Neil Young Unveils ‘Early Daze,' a Companion to His Classic ‘Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere': Album Review
Neil Young Unveils ‘Early Daze,' a Companion to His Classic ‘Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere': Album Review
One of the biggest challenges for any artist is knowing when a creation - a song, a story, a painting - is finished and ready to be shared with the world. More than many, Neil Young has shown a willingness to wait, recording songs and full albums - and even performing them in concert - and then sitting on them for years… or decades.
In just one of many examples, "Winterlong," one of his greatest songs, was previewed in concert as a work in progress in 1968, recorded and performed live with Crazy Horse over the next two years, then re-recorded and slotted for inclusion on at least two different albums before finally being released on his "Decade" compilation in 1977. Likewise, his legendary 1970 Fillmore East concert with Crazy Horse was almost released several times before he finally issued it thirty-six years after it was recorded; his "Chrome Dreams" studio album was considered for release in 1977 but didn't come out until last year. And in 2020, upon the belated release of his excellent 1975 studio album "Homegrown," he actually apologized to his fans for holding it back for so long.
So nearly all of Young's albums have parallel histories - alternate versions including contemporaneous songs that wouldn't be released until long after. His mercurial nature and sudden changes of heart are part of his legend and what keeps fans fascinated, more than 60 years after his recording career began.
While "Early Daze" wasn't intended to be an album, it includes many songs recorded in 1969, in the months after the release of Young's iconic "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" breakthrough. Nearly all of these songs would turn up in different versions in many different places: There are early versions of "Winterlong"; "Dance Dance Dance" and "Downtown" (both of which turned up on Crazy Horse's 1971 debut album); the classic "Helpless," which would be one of the timeless tracks on Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's "Déjà Vu"; the countryesque "Wonderin'," which Young wouldn't release until 1983's rockabilly-flavored "Everybody's Rockin'." There are also different mixes or versions of the "Nowhere" tracks "Cinnamon Girl" and "Down by the River," along with early versions of "Birds" (an alternate recording would appear a year later on "After the Gold Rush") and, finally, a version of "Look at All the Things," written and sung by Crazy Horse's enormously talented guitarist-singer Danny Whitten, who would die of a drug overdose in 1972 and sadly inspire Young's dark "Tonight's the Night" album.
While all of these songs are complete and the playing is on point, there's also a loose quality to them that feels like you're sitting in on a rehearsal - Young famously loved Crazy Horse's ramshackle groove, which could go off the rails at any moment and often did in concert (and still does, as the band's current summer tour shows), but also can make for absolutely electrifying rock and roll.
Young, just 23 when most of these songs were recorded, had only been playing with this group for a few months: Whitten, bassist Billy Talbot and drummer Ralph Molina had been appropriated from a band called the Rockets, and were joined by Young's longtime collaborator Jack Nitzsche, a keyboardist/ arranger who'd worked extensively with Phil Spector and the Rolling Stones (and also Buffalo Springfield).
That newness contributes enormously to the freshness of these versions, which also have that surreal sense that often accompanies early versions of now-iconic songs: At one point, we hear producer David Briggs say, "Okay we're rolling, what's the name of this one Neil? ‘Down by the River'? Okay, ‘Down by the River,' take one…"
More than a half century later, you're there with them at Wally Heider Studio in Hollywood, hearing Young and Crazy Horse spend nine minutes breaking in one of rock's most classic songs, and lots more besides …
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