Review: Neil Young + Crazy Horse Release ‘Early Daze’ From The Vaults – Revisiting 1969

Neil Young has gone into his tape vaults – which at this point, lets acknowledge, are full of gold – and emerged with some recordings made in 1969 with his best backing band, and the one he’s had the longest relationship with, Crazy Horse. I’ve got to tell you, I can’t stop listening to this album. There have been times when Young has released a single album from a certain time period and I’ve snapped it up only to then find he’s included said album in an upcoming box set… “double dipping” into my wallet. With Archives Volume I and Archives Volume II both out already and ’69 covered on the first of those sets I don’t think this is a teaser for some other box set.

I just love Neil Young with Crazy Horse. Of course, by the time I started listening to rock n roll in the late 70s, I thought Crazy Horse was just like the E Street Band or to a lesser degree the Silver Bullet Band, and they were Neil’s permanent back ups like those other outfits were for Springsteen and Seger respectively. It turns out Neil’s choice about who to work with tends to be a bit more “mercurial” and changes from album to album. He will do an album by himself with various other musicians backing him up then flit back over to working with Crazy Horse, and then perhaps over to the Stray Gators and then occasionally jump into CSNY. On some Neil LPs you can find songs by “all of the above.” You just never know who he’s going to play with next. He even did an album with Pearl Jam once upon a time. He’s apparently as commitment phobic (at least musically) as I was in my 20s, but that’s another post for a mental health blogger to sort out.

After the rather acrimonious break up of Neil’s first big group, the fabulous Buffalo Springfield, Neil recorded his self-titled debut album. I’ve always dug that album, but other than “The Loner” it’s a very singer/songwriter kind of record, before singer/songwriters were a thing. I once spent a weekend listening strictly to “Last Trip To Tulsa,” but again, it was a troublesome time for me. Neil Young sounded very much like an extension of Neil’s work in the Springfield to my ears. After that debut, Neil started jamming with a band named The Rockets down at the Whisky-A-Go-Go. They already had a lead guitar player who apparently didn’t realize Neil had just stolen the bulk of his band, namely Danny Whitten (guitar/vocals), Billy Talbot (bass), and Ralph Molina (drums). The rest of the Rockets thought Neil was borrowing those guys and would return to produce the Rockets next album. What can I say, show business is treacherous. I think Neil re-naming the band Crazy Horse and writing a song, “Running Dry (Requiem For The Rockets)” might have been a signal but who am I to judge?

The band worked on Neil’s second album, the glorious Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, the title track of which I used to play loudly when I lived in Ft. Smith, Arkansas… because it really is nowhere. The album also contained Neil’s first big “hit,” “Cinnamon Girl.” And more importantly two of Neil’s great guitar workouts, the over 10-minute “Cowgirl In The Sand” and over 9-minute “Down By The River.” It seems in Danny Whitten, Neil had found a guitar foil worthy of the mantle set by Stephen Stills in the Springfield. The album, released in May of ’69 was a bit of a surprise hit. I don’t think anybody in rock n roll thought the shaky voiced guy playing lead guitar in the Springfield was going to be the breakout star.

While they were recording Everyone Knows This Is Nowhere, as is his wont, Neil was recording a lot of other material… songs seemed to just flow out of the guy back then. And, admittedly Crazy Horse were also working on some songs of their own. And that is what leads me to the brilliance of this new Early Daze. Neil has gone back and culled 10 tracks from that wonderful year of 1969. Three of the tracks on the album ended up (in some version) on the Crazy Horse album from 1972. I know Crazy Horse was intent on doing a record, but I think it says a lot about Danny Whitten’s demons that the debut Crazy Horse LP didn’t come out until 3 years later… and by then Whitten had been sacked from the Horse and Nils Lofgren (guitar/vocals) had replaced him…and Jack Nitzsche (keyboards) had also joined the band.

Regardless of all that, if Neil didn’t dedicate Early Daze to Danny Whitten in the liner notes – I don’t have my physical copy yet, I’m still struggling to decide how to move forward as a collector, vinyl vs CD, the cover art tells us all you need to know about this album. Whitten, not Neil, is in the center of the album cover. While he’s bathed in the spotlight, as Neil plays off to the side, it almost looks ethereal, like the late Whitten is appearing as a ghost amongst the other members of Crazy Horse. Danny died tragically, OD’ing on valium and booze a few days after being fired by Neil in ’72 before the tour that produced Time Fades Away.

According to what I’ve read, only one of the songs on Early Daze has been released prior, “Dance Dance Dance,” which kicks off the album. The track was written by Neil but he gave it to Crazy Horse for their debut album. I’ve read that Neil wrote the song for a country-rock album they never got around to recording. There’s also a version of Whitten’s “Come On Baby Let’s Go Downtown,” that’s different than the version on Crazy Horse. Of course, the first time we’d heard this song was a live version, taken from Neil & Crazy Horse’s Live From The Fillmore East, that was on Tonight’s The Night. Hearing it now, I’ve come to realize it’s just a jaunty upbeat song about going downtown to buy heroin. There’s also a different version of “Look At All The Things,” another great Crazy Horse track.

I love that Neil places Crazy Horse songs along side his own. It gives us a glimpse into the creative process that was going down in 1969. They were working on tracks for both Neil and Crazy Horse. Neil toured in ’87-’88 with Crazy Horse billing themselves as “Third Greatest Garage Band In The World.” Listening to these recordings from 1969, I’d say they could have dropped the “Third” and were perhaps the Greatest Garage Band In The World at the time. Neil himself has always said, “I just play better guitar with Crazy Horse.” Between the Crazy Horse songs and Neil’s songs, this 10 song set just holds together extraordinarily well. The band was certainly gelling. I love how rough and ragged this music sounds but then I’d expect no less from Crazy Horse. This would have made a great album back in ’69 in and of itself.

As usual with Neil some of these songs surfaced around 1969 but several stayed in the vault for years. Only “Cinnamon Girl,” here in a mono mix and “Down By The River” in an alternate mix with alternate vocals appear from what became Everyone Knows This Is Nowhere. There’s also an early version of “Winterlong,” a version of which wasn’t heard until Neil’s greatest hits 3-album package Decade. “Wonderin'” is a track that didn’t see the light of day until the early 80s and in a very different rockabilly version on Everybody’s Rockin. Needless to say, I like this version better. “Everybody’s Alone” is a great little rock n roll song that has only previously been released, in a different mix, on Archives I. It’s nice to hear these songs in an album configuration.

The songs that really, really grab me, are this Crazy Horse version of “Helpless,” a track Neil used on the CSNY album Deja Vu. I love this take on the song although admittedly the CSNY version remains definitive. This version maintains the acoustic nature but then Crazy Horse kicks in and makes it more muscular. When it comes to certain songs, Neil is like that wine maker when I was a kid… to paraphrase (cue Orson Welles), “Neil will release no song, before it’s time.” The other song that struck me was a version of “Birds” (a mono version of this track was released as a B-side), a song that ended up on After The Gold Rush. Neil tried this song alone (acoustic), with CSNY (a delightful version with Graham Nash singing harmony), and now we have a version with Crazy Horse. I like every version of this song… including Linda Ronstadt’s wonderful cover.

Early Daze capture an incendiary artist who had teamed with the perfect backing band at the perfect time. It’s a great, raw, rocking “album that never was,” but even though the songs were from disparate recording sessions over that year, they all hang together very well. I didn’t expect to get into this album as deeply as I have, but it’s currently in high rotation here at B&V. I know it’ll certainly be blaring in my ear pods whilst I baste in the sun this weekend. Alas for Crazy Horse, rather than sticking with them, Neil had jumped rather casually into Crosby, Stills & Nash to create one of the earliest super groups. That didn’t last very long and soon we got Neil solo again with After The Gold Rush where we also meet Nils Lofgren… on piano no less. Luckily for we fans of rock n roll from the rougher edge of the spectrum, Neil has continued to record with Crazy Horse off and on over the decades including three great albums recently (Colorado, Barn, and New World Record).

Check out Early Daze at top volume and drift back to 1969…I was an infant so maybe I should be careful doing so…but I digress. Stay safe out there this 4th of July weekend… we want all 10 fingers on Monday. Enjoy this holiday weekend, it may be our final free Independence Day in the U.S. Cheers!