Neil Young Archives Vol. 3: 1976-1987 (2024)

archives gone wild

It’s perhaps fitting that the structure and choices of Neil Young Archives Vol. III (1976 - 1987) are as bizarre as some of the albums it highlights. The eleven years that this set covers includes Neil swinging through the 80s like a chameleon. Reflecting this, the discs themselves are unique: double disc live performances, cassette recordings of demos and rehearsals, compilations of previously released tracks, discs that tell a story, discs that cycle through styles every couple songs. And it gets even more unique in the deluxe set, which adds 11 films to the 17 CDs of music.

It’s a lot to wrap your head around, and I think a good insight into how our mercurial artist thinks about his own history. I may not agree with some of his selections and decisions, but make no mistake, this set is highly curated by the man himself to tell the story of a perplexing time to his audience. It’s a highly intentional box set. So much so, that Neil recorded little raps on some discs to string disparate sessions together. He is actively narrating this set like a documentary. The impression I get is one of a wanderer, drifting from project to project, exploring all the sides of his music. He might roam the world with Crazy Horse, play some songs around a kitchen table, play with synths in a studio by himself, or form a huge country band and play state fairs. I’d like to give a holistic impression of the music and the intentions of this volume before diving into some of the discs and films in separate posts.

First of all, Across the Water is one of the greatest live documents to be released by Neil, and it’s mind boggling how it sat in the vault for so long. I will absolutely be covering this separately, but for now, consider how Vol. II left off with Odeon Budokan, which covers the same shows. This expanded look links the volumes together and reinforces that Neil is looking at the Archives project as a big chronological story of his life through music. While Across the Water covers the overseas tour of spring 1976, Hitchhikin’ Judy rounds out the year, compiling moments from Hitchhiker and Songs for Judy, adding in songs from The Last Waltz and an extra outtake of “Lost in Space.” The story Neil seems to be telling her is of a lone traveler, popping in and out of studios, tours, and live events. I wish he would have included some of the cutting room floor material from the fall 1976 tour or stuck with his plan to make this an “electric” (Crazy Horse) version of Songs for Judy, but in the larger scheme of his catalogue, this disc serves as a bridge to his next act.

At the time, Neil was writing a huge amount of songs and looking for ways to record them. Hitchhiker was deemed too much of a demo to be released as is (how wrong everyone was), so he took the songs around to Linda Ronstadt’s house and played them for her and Nicolette Larson, a singer he had been hearing about. A Snapshot in Time presents this story as an “audio documentary”and it’s remarkable. Just Neil sitting around the table with David Briggs, Linda, and Nicolette, playing songs he had just recently written and explaining how he saw them, listening to them harmonize on the spot. This is the genesis of American Stars ‘n Bars and Comes a Time. I think every fan’s dream is for their favorite artist to come to their house and play a private concert for them. That’s what the suitably lo-fi A Snapshot in Time feels like. When Linda giggles at the Beach Boys line in “Long May You Run,” you are instantly transported there. Look for more on this one.

In between American Stars ‘n Bars and Comes a Time, Neil recorded with a band called the Ducks that summer and Windward Passage is Vol. III’s summation of that time. Aside from a different take of “Sail Away,” a different edit of “Windward Passage,” and an unreleased performance of “Cryin’ Eyes,” it strikes me as a missed opportunity to include material not on the excellent compilation High Flyin’. The Ducks were an interesting moment in Neil’s life and I would have loved to hear their takes on “Comes a Time,” “Homegrown,” and “Long May You Run.” For the most part, I like the Ducks’ takes of Neil’s song more than the officially released ones. This band really ripped. See how they turn “Cryin’ Eyes” into a barnstormer and “Little Wing” into a guitar odyssey. In the story of Vol. III, this is definitely Neil’s summer vacation period.

Next we have Neil pulling back the curtain on the genesis of Comes a Time. First, he had taken some of the songs swirling around his notebooks to Nashville that spring. When he fled Santa Cruz after his apartment was broken into, he went to visit his mother in Florida, and started recording songs on his own, overdubbing himself in certain places. I get the impression he wanted to get away from people for a bit. The Nashville songs comprise the “Countryside” and the Florida songs comprise the “Oceanside” in what he started calling Oceanside Countryside. The Nashville songs are fairly similar to what was heard on Comes a Time, but a little more stripped back. The Florida songs are very sparse in comparison to Comes a Time and I really like them. Overall Oceanside Countryside is a less “pop” version of Comes a Time, where the songs are given a chance to shine through without so much instrumentation and overdubbing. Expect another post about this one.

Union Hall is a rehearsal tape of Neil with Nicolette and the Comes a Time band in Nashville. The quality is on par with a good audience recording. Once in awhile Neil offers notes between songs. It’s fascinating, including great versions of “Down by the River” and an “Alabama” that morphs into “Sweet Home Alabama” (Ronnie Van Zandt died a couple weeks prior). Of the unreleased songs, “Lady Wingshot” is the most impressive, with a cool marching rhythm. It’s a shame it never made it to an album. There are two outtakes at the end of the disc that show some promise, particularly “We’re Having Some Fun Now,” despite the band kind of falling apart towards the end.

I’m not sure what Neil was doing for the first couple months of 1978, but when he reappeared at the Boarding House in San Francisco, he had a battery of new songs and a new mic setup that let him roam the stage at this small venue. He played 10 shows, two a night for a week, with a fairly static setlist. Unfortunately, Neil has chosen to order the takes on Boarding House chronologically by recording date, which makes for some confusing in between song banter (introducing songs that don’t show up until much later, etc). The film, thankfully, is of a single show and left intact. It’s the best way to experience these incredible solo shows. Neil’s confidence in presenting ambitious songs like “Shots” and “Thrasher” is rewarded by an enthusiastic (somewhat rambunctious) crowd. It’s a dream to finally have an officially released acoustic “Shots” and not the loud and hectic version on Re•ac•tor.

Of course, Boarding House is also notable because it was when Neil linked up with Devo and became fascinated by punk music. Devo played with Neil on a crazy version of “Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)” during that run of shows and it has to be heard to be believed. This fascination would led to the infamous “rust” concept and Sedan Delivery tells that story as a compilation of Rust Never Sleeps and Live Rust, with one outtake song included. It’s interesting to hear a best of the “Rust” albums, but seems like another missed opportunity to feel in the gaps of the tour. The one new song, “Bright Sunny Day,” is shockingly low quality despite being produced by David Briggs at Neil’s ranch. It’s too bad he didn’t just go with the single live rendition on tour a month later, but he wanted to present the “first take,” it seems. The song itself is ok and it’s not surprising it was left on the tapes.

Moving into the much derided 80s period, Coastline also combines two albums, Hawks and Doves and Re•ac•tor, this time adding a couple unreleased originals. These two albums hold a couple pleasures amongst them, but overall they aren’t ones I reach for. I’m not sure the story told on Coastline does much to change that impression, but it does make me reassess some songs. The unreleased songs vary: “Winter Winds” is nice and less jokey than the majority of Hawks & Doves, but overall not memorable. “Sunny Inside” was resurrected for the Bluenotes, of course. Here it trades the horns for more pronounced guitar, but is essentially the same rhythm & blues song. I’m not sure this is Crazy Horse’s forte. Lastly, “Get Up” is a fun bit of fluff that feels like Neil is just getting into the 80s sound and try to fit it into older music that it evoked.

Trans & Johnny’s Island is a wild disc, as it marries what could be thought of as two separate EPs (plus some extra songs floating around). As he’s mentioned before, the vocoder stuff from Trans might have worked better as an EP and putting it all together here helps that argument. Then all the island themed work with the Royal Pineapples forms its own EP. It helps to separate this work and Neil inserts a bit of commentary to explain all these disparate efforts. I don’t much care for the Jimmy Buffet-style yacht rock stuff, but hearing the Trans material together really helps elucidate what Neil was trying to do. Knowing it was a way for him to understand communicating with his disabled son also comes through more clearly. Semi-frequent collaborator and recent Crazy Horse guitarist Micah Nelson directs a new animated film to accompany Trans as well. This film uses a variety of animated techniques to visualize the story of Trans. I’ll dig into this in the future.

One of the craziest listening experiences is Evolution, a disc that combines unreleased versions and previously released songs to tell the story of how Neil went from country (Old Ways) to rockabilly (Everybody’s Rockin’) to experimenting with synthesizers in the span of a couple years. In some ways, this is one of the strongest outings in Vol. III on the strength of it’s unreleased songs alone. There are lovely live solo versions of “California Sunset” and “My Boy” that make me wish Old Ways had been pared back to the essentials (Neil, where’s “Old Ways I”?). On the other end, Neil’s original Synclavier experiments are better than their Landing on Water versions, and the version of “Razor Love” here makes a real case for what he was going for. It’s a proto-chillwave/synth pop masterpiece, quite honestly. Gripe: he should have included the brilliant “After Berlin” song from the film Neil Young in Berlin on this volume to complete the story. If one of the goals of Vol. III is to rehabilitate Neil’s 80s experiments, these little nuggets on Evolution go a long way.

Neil next tried to take some of these experiments to the stage with Crazy Horse, and played a couple shows at one of his favorite spots, The Catalyst in Santa Cruz. Touch the Night is the low quality recording of one of the shows. Aside from the quality, this definitely rocks. It’s a shame that this and the accompanying Catalyst film were so badly documented. There a couple new songs on here that show up later on Landing on Water and a couple that don’t. Hearing Crazy Horse do them live is strange and the audience is clearly mystified during some of it. “Rock” and “So Tired” are the unreleased songs and they are bone simple rockers, but it’s the prototypes of Landing on Water songs that are of real interest here. “Touch the Night” was incredibly cheesy on that album, but here it’s elevated into a guitar epic akin to “Like a Hurricane,” but not quite reaching those heights. I’m glad to have these versions, but wish the quality was better.

Grey Riders is essentially an expanded A Treasure, the live album documenting the International Harvesters band. For some reason, it doesn’t include some of the most requested live performances, particularly the 1985 “Down by the River” at Pier 84. This is not an era I particularly love (aside from the song “Grey Riders,” included here and still brilliant) so it’s not a massive loss to me, personally, but I would have liked to see Neil offer some additional performances. Road of Plenty is almost entirely a rehash of Landing on Water, plus a few unreleased originals. Of the new songs, “Road of Plenty” would become “El Dorado” eventually and it’s fun to hear the original form of it. “When Your Lonely Heart Breaks” is presented here in a much more live rendition, with just some synth backgrounds. It’s great to hear it as it was originally intended before the Life production style took over. This is a great song that was buried a bit when it came out.

Closing things out with Summer Songs strikes me as a way to preview Vol. IV’s move into the Freedom era. It’s a lovely little acoustic set previously streamed on Neil Young Archives. It features Neil by himself on songs that would appear on Freedom, Harvest Moon, CSNY’s American Dream, and Psychedelic Pill, and one song, “Last of His Kind,” that still is without a home. I talked about a few of these previously, but it really is a nice little collection of demos and while it’s not new to fans, it does serve as a good tease to the eventual Vol. IV, whenever that shows up.

Vol. III is the biggest release for the Neil Young Archives project yet and I’d say it’s very successful in untangling a wild period in Neil’s career. I don’t always appreciate Neil favoring “first takes” and “chronological order” in some of his archival releases, but for the most part it helps to put some of the more bewildering moments in the proper context.

Stay tuned for some more detailed follow-up posts on specific discs and films from this set.