Talbot, Molina, Lofgren & Young – All Roads Lead Home (2023)

From badlands.co.uk

Crazy Horse has always been a band that was meant to be. Formed in the late 1960s as rock & roll was beginning to take a turn into the ’70s, the band (Ralph Molina, Billy Talbot and Danny Whitten) had started playing with Neil Young, and, though they didn’t know it then, were going to make history for 50-plus years. And while it is no surprise that Crazy Horse has continued on that quest, it is an exciting continuation of their storied career that the group is releasing ALL ROADS LEAD HOME on March 31, 2023. It is a statement of power and purpose on what rock & roll bands can accomplish as the decades pass and musical growth continues. In so many ways, Crazy Horse exists as a party of one in the way they have created something so uniquely original and completely within their own world.

ALL ROADS LEAD HOME is an album born out of pure inspiration as well as social necessity. Molina, Talbot and Lofgren kept recording their original songs, each with other musicians and in various locations during the pandemic years. They were forced to change from working as a trio with Neil Young, and used that opportunity to see what their new individual configurations would lead to. And, of course they led home. The three Crazy Horse members each recorded three songs apart and with different musicians, and by challenging themselves to see what they could do, all arrived at a wondrous consensus of unforgettable music. Crazy Horse has never made an album like this before.

Neil Young also includes “Song Of the Seasons,” a live solo version of the song from the album BARN with Crazy Horse, as a sign of solidarity with the band of brothers he has shared the stage and studio with since 1969.

In a world that is constantly changing and can swing from deep challenges to glorious creations in a way that feels never-ending, the songs of ALL ROADS LEAD HOME are a map of both where we’ve all been and where we might be going. In the end, the songs are a reminder of not only the gift of music, but just as important, the gift of friendship. Long may they run.

Neil Young: Nils Lofgren, Crazy Horse, Grin All That Mob (1973)

From ZigZag, December 1973

1973 Has been the year that saw legendary heroes hit the floor. Bryan Ferry lampooned Bob Dylan in a sordid attempt to establish his own credentials. Lou Reed was seen to stumble around the Rainbow stage, a sad advert for Cossack Vodka and Mary Quant. The announcement of Neil Young’s tour with Crazy Horse prompted much knife sharpening in the Press world. Idol-destruction is fashionable and habit-forming. All those sharp little biros thirsting for the blood of fallen stars.

Neil Young fell on to the stage at the Royal Festival Hall and breathed tequila fumes over the first four rows and waved, ‘Welcome to Miami Beach’. Your correspondent buried his head in his hands and wept. The Press were going to have a party this time.

After the concert I stumbled backstage and engaged various people in conversation in an attempt to unravel the whole circus. Neil Young, Crazy Horse and Grin share in incestuous history. All of them have recorded or toured together at some stage over the past seven years. Their involvement with each other is very close and presents us with a very fluid rock family entanglement to sort out.

I’ve followed the progress of all the musicians and bands that make up the family. What is revealed is possibly the worst case of musical injustice since Dave Mason split from Traffic to be forgotten. Grin, Nils Lofgren’s outfit, are one of the most interesting bands to emerge in the late sixties and Crazy Horse have contributed more to the laid back school of thought than they are credited for. Their desire not to get involved with the ‘business’ has meant, bluntly, that they have been ignored. Only the man himself has enjoyed, if enjoyed be the right word, international stardom.

The article was put together from three meetings. One with Nils Lofgren at his hotel for a brief half hour before he was dragged off to do a sound-check. Another during the afternoon before the Festival Hall concert and the third and most hazardous backstage after the gig. I found myself crushed into corners, tape machine dangling from my coat, fighting off the hustlers and suspicious managers who threw questions at me from all sides, ‘You better not be doing this to get to Neil,’ breathed a gentleman, looking not unlike a wealthy Woody Allen. The writer, having established his good intentions took up his machine and enquired. The result was a collection of glimpses into the past rather than a complete cohesive story. The intention, to establish the links and attitudes that have kept this party going. The Rockets’ legend has been intensified by an inaccessibility of recorded material. Baby John, the longest serving member of the Rockets/Neil Young/Crazy Horse road crew recounted the history of the Rockets and Crazy Horse up until Danny Whitten’s untimely death in November 1972. He told the story without stopping for breath – in many ways it is the complete rock’n’roll fairy story with the increasingly common tragic ending. Death by drug overdose and the loss of an un-discovered talent.***

Baby John: They (Ralph Molina, Billy Talbot and Danny Whitten) all met in Los Angeles and started street corner singing – the old ’55 stuff. Danny Whitten was the lead singer and they were called Danny And The Memories. They all moved out of L.A. after making a couple of singles for some small record label. The recording did not work out so they went up to ‘Frisco and started doing different things. Danny became a dancer, Billy sold clothes in a store and so on. Then acid hit, and they all came to realise that they would have to learn how to play instruments. The band headed back to L.A. – Ralph was playing boxes and everybody had these $5 guitars. This was around late ’65 – early ’66. We all lived in this one apartment building of which Billy’s mother was the manager. Danny locked himself in the basement for six months and came out playing. So they started a band called The Circle. And did some recording in ‘Frisco with Sly Stone, who was a big D.J. at that time, before he got his own band together. Sly produced them but that didn’t work out, so they formed their own record label, Lorna Records, named after one of the singers’ old ladies. That was Dino – who later dropped out. While they were up in ‘Frisco they met George and Leon Whitsell. George came back to L.A. with them and we moved out of Billy’s mother’s place up to Laurel Canyon. When George and Leon officially joined they became The Rockets.

They went into the studio with producer Barry Goldberg and did their first album. It was originally intended for Atlantic Records but someone big – Ahmet Ertegun – got pissed off with them and it was finally sold to White Whale, the Turtles’ label. The record company wouldn’t push the album, so it flopped. They became pretty big locally and on underground radio; they built up a real live following. After two years playing together, they were dynamite. They had a residency somewhere and would play the Whisky once in a while. One night Neil Young – who we all knew from the Buffalo Springfield days – walked in. He used to come around and jam with Danny. Danny was a really highly looked upon musician, by other musicians. Anyway back to that night. Neil saw one set and asked if he could come in and play on the second. He walked away that night with Danny, Ralph and Billy as his rhythm section.

Ralphy, Danny and Billy thought they were going to come back, but Neil put so many gigs ahead of them that the remaining members of the Rockets had to split up. George and Leon went back up to North Beach, ‘Frisco, and took up from where they had left off. George had played in clubs since he was a kid and Leon, well he was a really freaky dude. He had worked for Otis Elevators for years and he had saved up all his money for instruments and stuff. He wrote all his songs on the Rockets’ album, in a three month period.

Ralph, Danny and Billy went into the studio with Neil and cut Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere and he decided to call them Crazy Horse. The time involved in touring and doing that album meant no more Rockets. Neil and Crazy Horse stayed together for three years as a four piece. Jack Nitzsche, who had produced some of the vocals on Everybody Knows was asked along by Neil. He was keen to become part of it and so they were up to five.

Everything went fine until Danny got very heavily into junk. Neil said, ‘Either you quit being a junkie or we can’t play together’. When Neil lost Danny there wasn’t much point in keeping the rest of Crazy Horse around so it all broke down for a while. Danny had done all the background vocals and was a strong songwriter himself, so even after Neil fired him Crazy Horse put up with him. Right through their first album. He was too loaded to play but they got him singing all his parts for the album. They took him away to a house and fed him well, looked after him and after six weeks he came out fairly straight. Nils Lofgren and Ry Cooder came in to do most of the guitar. Nils had made friends with them all, long before. When they played in Washington (where Nils was living at the time) he came in like a young Jack The Duce [pronounced doose] and said, ‘I play man – dig this’. He literally blew their minds, this young kid full up with energy playing his ass off.

Returning to Danny, he had songs from the days of The Circle, but none of it ever reached the public ear. Tapes still exist including six songs he did with friends who wanted to get him down on record because he was going away. Danny’s death was an incredible blow to Crazy Horse, we tried to bring him back but he was really gone. The thing Danny had was that musically he was over Ralph and Billy. He could move them around. That’s why he was very valid to Neil, because they responded to Danny one hundred per cent. They always relied on him to pull it off so to speak.

Where does Crazy Horse stand now?

BJ: They are working in a studio in L.A. with John Blanton, who played piano on ‘Loose’, Greg Leroy, who was on ‘Loose’ and ‘Crooked Lake’ and George Whitsell. That’s probably the new Crazy Horse. Ralph and Billy being the only ones to have seen all of it. It’s very much in limbo at the moment.

Billy Talbot joined in the conversation at this point, confirming much of what Baby John had related and adding that Crazy Horse plus Nils and Ry Cooder would almost certainly have become a more permanent thing but for Danny’s condition. Neither B.J. nor Billy could remember which famous English guitarist married Robin Lane, who sings on Everybody Knows, but they were fairly sure she was living in New York.

Ralph Molina added a few pieces of information on the whereabouts of Bobby Notkoff, the violinist on ‘Everybody Knows’.

RM: Notkoff lives in Colorado. He’s been travelling around and playing with different people. He has no regular band now.

What of Robin Lane?

RM: She had the most beautiful voice. She disappeared with some English guitar player, I forget his name.

And Danny’s death?

RM: It was the best thing that could have happened to him at the time.

We agreed to meet at Billy’s hotel the next day to go over the whole tiling in detail but plane tickets got to him before I could.

AFTER THE GOLDRUSH

Nils Lofgren ran away from home when he was 17 years old. He headed straight for Greenwich Village and met Phil Rosenbaum, Traffic’s lighting man. Phil looked after him and bought him as near to a gig as he could manage, a dressing room jam with Eric Burdon and the Animals. Sleeping on the streets in New York during the winter months proved to be too much for the frail youth. He caught pneumonia and headed back to his parents.

Nils first met or rather introduced himself to Neil and Crazy Horse around the time between Everybody Knows and After The Goldrush. Grin was going by this time but only as a local band around Washington and Virginia. Neil introduced Lofgren to David Briggs, who produced the second and third Young albums and the whole party moved to the West Coast for a while. The next few months saw the release of three inter-related albums, Grin, After The Goldrush and Crazy Horse.’

After The Goldrush was basically Neil Young and Crazy Horse plus friends. It is the first album that Nils Lofgren got his name on to. Nils explains what went on.

NL: At the time Neil was in the process of being put on suspension by Warner Bros. They wanted an album really badly, because Neil was just about to join Crosby Stills & Nash. He had no idea what he wanted to do, but he had all these half written songs. I originally went out to Neil’s place to rehearse for touring and all that, but an album evolved out of the musicians who were up there at the time. It was very unplanned. He tried a few drummers but after the first six he decided that Ralphy was his style. He couldn’t find anyone else that fitted in. Everyone else almost had too much technical ability to just feel it. Danny and Billy were there, and Steve Stills and Greg Reeves came by as well. One night we all played together and Neil liked it so he said that we’d start recording the next day. He really took us by surprise. First day we went into L.A. to record and it was terrible. The second day we just rented a board – a mixing desk – took it up to Neil’s place, and set up in his front room. There was another room with a piano in it that we used for a studio. It was incredibly relaxed.

Neil had been used to working with the Springfield, and albums with them took up a lot of time, and mental and physical energy. In a studio you can’t help thinking about the money. It doesn’t seem right to take two hours off to sit around and relax. But at his home the machines were there 24 hours a day. We could play or record any time of the day or night.

We would play through a song about four times to learn it with Neil doing all live vocals in the same room. In four days he had written six new songs. In fact the whole thing was on tape in under a week, allowing another week or two for mixing. Neil really liked it when it was finished. He liked the concept behind the songs but it had been done so quick that he was not sure how the public would take to it. He was not sure if there was enough in it. Before it was not unusual to spend four months recording. It blew his mind that it was done so quick. Neil’s whole thing with the moods and the words…somehow there was more space than before to allow them to come through. He was not sure that the simple laid back sound would be generally acceptable but he loved it. When they put it out he got a big surprise. It gave him a lot of confidence.

Was Jack Nitzsche involved in Goldrush because he had helped out on the first two?

NL: On one of the Crazy Horse cuts, ‘When You Dance’ he plays piano.

We hear that he’s not the easiest person to work with.

NL: I don’t know what it is with Jack, I guess he feels that he is a solo artist in his own right. When we recorded Goldrush he came by a lot and Neil really wanted him to play piano on this particular track. Jack would get drunk and talk a lot. One second he’d be sitting there drivelling away about how much he loved Neil’s music then next thing you knew he’d be yelling and screaming at him, calling him names and refusing to play. One afternoon I was there at the house, it was really embarrassing ’cause I was really young and I wasn’t aware of all this heavy shit going down. Just to get him to play on that song we had to talk him into it. He looked like a big baby to me but I know Jack, I’ve worked with him, and he’s not like that. He’s got a lot of different sides and well – he gets drunk, I mean high drunk, and says what he thinks. Just being on the outskirts of that whole thing I can see that you could get someone to say almost anything about anybody at one time or another.

How did the tour go that you used for Time Fades Away?

NL: That whole tour was a bummer for Neil, because not everybody was emotionally involved in what he was doing. It was – ‘Well I can play great but it costs you this much money for that much time’. It’s that whole Nashville thing, just cut and dried.

One more thing about Goldrush. Whatever happened to Dean Stockwell’s film?

NL: Oh Jesus, I don’t even know if it was filmed or what it was about. Dean used to drop by a lot when we were recording. I think the film involved a lot of Topanga people. God knows what happened to it.

How did Crazy Horse come to record on their own?

NL: After we finished Goldrush Crazy Horse decided to try one.

Were you ever offered a permanent gig with them?

NL: I was in Grin long before all that. I got the impression at the time that they just wanted a guitar player for the one album. Although Goldrush came out first, we [David Briggs and Grin] did our album first. It took so long to organise ourselves with a record deal that it ended up coming out months later.

So the order was Grin, Goldrush, Crazy Horse?

NL: That’s right.

GRIN AND LATER

Nils could not be tempted away from his own band, Grin, despite the success, in terms of musical compatability that After The Goldrush produced. Goldrush proved to be Young’s biggest commercial success but Grin and Crazy Horse created nothing more than a mild flicker. An understanding manager and a sympathetic producer have enabled Grin to carry on where other bands have had to retire under financial pressure. Lofgren at twenty-two years old plays the sort of red hot guitar that shames many older pretenders, ignore him at your peril.

Nils takes up the story from his first album.

ZZ: What was the extent of Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s involvement with your first album?

NL: Neil, Ralph and Billy sing on ‘Outlaw’ and on ‘Pioneer Mary’, Neil plays lead guitar way up at the back. At the end of the track Ralph and Danny sing harmonies.

When did Grin first get together?

Bob Berberich [Grin’s drummer] and myself started out five years ago with a different bass player. We picked up a new bassist, Bob Gordon, before the album. My brother Tom joined us shortly before we recorded All Out.

The first album is dedicated to Roy Buchanan, how important a figure is he to you?

I knew Roy; he was from my area. I saw him when I first started playing guitar and he completely knocked me out. He had this technique, using harmonics – that he doesn’t use that much now – which I really liked.

Is that the sound you used on ‘See What Love Can Do’ on the first Grin album?

Right. I didn’t do it to imitate him or anything, it was just an aspect of lead guitar playing which I got into, like wah-wah or anything else. The whole thing with harmonics, I first got turned onto by Roy.

He was over here recently.

Roy played over here? That really surprises me. He’s not into travelling and that whole trip at all. Did you see him?

Sure.

He had a weak band, right? That’s it with Roy; he’s been through so much, that he’s too tired to put a lot of energy into what he’s doing. He saw it long before we did.

How do you get that swimming, Leslie sound on your guitar breaks?

That’s a Guild Rotorverb. It’s just a little red box. I stumbled across one in a music store, they had already stopped making them, so I bought every one I could find. When they break, it’s all over, you just can’t repair them. I use it all the time but keep it real slow.

What guitars do you use?

On the first album I used this old Fender Telecaster but now I’ve settled for a Stratocaster which I put through a beat up old Fender amp.

You play accordian don’t you?

Since the age of five. It wasn’t until my brother Tom took up guitar that I felt, as the musician of the house, that I could not face having my kid brother handle something I could not. Until I was 15 and started to learn guitar I had only been into jazz and classical things. I never heard Elvis Presley or any of that. I’d hear friends listening to the Beatles and I’d think, ‘What’s all that about? The songs I do now where I use accordion are a reflection of those days when I used to play ‘spaghetti dinners’ and all that and had to learn those kind of songs.

What other musicians have made a great impression upon you or act as a source of inspiration to your writing or playing?

I suppose The Beatles got me into songwriting. It’s so long ago since they broke up that I’m not so excited about it. Listening to their old records I have to be in the right place. It’s almost sad to think they’re not around anymore. Jimi Hendrix was without a doubt the one guitar player I could say was my idol, because he did the whole thing. Roy’s great, but Hendrix had whatever it was – the desire element, to go through all he had to. It killed him. Vocally, for me, Paul Rodgers is the best singer in rock’n’roll. Among musicians back home he’s up there [points at the sky]. My main vocal inspiration comes from him and Rod Stewart. The Stones have become more important to me just recently. I think what Keith Richard does is incredible.

Does his lifestyle worry you at all?

It’s hard to explain. I’m really into Keith Richard and then you see people like that wiped out or strung out and stuff and you have to separate the two. You may want to emulate Richard or Hendrix but only to a certain point. You hear all these stories from people in L.A. about Keith Richard. How he’s so strung out and how he’s going to die soon and all that. Since then, I’ve been really depressed. He’s a really important person to me. I don’t want to meet him backstage at a Stones’ concert or anything with all those scenes going on: I’d just like to meet him and talk to him. Things like that really bother me. I don’t think people like that are as aware of their importance to other people, as they should be. I want to know who it really is. What you read and what you see are two different things. I read a story in Time magazine about The Faces, how they play straight and have to act drunk because that’s what people think they are and it makes you wonder. Time magazine caught Stewart on a bad day, he was down on the music business. He seems like a real honest person, but it would appear that he’s letting these business people push him around. He was saying in the article that one afternoon he had a show to prepare for and he hadn’t slept in two days and he had to see someone from a paper. He said, ‘Sorry, not today, I don’t feel up to it’. So they turn around and say to him that their paper is read by x amount of people and they’re gonna put you down if you don’t do it. So he said, ‘OK, I’ll do it’.

Things like that you must really get tired of. Going through all that just to stay in that position. Like pretending to be drunk when you’re really not anymore.

Where do you think music’s place is in the music industry?

To get really huge and popular and sell a lot of records, to be good within the context of making money and being comfortable. That’s what you use the music business for. To be good, musically – it just takes talent and practice. It’s insane what’s involved. Grin have made three albums, all of them were stiff from a business point of view, i.e. they lost the record company money. Most bands after three stiff albums can’t even get a contract, so they break up or try something new. My manager has always kept us together business-wise. We’ve always been able to record whenever we wanted to. I think that’s pretty rare.

What effect does your own business involvement have on your writing?

Some people could live all their lives playing clubs, I can’t do that. I’m so involved with business at this time that I don’t write consistently. When I write I sit down and tell myself I’ve got two weeks until I go into the studio and I need ten songs. I don’t force the songs, I force myself to become involved in the writing over a long period of time. I’m really forcing myself to become immersed in it. I’d rather not have to do that. I’d rather just do it when it happens because they might come out differently. They might be better…or worse. Now in Neil’s position he means enough, money-wise, to have all those things we re talking about, taken care of by somebody. It’s a case of getting there in the first place.

Can you tell us something of the direction your songwriting is taking? You hinted that you were concentrating more on the rock’n’roll side of your writing.

I’m not getting away from the mellow things like ‘Soft Fun’ on I + I. It’s very complicated. I’m just deciding that as I see more of the music business I realise that to do what I really want to do, it’s confusing to have two different concepts of music coming across from the one band. Live, it’s impossible to put the mellow things across, unless you have a name like Neil. With our audience we are a rock band. So we play that and the mellow parts I do sort of quickly, unannounced and alone, without making a big thing out of it. I have all these pretty songs in my head, I naturally write like that. I’m not forcing myself into the rock thing but we’ve been opening to J. Geils and you just can’t do it. If no one had heard of Neil and he went out on a stool in front of a J. Geils audience he wouldn’t finish one number. I surely can’t do that either, so that’s why we concentrate on the other stuff.

Do you feel, having played to English audiences on this [Neil Young] tour that you could do your quiet songs here?

If we opened Neil’s show, yes. It depends on who you play with. When and if, we get more acceptance it would be more natural to include that softer element.

Your second album with Grin is split into two sides: the dreamy side and the rockin’ side. Where you consciously trying to separate the two?

It just worked out that way. The songs I wrote for that album seemed to fall neatly into the two categories. A lot of people criticised me for it, or they liked one side and hated the other. You can’t please everyone – it was just how we felt at the time.

How did Graham Nash become involved in it?

He came down to do some backing vocals for that one track, ‘Hi, Hello Home’, and ended up arranging and writing all the vocal parts for it. He’s a very friendly and helpful person. When I was in California, broke, and badly wanted to get back to my own band he lent me the money for the plane fare.

After the second record your brother Tom joined. How did that come about?

We were a trio for two albums and we decided to try out some guitar players. It was the same old problem. People were too involved in their personal thing to make it happen. We didn’t have a big house, we couldn’t pay them salaries. We just wanted to play. Finally we didn’t know what to do, my brother was still at school but really he was the obvious choice. He plays much more than lead fills. Rhythmatic lines as opposed to plain up and down rhythm. In Creedence, for instance, all John Fogerty’s brother did was a background thing, up and down. Tom’s only 19 and he gets better all the time. I think it was a really good idea. I mean, when you work like Jack and Neil there comes a point when both parties think they know what is happening, then you get friction. Whereas with Tom I never tell him what to play but he’ll listen to any suggestions. It works very well.

You recently left Columbia and signed to A&M. Have you recorded for them yet?

The future looks good for us since we left Columbia. We finished the new one for A&M just before I came over with Neil. It’s called Gone Crazy, and that’s about how we felt when it was all over.

Have you used lady backup singers again?

It was really strange, we ended up using The Vandellas without even knowing it. Briggs and myself were in L.A. and running out of time and they showed up. Clydie King, Merry Clayton and Shirley Matthews are on it as well.

Do you think Kathy MacDonald really fitted in with what you were trying to do on All Out?

At first, I only wanted her to do one song, but in the studio the sound was so intense, and she turned us all on so much, that she finished up on everything. The way I do albums is that we just do it how we feel at the time and then move on. Instead of using girl singers in the background I wanted somebody you could use up front. Looking back on Kathy, it all sounded so good at the time that we probably overdid it a little.

DAVID BRIGGS

When ZigZag interviewed Ed Cassidy and Randy California earlier in the year they implied that David Briggs just sat there and they actually produced The Twelve Dreams Of Dr Sardonicus. Having spoken to you I get the impression that he’s the most valuable person to have in a studio. Can you explain David’s value?

Can I start with a story? OK, years ago I got into a studio and did some things with Donovan, that were never released. Micky Most was his producer and David came with me and did the engineering. Three Dog Night’s back-up band were there as well, minus their guitar player. David was in on it because he was a friend of Murray Roman, the comedian, who Donovan happened to be staying with. Three Dog Night’s singers were getting uptight because their band was with Donovan, so after a few nights they unfortunately had to split. Donovan didn’t know what to do, so I offered him my band. They’d never been in a studio before in their lives. Micky Most was running around telling everybody what to do and how to play. We’d just nod and he’d leave the room and we’d play how we wanted. All the good sounds that were going on tape were down to David. He’s not the kind of producer who likes or cares to work with a band who just got their head cut off and say – ‘What do we do, where do we go?’

The first time I ever went into a studio with my band I couldn’t believe it. It was like a spaceship to me. I didn’t know what anything meant, but I did know the songs and how I wanted them to sound. David assumes you know what you want. All along the way he’s making suggestions and helping you to decide on yours but he leaves most of the decisions on what the music should be, up to the band. Micky Most was trying to use him as an engineer. That’s all bullshit – if you’ve got an engineer who knows what you want to do. That’s why, to me, being a producer has always been sort of a joke. Lou Adler has all these great records but all he’d do would be to use great engineers. He’d just sit there and listen and say, ‘That didn’t sound right’ or ‘Keep that’ – that kind of thing. Whereas David is both. You don’t have to go through a middleman which is to be what most producers are. Anyone with a good musical ear could do it. David does the whole thing alone, gets all the sounds. It saves the band so much mental hassle. I never want to record one of my albums without him.

He’s not the same David Briggs who records in Nashville is he?

No, they’re two different people. The other one is a musician first, and a producer second. The David Briggs who produces Grin, Neil Young and did that Spirit album is a producer/engineer first. He plays guitar and piano but he involves himself mainly with studio work. Getting back to Ed and Randy. I was at those Spirit sessions and I’ll tell you. They’re all living in Topanga Canyon, doing this album and David’s an old friend of theirs. So they hit him to go along and help. I was living with him when he was working on that album and he worked so hard and long helping those guys. They say he only sat there, but they only sat there playing guitar or whatever. He did all the engineering on that entire album. If he hadn’t been there the record wouldn’t have sounded as good as it did. David’s got a lot of desire and he’s very intense. It’s hard to explain but I couldn’t imagine a more useful person to have in a studio. He never tells you what to play, so if you don’t know, there are going to be problems. If he’d have told Randy how to play guitar he would have said no thanks. He was doing them a favour as a friend. No contracts or anything.

Why did Elliot Mazer take over from David Briggs on Harvest?

Neil was going through so many things so fast that he just wanted a change. So he went to Nashville and ran into Elliot. I assume he was a great engineer and didn’t tell anybody how to play. He was giving Neil complete freedom whereas David is frank with Neil. David will suggest that maybe this sounds better than that. David did the new album, Tonight’s The Night. Neil realises what a valuable person he is. No matter what he says, you respect it, whether you disagree or not. When musicians get popular and big it’s hard to find one who will actually sit and take that. They’re just sure that they know what they’re doing.

Can you draw a line between Time Fades Away and Tonight’s The Night?

The new album was done live in an instrument rental place in L.A. Same as Time Fades Away but no audience. It’s the first time we [Billy Talbot, Ralph Molina and Nils Lofgren] have recorded together since Goldrush. It’s real raw and crude, even rawer than Goldrush but there’s one new instrument, the steel guitar, played by Ben Keith. He was on Harvest and Time Fades Away. Now Time Fades Away was surrounded by that Nashville thing. It’s part of the lifestyle down there to be at least as interested in status and money as the music. With the one we just finished, Neil gave us complete freedom to play as we wanted. He’s been doing it for so long he doesn’t want to spend six months hassling for one record with a thousand overdubs and yelling and screaming at band members. We just did his songs the way we wanted. He thought that at this juncture these musicians he’s working with can play the kind of thing he wanted without him having to say, ‘This note here, that note there.’ We just got into the feel of it. Basically he wanted to play with his friends and relax.

FURTHER RAMBLINGS ON THE WHOLE CIRCUS

NL: On Neil’s last tour of the States he played all those huge places and was making good money, so the place was crawling with people making sure that everything was taken care of. No matter what it was, it was there before they asked. The English tour tells a different story. Neil’s losing money to do it so none of those people are around. Neil’s been travelling first class, high class. Here we walk back to the hotel from a gig. That’s nothing for me, in fact it’s nothing to Neil but if we were over here in Europe playing the biggest halls available and just pushing the people for every last cent those business people would be over taking care of everything.

The album we did before we came over, Tonight’s The Night is the first David and Neil have done together since Goldrush. After finishing that, he had wanted a change and got it, but it wasn’t as real. Musically it was as real but the peripheral things weren’t as real. For instance when Neil called me up to come over on this tour my first question wasn’t ‘Can you afford me?’ I was right in the middle of my album and I said, ‘Sure. I’ll do it’. This band is as interested in the music as anything else. We haven’t even discussed money and we know the musicians on Neil’s last tour cleaned up. We know he’s losing money over here and anything we get paid will come out of his own pocket. It’s interesting because he couldn’t do this if he wasn’t who he is. His managers told him that from a business level it was a terrible thing to do. What he should be doing now is making an album with Crosby, Stills and Nash, touring, and making the million or two dollars that go with it. So this is all for fun.

Ralph seemed a little cynical about the CSN&Y thing.

Ralph’s real cynical in a comic sort of way. He’s very stable and always knows what he thinks and what he wants. He doesn’t care about the business and that’s why he hasn’t pushed to get what he wants. He’d just as soon be home in L.A. with his kid and old lady. Driving around in his antique Plymouth having a good time. The reason the music’s working like it does is because the people in it are like Ralph.

He knows, and I know, that the CSN&Y thing is good musically, but it can’t be as real and personal as this. Same difference between a musician who plays clubs all his life and someone in Neil’s position. You have to decide whether you are going to sell yourself to the point where if you’re getting your music into the open in a large sense then the sacrifice becomes worthwhile. To Neil it is and to me it is. I don’t know how far or where it will take me, but to people it’s not like that, Ralph wouldn’t do this for $lm. He doesn’t dig being on the road. Only time he enjoys himself is when he’s playing and if he gets off. With the CSN&Y show there’s no financial pressure, there is an unbelievable amount of internal pressure between the individuals involved, but they can go out in front of people and do anything and the crowd will love it. That’s what Ralph was getting at.

Who suggested putting the CSN&Y circus back on the road?

I’m sure that after it first started, whether the musicians wanted to or not, the management would always keep it up in the air. Because business-wise it’s the most important thing any of them could do. Neil tried in October but he freaked out and could not handle it, and that’s why we are here now. That’s why the whole Tonight’s The Night thing came about. I can see the pressure on them without actually feeling it myself. Surrounded by that unreal world it was making them feel more important than they really were.

It would appear that Neil Young lives in both these worlds and has to come back to this one from time to time.

Right – he’s had to go through a lot of things to do what he’s doing now. People he respected on a business level advised him against it. On this tour there are so many things not taken care of, if David wasn’t there it would be a complete freak-out. Terrible things would have happened because nothing was being taken care of. It was like a joke. Neil’s off losing a fortune, playing games with something that’s not going to help him out.

Do you see it happening again?

I definitely see it happening again to Neil. Whether it involves the same people again is a different matter.

So the whole thing came about as a way of escaping the pressure of being Neil Young, The Loner and Neil Young the Star?

Right…there has been pressure here, particularly in London, but of a different kind. We hadn’t anticipated the attentiveness of English audiences and their almost reverence towards Neil. ‘Cos as I say, the whole thing was designed to be fun.

We talked at great length about the different kind of audiences on both sides of the Atlantic and the attitudes of the people involved only on the business level. An interesting little story came up about opening night at The Roxy. L.A.’s latest fun house for the sub-faggots who haunt Sunset Strip.

NL: One night Neil ordered a round of drinks for the audience, on the house. Remember he was playing three nights, six sets for free, as a favour to Lou Adler and David Geffen and the other people who owned the place. Between sets his managers came up and were yelling and screaming in his face. I couldn’t believe it. They said. ‘What are you doing ordering a free round of drinks…do you know that’s a potential $1200-worth of profit?’ I mean 400 drinks is about $50-worth of booze. David Briggs just jumped up and stared in their faces – he couldn’t believe it either. He doesn’t like that kind of stuff at all. What it actually came down to was his own managers were telling him and David that they wouldn’t buy a round of drinks for any reason and they [David and Neil] must be really stupid. My manager would be fired if he pulled something like that, not that he’d ever do a thing like that. In the end they were hassling Neil so bad that David said, ‘Screw you guys, leave him alone, I’ll pay for the drinks. Neil and David agreed to split it and his managers said, ‘Well OK dummy if you’re stupid enough to do it we’ll let you pay for it’. And right now to this day David and Neil are being hassled, not only to pay for the $50-worth of booze but to shell out the $1200-worth of potential profit that they threw away by ordering the house a free round of drinks. That’s the kind of thing I hadn’t seen until recently. I’m not on a level where that’s ever likely to happen to me. My manager is more like David Briggs. I’m not saying that Neil’s managers aren’t but they are just pure business and they don’t appreciate what’s involved with Neil’s success, the personal thing. They assume that he just writes songs, he’s a businessman – he can do it any time. There’s a lack of concern for him whenever Neil’s doing something that doesn’t involve making money. I’m not saying they’re dishonest, I’m only pointing out that there is a point where you have to let yourself go, or sell yourself for too much, in order to make money. They have little respect for what’s really going down; and to see that happen to someone like Neil blew my mind. It probably shows you what you already suspect about the whole thing.

Grin, with an average age of 22, have years ahead of them. Crazy Horse have seen it all and since Danny Whitten’s death have stayed in limbo. No body knows if the new Crazy Horse will survive or not. Maybe Danny is irreplaceable. It is hard to understand why a band that contributed so much on two superb albums, Everybody Knows and Goldrush, should be in such difficulties. Loose and Crooked Lake are both good albums but neither have the quality that burns your ears off, present on their first album. Even Neil Young has discarded those images that preserved his enigmatic status. The cryptic imagery of his early work has been replaced by parable story-telling in the plainest English, but whoever learnt anything from the experiences of others?

Nils Lofgren Back It Up [Authorised Bootleg] (1975)

From thatdevilmusic.com

One of the most highly-coveted “Holy Grails” of record collecting has always been Nils Lofgren’s Back It Up!! A 1975 promotional release by Lofgren’s label, A&M Records, the faux bootleg was actually cut live in the studio by Nils and band for a radio broadcast on San Francisco’s KSAN-FM. The folks at the label liked the performance so much that they decided that it was just the thing to light a fire under complacent FM radio programmers and support Lofgren’s critically-acclaimed self-titled debut album.

With much less corporate bureaucracy to struggle with back in those days, the idea of an authorized “bootleg” album shuffled around the offices and quickly became a reality. The label pressed up 1,000 copies of Back It Up!! on vinyl with a plain white cardboard sleeve and crude photocopied insert, as was the style of bootleggers at the time, and mailed ‘em out to radio stations and the press. Although it netted Lofgren a fair amount of airplay and hype, history has proven that it did little to boost his record sales above those of any mid-card punter.

As laid out by Bud Scoppa’s informative liner notes for Back It Up!! Live…An Authorized Bootleg, the label was hot to send the promo album out as a regular release, an idea nixed by the man Nils himself. Fearing that the live disc would interfere with sales of his second album, Cry Tough, the promo-only album was put back into the label’s vaults. Meanwhile, as Lofgren’s career continued on pace, with the talented guitarist eventually setting aside his solo work in favor of a gig with Springsteen’s E Street Band, the status of Back It Up!! continued to grow, a primo copy of the original PVC fetching low-to-mid three-figure prices in collector’s circles.

I had seen several bootleg copies of Back It Up!! circulating around the various record conventions that I worked during the late 1970s/early ’80s, especially in Detroit and Chicago, but the Reverend actually picked up his favored copy of the vinyl from a former label executive’s gotta-move-now-cause-I’m-outta-cash yard sale in Nashville for a mere $2.00. My copy looks like the real thing, but what the hell do I know? It could be a boot; if it is, it’s a good one: the vinyl sounds great and looks authentically grungy. Maybe I should do some DNA testing, though, ‘cause according to Scoppa, his roommate – noted rock critic R. Meltzer – was hired by the label to fix the inserts to the sleeve, his sweat inevitably mixing with the sticky glue.

The main reason why Back It Up!! remains a valued collectible after all these years isn’t solely because of its scarcity, or lack thereof (I’ve probably seen over 1,000 copies myself at shows through the years, if you catch my meaning). No, the album is valued above other label promo items ‘cause it rocks like a leopard on a treadmill, whatever that means. It’s a great selection of songs…a couple from Nils Lofgren, the debut album; a couple of vintage Grin cuts (including the beautiful “Like Rain”); and a soulful turn on the Goffin-King chestnut “Goin’ Back.”

The performances captured by the album are simply electrifying, among the best you’ll hear from Nils, and these ears have heard a lot. Lofgren’s Keith Richards tribute, “Keith Don’t Go (Ode To The Glimmer Twin)” starts out with a tense, trippy guitar line straight from the Who playbook before breaking into Nils’ impassioned lyrical plea. The fretwork is stellar, Nils tearing off a number of crushing solos built atop the brickyard rhythms provided by his brother, guitarist Tommy Lofgren.

“I Don’t Want To Know,” also from the solo debut, should have been a huge radio hit; a melodic rock number with fine vocal gymnastics and a BIG catchy hook guaranteed to grab you by the ears, it’s a classic tale of love and betrayal. This live version benefits from the addition of Al Kooper’s piano, the rock legend working on producing Lofgren’s sophomore effort at the time. The aforementioned cover of “Goin’ Back” offers Kooper’s light-hearted keyboard riffing and a breathless, smooth-as-silk vocal performance by Nils. “Beggar’s Day” jumps back into a rock groove after several pop-inflected cuts, the obscure Grin cut showcasing Lofgren’s tuffest vox and even tougher fretwork, his slice-and-dice solos filleting the slightly funky rhythms of bassist Scott Ball and drummer Mike Zack.

Rock ‘n’ roll, much like life, is full of “what if” moments. What if you had married the geek that later started that billion-dollar software business rather than the high school quarterback? What if you’d bought that Google stock at $12 per share like your father-in-law suggested? What if Mr. Miyagi had refused to teach that punk kid any of his slick moves? What would have happened to Lofgren’s career if an excellent live set like Back It Up!! had been released to compliment both his debut album and Cry Tough? Would it have been enough to put Nils in the national spotlight, where his native talent and dynamic onstage presence might have brought him the stardom he deserves?

As good as this set is, maybe Back It Up!! could have been better. Clocking in at slightly less than 45 minutes, the album feels incomplete by a song or two. Maybe Nils and his talented band only put these seven songs to tape, I don’t know. But if Hip-O Select had more of this stuff in the vault, they should have released an expanded version of Back It Up!! since it’s clearly the long-faithful fans that would be the most interested in this limited edition CD reissue.

Nils Lofgren – Nils Lofgren (1975)

From thesecondisc.com

Nils Lofgren was only in his teenage years when Neil Young called upon him to add piano and guitar to his now-classic 1970 album After the Gold Rush. The Chicago-born musician’s association with Young announced him in a big way, launching a career that flourishes to this very day.  Lofgren served a brief stint in Crazy Horse, playing on that band’s 1971 album, and with his own band Grin recorded four well-received albums between 1971 and 1973 on the Epic and A&M labels.  It was in 1975 for the latter company that Lofgren launched his own solo career.  Real Gone Music has recently reissued the self-titled Nils Lofgren album, a.k.a. the “Fat Man” album, in a new edition (RGM-0360).

Co-produced by Young’s frequent collaborator David Briggs and recorded in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Falls Church, Virginia, Nils Lofgren featured the eponymous artist on acoustic and electric guitars, piano and organ, joined by Wornell Jones on bass and The Mothers of Invention’s Aynsley Dunbar on drums. Despite having released over 20 solo albums since, Lofgren writes in his brand-new liner notes that he considers his first “still one of my best.”  Indeed, the album has proven to be not just a vibrant and inspired debut but one of Lofgren’s strongest and most consistent collection of songs ever, boasting twelve tracks of spirited rock and roll crafted with a pop tunesmith’s flair.

Though Lofgren introduced the album showcasing his liquid guitar chops on the brief, under-a-minute caution to “Be Good Tonight,” the “Fat Man” album is as beholden to pop as it is to rock, with its accessible, melodic and tight songs.  This stylistic point is driven home by the album’s closing track, a strong rendition of Gerry Goffin and Carole King’s classic “Goin’ Back” – associated with artists from Dusty Springfield to The Byrds – which he made his own.

Lofgren writes of his mornings walking up California’s famed Pacific Coast Highway to a local Polynesian bar in Malibu Colony, drinking Zombies and listening to Ray Charles to prepare himself for an afternoon’s writing session.  Indeed, the breezy and laid-back California spirit is intertwined with the blues on Nils Lofgren, not to mention the country-rock influences of friend and collaborator Neil Young (who gifted him with his Martin D-18 on which he wrote much of the album).  This blend of styles shines on tracks like “Back It Up” and One More Saturday Night.”  Still, those looking for edgier fare weren’t left out, either.  Electric blues-rock licks enhance the tough “Can’t Buy a Break,” and a harder rock sensibility suffuses “Rock and Roll Crook.”

Though he’s justly renowned as a guitarist, Lofgren penned a number of the album’s songs on piano.  He utilized the instrument to anchor the swaggering “If I Say It, It’s So,” the loose “Duty” and the rollickingly upbeat slice of autobiography, “The Sun Hasn’t Set (On This Boy Yet).”  His piano also drives the sinuous and moody “I Don’t Want to Know,” on which Young’s vocal influence is readily apparent.  You might also hear a bit of Bruce Springsteen’s “The Fever” in this track – surely a coincidence, but moreover, an omen of how apt an addition to The E Street Band Lofgren would become in the following decade.  (He, of course, remains with Springsteen’s legendary outfit today.)

The most enduring track on Nils Lofgren, however, is undoubtedly “Keith Don’t Go.” Written by Lofgren while on the road with Neil Young’s Tonight’s the Night tour, the song was subtitled “Ode to the Glimmer Twin.”  It immediately became a favorite in the budding Lofgren songbook. A “right away letter…straight to my main inspirer,” the heart-on-its-sleeve song pled with the Rolling Stone to conquer his demons. “We miss our father Jimi/It’s hard to breathe with that loss/But I still got you, brother/Don’t nail yourself to a cross,” Lofgren implored over a blazing track worthy of the Stones themselves.  Keith Richards has, of course, long established himself as the quintessential rock and roll survivor, but the younger artist’s composition remains a heartfelt and touching snapshot of a moment in time when the thought of The Rolling Stones touring in 2015 would likely have been impossible to imagine.

Hot on the heels of last year’s massive Face the Music box set chronicling the whole of Lofgren’s career as a solo artist and bandleader, Real Gone’s reissue of Nils Lofgren couldn’t have come at a better time.  His liner notes enhance the stellar package which restores this seminal, too-long out-of-print title to the catalogue.  Forty years later, the sun still, happily, hasn’t set on this boy yet!