Notes on the Neil Young Archives
The latest live albums from Neil Young's ever-expanding and now abundant Archives
I didn’t start this newsletter in time to write about the release of Neil Young’s Archives Volume II when it initially arrived in November 2020, but now with the recent releases of the live albums Way Down the Rust Bucket and Young Shakespeare, I’m taking the opportunity to write about my all-time favorite song writer.
(If you’re looking for a more detailed breakdown of the ten disc box set, Corbin Reiff has a stellar write-up that I’d highly suggest.)
Over the past two months, Neil has gifted fans with two legacy live albums that bookend a significant portion of the spectrum of his illustrious career. Way Down in the Rust Bucket is a two and a half hour epic from 1990 that features the live debut of some Ragged Glory tracks amongst other classics from his catalogue. Many tracks reach beyond the ten minute mark and it’s incredible to hear him with Crazy Horse just at the zenith of his career-making comeback. Young Shakespeare is an acoustic solo performance from 1971 and features the oldest known footage of a solo Young performance. Here we’re treated to some of his most storied songs from the first great phase of his budding solo career.
Worth it for the monstrous solos alone, Way Down in the Rust Bucket is a remarkable glimpse back into Neil’s ‘90s revival and really helps cement his status as the Godfather of Grunge. Following a troubling decade that was the 1980s, Neil had recently regained some steam with 1989’s Freedom and was capitalizing on the instantly timeless “Rockin in the Free World” to help reignite his career. The performance on SNL goes down as one of the show’s all time best musical guest appearances. Picking things back up with Crazy Horse in tow to kick-off the new decade and it’s no wonder that the Seattle sound would look to Neil for inspiration for their fuzzed-up take on classic rock and early metal. Notorious for alternating his sets between acoustic and plugged-in numbers, this recording sticks strictly to the electric side of Young’s career and forgoes classics from his golden-era and instead opts for Ditch classics and new ones that would run in the same vein as his rusted-out masterpieces. There are plenty of his late ‘70s powerhouses that don’t often get the attention they deserve finally being played out to brilliant lengths in lieu of some of the more standards like “Tonight’s the Night” or “Powderfinger.” Each one features that stellar Crazy Horse crunch that made landmarks like Live Rust and Rust Never Sleeps such wondrous glimpses into his live shows two decades prior.
Perhaps what is most intriguing about this album (at least to me and probably other die-hard fans) is the way it compares to Weld, another live LP from the same year. Released much closer to its recording date back in 1990, Weld offers more of Neil’s expected, rusted glory and gives a much darker view into his catalogue. It’s filled with more classic tracks, but it’s covered in gloom and feels more inline with his mid ‘70s energy. Way Down in the Rust Bucket actually seems like a fun experience and the mood of the band comes across not only from Young’s onstage loose quips, but in the freeness of the jams as well. The band feels free and ready to charge out of the barn. Also, where Weld captured the arena portions of his tour, the venue here is a small, hometown club. It shows. This is the horse in their back-to-basics elements, a bar band with the catalogue of your dreams at their disposal, rocking out to their own favorites.
Zuma, Young’s Ditch Trilogy follow-up album, sees a lot of love in this performance with tracks like “Don’t Cry No Tears,” “Danger Bird,” and the staple “Cortez the Killer” all receiving gold-star treatment and each reaching new heights of excellence. Even with such classic hits on the setlist, it’s the introductions to tracks like “Over and Over,” “Love and Only Love,” “Mansion on the Hill,” and “Farmer John'' that really drive this one home. The opening of “F*ckin’ Up” is also worth a callout as possibly an inspiration to Radiohead’s “There There” with its striking rhythm and guitar riff that lead off the song until the vocals kick-in. It’s easy to think of Neil’s early ‘90s run as a reemergence of his ‘70s heyday, but hearing these songs between his celebrated hits really proves how Uncle Neil rediscovered his groove and got back on the saddle. Twenty-five years into his career and Neil Young was ready to kick-off a renaissance period at the start of a brand new decade.
Live albums are typically for the fans, and die-hard ones at that. They’re rarely the best entry in any artist’s discography. Sure, they can be a great entry point and act like a greatest hits album, but they’re not likely to be gathering newcomers to an artist. Neil has no shortage of live albums under his belt and if you are looking for a starting point into this part of his career, Live Rust is still the place to start. However, for the die-hards, this could be live-Neil at his best.
Something that feels rather special about these back to back releases is the acoustic and electric pairing. As mentioned, it wasn’t uncommon for Young to break up his sets into these two halves, so releasing two separate live performances within a two month period that captures both so well feels particularly poetic.
One striking difference between Neil with Crazy Horse and his solo acoustic shows is the vulnerability and personality that shines through between tracks. When he’s alone with his guitar he’s a much more personable Neil, one that is a bit more open and direct, unafraid to hide behind the noise. This comes through with flying colors on Young Shakespeare and it feels like a window is opened into his humble state.
Before “Old Man” he tells a story similar to the one he shares before playing the song on the recording from Massey Hall and it’s one that is well known amongst fans, but to hear Neil tell it himself on multiple recorded occasions feels more endearing. Like a friend telling you a story you’ve heard them share many times before, but you let them go on regardless. The average person probably only needs one version of a song by any given singer, but to love a particular recording of a specific song is fandom in its most pure form.
There is a sobering intro before “Needle and the Damage Done” in which he mentions Hendrix and Joplin directly as people he knew who he lost to heroin. Of course he would later lose his own band mates to the drug just a few years later so this feels particularly haunting and is the only moment on the record that gives slight pause. Followed directly by “Ohio” and it’s clear that a mood has fallen over the show, although just for a moment. This is a rock concert after all and Neil would swiftly change the vibe to something much more uplifting.
“I’ll give you something to stamp your feet and bang your hands. It’s hoe-down music” he claims as he leads the crowd into “Dance, Dance, Dance,” a song that would never make it to a proper Neil album, although it exists in several versions in his Archives and other live recordings, but would take on another life as “Love is a Rose” on Decade and eventually Homegrown. His acoustic versions of “Cowgirl in the Sand” and “Down by the River” are raw and intimate, an incredible departure from their fuzzed out tones on Everybody Knows This is Nowhere and feels like such an early inspiration for so many grunge bands unplugging for MTV decades later.
“You’ve never heard it before anyways” he says before “A Man Needs a Maid” which feels like such a remarkable statement to hear now given its prominence in his career. The lyrics here would change before he solidified the song to record for Harvest. He then beautifully segues into “Heart of Gold” (also an unreleased tune at this point) adding a bit more upswing to the melody. The medley is his first piano performance of the set and it’s clear he feels much more confident in the second half. With most of the set being unreleased material, when he gets to “Helpless,” he’s met with the largest reception of the night and the crowd is rewarded with an exceptional version of the CSNY hit.
His commentary is excellent throughout. When he introduces “Sugar Mountain” he says he wants a sing-a-long kind of song and how it had worked the night before, but people might not know the song because it’s not on an album. “I wrote this song about five years ago, but I didn’t really like it… When I wrote this song, I wrote it with 126 verses and every six months I have a meeting in my head to decide which ones to use.” His rants are endless and offer more of a glimpse into his persona than almost any other live record. He talks through most of the song stretching it out over eight minutes and provides wonderful anecdotes along the way which result in cheer from the crowd, but it really all clicks when the audience finally starts to clap along, giving in to the request that everyone have a good time.
Neil is one of the best when it comes to live records and he’s embraced the style for so long in his career. Sometimes (actually, often) I wonder how much else could be out there that is still worth releasing, and often Neil comes through with flying colors. To date, there are now four official releases all recorded within a twelve month span and this one is only three days after Live at Massey Hall 1971. However, in terms of his older acoustic performances, the recording here is supreme. His voice sounds impeccable and his guitar is warm and inviting while the piano is a sparkling treasure. Neil mentions always getting one of the parts wrong in “A Man Needs a Maid,” but it’s a new song so no one would know if he made a mistake, but under an all powerful microphone, every detail was picked up with perfection and each note hit the mark.
To be a Neil fan is a true test of patience. His Archives project has been incredibly rewarding over the past few years, but can feel like a tease at the same time with release dates often being pushed back. However, the quality never disappoints. Only months after releasing twelve almost entirely unreleased albums worth of material from the pinnacle of his career, Neil dropped these two releases and has more scheduled for the next few years. At this point, new fans aren’t going to bother with the majority, if any, of these albums, but for life-long die-hard fans, this is the stuff of dreams. The treasure trove seems to run deeper than most would have thought and with the constant revealing of new discoveries, it seems as if there is no slowing down in sight.
Long may you run, Neil.