before that I'm doing this for myself. Writing as a disciplined routine for 2023. Despite not concerning myself with the number of eyeballs or monetizing this blog, I follow my numbers. One view some days, 2-3 most, occasionally more.
If you have sometimes checked in with this blog, you might have noticed that I have not written since Friday of last week. Late Friday night/early Saturday night, after my gig, I got sick.
And I mean sick. I haven't had a flu or virus or whatever it was this terrible in decades. I had a miserable weekend. It's Tuesday and I'm up and around but still feel it. Furthermore, my wife, who has almost never contracted the flu previously, also got it pretty bad.
She is largely a private person. She refuses to have her image posted to social media, for example, and takes offense that people feel at liberty to post any picture of anyone under any circumstances at any time.
I'm not as bothered by such things, but I also at least partially agree. Ask permission, please.
So it is with caution that I'll mention a close relative of hers died over the weekend. I won't into too many other specifics. He was somebody we would see mostly during holiday visits. His health was never good. He was taciturn and difficult to know.
We were hanging on to several bags of his DVDs. One of his several joys was watching movies. Inexplicably, mixed into the bunch was this Neil Young box set. I never had any idea he had any interest in music, and if so his connection to Neil Young might have been nostalgic. So I thought I'd put on some of this in his honor.
And what do you know, one of the discs is missing. So even if I entertained the idea of selling it off along with the majority of DVDs, it's essentially unsellable now. Might as well listen to it.
I've never counted myself as a Neil Young fan, but I've never disliked him either. Of the Crosby, Still, Nash and Young sphere, he's easily my favorite. I read a critic's opinion that Crosby, Stills, and Nash did their best work pre-CSNY, but not so with Neil. I think I have to agree. Even within that group, he seemed like a bit of the outsider. The other three had their sweet vocal harmonies, Neil was the weird whiney-voiced one who didn't really blend.
I deeply appreciate what a long and fruitful career, with its ups and downs. I was thinking I should seek out a copy of Trans just to see how it holds up, his strange electronic album. The label complained it wasn't "rock-n-roll" enough, so he followed it up with Everybody's Rockin', an unabashed 50's tribute.
Neil's grown on me over the years, I have to admit. Listening to this now, it does sound like so many bands I could name in more recent decades. But Neil was there first, or at least earlier. It seems to me to be a band and music that wouldn't have existed without Bob Dylan's then-controversial "going electric" at the Newport festival about five years before this. Crazy Horse was mostly a fold-rock band, with a pre-jam band element to them. Neil isn't afraid to take guitar solos, despite being pretty primitive. What's amazing is that they work. Maybe he has a good sense of drama? Timing? A sense of playing to his strengths?
The cover shows the Fillmore marquee: Neil Young and Crazy Horse/Miles Davis. That would be nearly unthinkable now. It's easy to see the differences; what do they have in common? I was going to write reductionism, but that's not exactly right. They both are building off simplicity though. And whatever Neil's limitations as a guitarist, he and Miles are both improvisors.
It brings to mind for me how Neil toured with Sonic Youth as opener for a brief time. I really regret I didn't witness that. Personally I think it's a great billing. I understand that, except for some dedicated fans, it did not go over well.
I'm glad he's still around. Does he still perform? If I have the chance, I should probably try to see him live.
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