Neil Young continues to issue new and archival music in various formats at a breakneck pace. Two recent releases reflect his unflagging avalanche of excellent new music and the bounty of astonishing unreleased music from the vast, seemingly endless well of music from his historic vaults.
Before and After is a live solo acoustic performance from Young’s 2023 “Coastal Tour” that includes mostly older and some newer music in a stripped-down, bare bones setting. Young sings accompanying himself on acoustic guitar, piano, pump organ, and harmonica, with Bob Rice adding vibraphone on “My Heart” and additional piano on “When I Hold You In My Arms.” The music has a solemn, unadorned, pleading faintness like the premature confession of a man dictating what he thinks could be his last will and testament.
Young sings in a craggy glory that is at times heartbreaking. He invokes a new sense of a time long faded away, particularly on the Buffalo Springfield material, where he has chosen one song from each of that mythical group’s three albums (“Burned,” “Mr. Soul,” “On May Way”). “Birds” from After the Gold Rush, is astonishing in its beseeching rawness. “If You Got Love” was to be a part of the Trans album and “Homefires” has only been previously released on Neil Young Archives Volume II: 1972–1976.
Young co-produced the album with the legendary Lou Adler. Adler hasn’t produced an album in years and only Neil Young could have coaxed him out of retirement. As an aside, it would be great if the man who produced The Mamas & The Papas and Carole King’s Tapestry used this album as a springboard to a return to producing.
One of the unique aspects of this live recording is that the music flows with no interruption through banding, audience applause, or Young talking. Even at 78, Young continues to innovate and find new ways to make music. The album is digitally recorded, and the vinyl package comes in a gatefold jacket and includes a beautiful poster that collects all the original lyric manuscripts.
The recently released reissue of Zuma is a Neil Young and Crazy Horse (Frank Sampedro, Billy Talbot, Ralph Molina) album that came out in 1975. This reissue adds seven songs never before released on vinyl and seemingly presents the album the way it might have been meant to be heard, as an expanded two-album vinyl set. The release was officially billed as the second album from Neil Young and Crazy Horse, following Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere from 1969. In fact, five Young solo albums came in between and parts of those five included some of the members of Crazy Horse.
Zuma came on the heels of the harrowing Tonight’s the Night, also released in 1975, which chronicled the deaths of two people associated with Crazy Horse: member Danny Whitten and roadie Bruce Berry. They both died as a result of substance abuse. Tonight’s the Night concluded a loose “Ditch” trilogy of albums that was preceded by Time Fades Away (1973) and On the Beach (1974). The album also came after the monumental 1974 Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young tour and the failed attempt at CSNY recording a follow-up to Deja Vu. Additionally, some of the songs on Zuma reflected the recent breakup of Young’s marriage to actress Carrie Snodgress. Those songs were mixed in with songs that conjured up the Incas in Peru, UFOs, and time traveling, among other themes and subjects.
Aside from the addition of the seven songs not on the original album, the running order has been altered, including the centerpiece “Cortez the Killer,” which now does not come as the penultimate song as it does on the original, but instead is second after the newly added “Ride My Llama.” Another centerpiece track here that was included on the original album is “Barstool’s Blues.” One track was dropped from the original. Entitled “Through My Sails,” it was the final one on the original and was the only one to include Stephen Stills, David Crosby, and Graham Nash.
What’s really fascinating and makes this such a new listening experience is hearing such Young classics as “Powderfinger” and “Pocahontas” in the context of this album. Although a more obscure song, another song that fits in nicely here is “Hawaii.” The tracks that were not on the original album were recorded at “the House” in Point Dume, California. Point Dume and Zuma Beach in Malibu were the closest places to where much of the albums came together at a house where David Briggs, one of the producers of the album lived.
The package is a gatefold with two vinyl albums. The tracks were remastered from the original analog tapes by Chris Bellman and Bernie Grundman at Bernie Grundman Mastering in Hollywood. The sound is excellent and preserves the ragged glory of the original album and sessions.
This is the third album from Special Release Series of the Neil Young Archive. Young has churned out dozens of excellent reissues and this one is as good as any and a must for Young fans and ’70s music archivists alike.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
Neil Young, Before and After
B
Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Zuma
B+
