NILS LOFGREN

Songwriter, guitarist and member of Crazy Horse and Springsteen’s E Street Band. Played on After The Goldrush aged 17.

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When we first got out to LA in early ’68, my band Grin became the house band at [Topanga Canyon club] The Corral. It was a great hangout and Neil later came down to jam with us occasionally. I moved into [Young producer] David Briggs’ home at that point in my life, so Topanga became my neighbourhood. It was a fabulous, vibrant community of hippies and hard-charging musical transplants, all based around The Corral. Taj Mahal would play three or four sets, free of charge, every Monday night. David Briggs and his cronies would chase away all the Valley people who tried to sneak in. Sometimes it would get quite physical. It was a great, territorial, protective enclave of a community. It was a really great time to be out there at that time in your life. Neil came down one night to sit in with Grin. We were a trio at that time, so it was great to have that additional guitar there.

Initially Neil and David Briggs were going to produce the first Grin record together. But Neil got so wrapped up in Crosby, Stills & Nash and his solo career that even David said “It’d be great to have Neil but he’s too busy, so let’s move forward.” In the spirit of who Neil is, even though Grin had quite a few songs and Neil had heard them, we did some blues things at The Corral too, so he could stretch out on guitar. It was just a fabulous night and I certainly regret not having a portable video at the time. The very next day, David threw me in a car and said “let’s go up and see Neil.” So we got to his house and all of a sudden, David and Neil ganged up on me, told me they had some bad news. I got all upset, then they said “Look man, your band’s great, you’ve got great songs, but you’ve gotta fire your bass player.” I was just a kid and this was a real showbiz eye-opener. Neil and David were very kind but firm with lessons to me. I’d thrown my hat in the ring, but one of the most beautiful things about working with Neil and David was the bluntness and honesty. Once I’d got over the horror of it, that advice served me well.

[On first meeting Neil Young & Crazy Horse at the Cellar Door in Washington, DC in May 1969] I was always hanging out with people a few years older than me, but when I first met Neil he’d already made some beautiful records with The Buffalo Springfield and solo. I was impressed with the fact he let me sing some songs for him. Fortunately the first Grin record was already written, so I sang half of it and Neil liked it. Then he bought me a cheeseburger and a Coke, because I was underage. Then I watched four shows at the Cellar Door over two nights, after which he invited me to the hotel out in Virginia across the river, to hang out in the afternoon. And once he and Crazy Horse left town, Neil actually called me from the road a couple of times, to give me some counsel about some of the silly, bad deals we were in. We’d already booked ourselves on a flight to LA and Neil told me to look up he and David once I got there. To cut to the chase, they were true to their word. To this day, Neil remains one of my true inspirations and mentors.

[On being called up for After The Goldrush] When I left home to try my luck as a musician, everybody, including my best friends, thought I was throwing my life away. I quickly got into the business of taking chances. So after I’d been living in LA for a year, to hear from Neil Young (which was like looking at a big brother or cousin, with a kind of awe), I said yes, of course. Then to my horror he said he might want me to mostly play piano. I felt like I owed him the honest truth, which was that I wasn’t a piano player. After I told him, he and David [Briggs] were very matter-of-fact about it. Neil said “Look, you’ve been playing classical accordion since you were six. Y’know, a piano’s like an accordion, you’ll figure it out. We just need some time practice.” So David Briggs arranged for John Locke, who lived nearby in Topanga and was the fabulous keyboard player in Spirit, to leave his patio door unlocked, where he had a funky old upright piano.

Literally 24 hours a day, I was welcome to go there. So I’d go over there and practice the songs on his old piano when I wasn’t actually at Neil’s house working on the record. In retrospect, I guess what Neil got was someone with a good sense of rhythm and melody who was playing an instrument so unfamiliar that at my most creative, I was writing incredibly simple, rhythmic, solid parts. So you had Ralphy Molina and me doing these very simple, deep-groove parts in the middle with a very brilliant, colourful bassist in Greg Reeves underneath. It was deep-pocket bass, but with more colour and movement than most bass players could muster. Then you had Neil on top with his melodies and guitar. And it was just something that worked as a four-piece, a very simple, fresh sound.

It was all fairly loose. There were a couple of songs Neil wanted me to play acoustic guitar on. I didn’t own one, so he lent me the [Martin] D-18, which eventually became a gift from him and which I’ve used on my latest record, The Loner [a set of Neil Young covers]. It wasn’t like I was a virtuoso at all. At my most creative I was still playing very simple, rhythmic parts. Unless there was a function of following a theme or a lick here and there, I was left to my own devices to come up with some simple ideas that worked. On the song “Southern Man”, it was lunch break and Ralphy Molina and I stayed in the studio to jam. If you notice, “Southern Man” is in very slow, half time. After jamming that way for half an hour or so, I got a little bored and started doing the accordion beat to it and we double-timed it. When Neil came back from lunch, he loved the feel and said “What’s that?” I said “Well, that’s an accordion beat to ‘Southern Man’.” So he said “Right, then that’ll be the solo in the end.” And if you notice in the finished song, when we hit the solo and then at the end, the whole groove changes and we go to double time. So thanks to my accordion days, I accidentally came up with a useful arrangement. It was a wonderful experience for me as a kid.

Recording After The Goldrush was very idyllic. We recorded up on a high bluff, way up in the hills overlooking the whole Topanga Canyon valley. It was beautiful, the weather was beautiful and there was an outside patio on the porch above where we were playing. We’d hang out there and enjoy the beautiful nature scene. And Neil kept it that way. We’d play a little bit, then go up top and hang out. It was all very laid back. Topanga was this great cross-section of hippies and flower people, but with some really rough-n-tumble cowboy-type attitudes. David Briggs, for example, was from Wyoming and was working on oil rigs when he was thirteen. There were some very tough guys who had migrated there and there was also this macho music scene going on at The Corral. There’d be camaraderie and also a fight or two. It was just a great combination of a lot of different elements there.

There’s a kind of haunted passion to what Neil does. He’s able to get that darkness he sometimes feels into his writing, but also with a sense of vulnerability and innocence, especially in his voice. He’s got it all, man. I played guitar on “Till The Morning Comes”, but the big piece was “Tell Me Why”, which was just me and Neil sitting across from each other. We played live and there was some fingerpicking I started doing. It was one of my first acoustic guitar sessions and singing live, sitting right across from Neil, I noticed a similar, haunted innocence to our voices. It had that gentle vibe I knew would serve me well singing that song. We have similar qualities in that respect.

I was excited because Neil seemed to be very happy with what he thought was a fresh, new sound. He seemed to be really engaged by that. I have to admit I was so petrified during initial playback that I was focusing, tunnel vision, on my piano parts and trying to see if there was anything I could alter once I started hearing what Neil and Greg Reeves were doing.

One of my favourite tracks for After The Goldrush was a song called “Wonderin’”, which never made the record. But I believe the tape of us doing that song is going to be on Archives. I fell in love with that song and to this day, I wish it had ended up on the finished record. I got to play this honky-tonk piano and then did some harmonies afterwards. Maybe it didn’t make it because it was too much of a happy, fun-loving song, I don’t know. There may have been a lightness and a lilt to it that Neil felt was better suited to another project. My buddy Joel Bernstein told me there was a good chance it would be on Archives.

Neil has always just done what musically engages and inspires him. And because he’s so multi-talented, I think that when he made Harvest he was truly engaged and inspired. He got into Nashville and had some songs written that fitted into that configuration. I don’t think his plan was to have a giant hit record. I think it was about making a beautiful, emotional record that he was into. I also know that, like any other human being, the fact that he made a record he was proud of emotionally and which turned into a massive hit gave him a gigantic financial freedom. Then he realised he had more freedom to do some exploring. Neil is the kind of guy who would have done it no matter what, but I’m sure it wasn’t lost on him. All of a sudden he had this giant hit record. I don’t think he’s ever felt pressured to do what a record company wants. Neil’s only pressure is waiting for the muse to inspire him towards the next big thing.

There are two classic main things about Neil. There’s his massive gift for songwriting and musicianship, combined with passion. When you get passion into that mix you get something extraordinary, that’s what makes him excel at what he does.

INTERVIEW: ROB HUGHES

Neil Young‘s ‘Archives: Vol 1″ is set for a June 2 release, according to the rocker’s manager Elliot Roberts.

Reported on Billboard, Roberts was speaking at a conference panel at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas on Saturday (March 21). Roberts said that the 10-disc Blu-ray, DVD and CD collections would finally see the light of day on June 2.

Archive samples were also shown off at the discussion, and the prices are set to be: 10-disc Blu-Ray, $299, 10-DVD box set, $199 and a normal CD set for $99.

Young has previously said that Blu-ray is the best way to hear the archives, saying: “Blu-ray is the future. It sounds the best, the navigating system is the best. I’ve made a lot of CDs and we’ve made a lot of DVDs, and Blu-ray technology is so far superior to anything else. The fact there aren’t many players out there now doesn’t meant that much to me, because it is the future, so I would rather focus on what’s next. If you were to get a Blu-ray of the ‘Archive,’ you would get the best.”

For more music and film news click here

Pic credit: PA Photos

BILLY TALBOT

Crazy Horse bassist and founder, and member of that band’s previous incarnation

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UNCUT: Can you tell me your first impressions of Neil? Did you first meet when he was recording the first Buffalo Springfield album?

TALBOT: I liked him right away. We were young men and we had much in common. He seemed interesting and I liked his songs.

What do you recall of him coming over to your house to do a version of “Mr Soul”, with you and Danny Whitten?

I remember how the song felt and how I felt hearing it. It was slower than the version that Buffalo Springfield went on to do. I liked the way it felt acoustically, but I came to appreciate the Buffalo Springfield version as well.

Was Neil a regular at Rockets HQ on Laurel Canyon Boulevard? What kind of stuff did you get up to?

He came by a couple of times. I believe the last time he was there, the police also showed, so that kind of quelled the scene at Rockets Headquarters, as you call it.

Neil once admitted he “probably did steal” you, Danny and Ralph from The Rockets for Crazy Horse. Was it something you gladly entered into?

We just moved into being Crazy Horse quite naturally. We never thought of it being the end of the Rockets. We were naive, because, of course, it was The Rockets, where we spent hours and hours jamming on two chords, or sometimes three, or even just one chord, with

Danny and George and Leon churning out rhythm and melodies on the guitars, Ralph and I taking care of the drums and bass and Bobby soaring on the violin. You can hear a little touch of how great Bobby Notkoff is on “Running Dry” from Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere.

What do you remember of Neil sitting in with The Rockets at The Whisky A Go-Go in August ’68? Did you see the potential of Neil and yourselves together?

I remember Bobby sitting out and watching us from the audience, and Neil’s guitar sound being big. I remember it was a lot of fun.

Was Neil particularly drawn to Danny? Was there a common bond between them?

Well, yeah, naturally. Danny was a singer, songwriter and played guitar. So did Neil. And both had deep feelings and intelligence. They were both very passionate people.

Can you tell me about working up “Cowgirl In The Sand” and “Down By the River” at one of your earliest sessions at Neil’s studio? And is it true that “Down By The River” was inspired/based on Danny’s “Let Me Go”?

We worked up “Down By The River” first, as I remember. I don’t know if you would call it the Crazy Horse beat, as much as a ‘feel’. Ralph and I and Danny were used to jamming on two chords, and Neil just soared away. I think we went out on the road and then recorded

“Cowgirl In The Sand” when we came back – another two-chord jam song. As far as Neil being influenced by “Let Me Go”, I have no idea. In the song, Danny does sing about going down to the river and it does have a nice long jam in it, but other than that, I don’t know if

anyone could really say. You could wonder what Danny’s influences were when he wrote “Let Me Go”. For all of you who don’t know, “Let Me Go” is on The Rockets’ one and only album.

Can you describe the unique chemistry of Neil and Crazy Horse? Neil has talked of being especially keen on “the groove” and the abandon with which you all played.

We were just trying to be real with the feel.

David Briggs was apparently astonished at the energy and intensity of “Running Dry” when he first heard it. Can you give me your own memories of recording that song?

My memory is of Bobby Notkoff playing the violin, and Danny and Neil singing the choruses.

What do you recall of playing some shows at The Bitter End with Neil in February 1969? Neil would do a solo set first, then be joined by Crazy Horse

That was part of a tour, and was, I think, right in between us recording “Down By The River” and “Cowgirl In The Sand”. I remember that the people liked us.

Another specific gig: I believe you once played a Mafia joint in Rhode Island, where a fight broke out, the place emptied and you carried on playing. Did that really happen like that?

Yes, it did. I don’t know if it was a Mafia place, but it was in Rhode Island, and a fight did break out. Nobody bothered us and we just kept playing “Cowgirl In the Sand”. When they came back in, we were still playing.

Is true that, around 1970, Neil preferred to record during a full moon? Would you organise recording sessions around this apsect?

Yes it’s true, still is true, and it’s true for me too.

Were drugs ever an issue with Neil and Crazy Horse? For instance, Crosby, Stills & Nash used to have a ritual where they’d smoke a joint before going on stage.

We have our rituals as well.

Can you describe the studio recordings of various After The Goldrush tracks? What was the dynamic like in the studio? And what kind of instructions, if any, did Neil give?

I don’t remember any instructions as such. I think we were working together pretty much, coming up with our own answers. Of course, Neil was leading the way. Jack Nitzsche was playing piano on “When You Dance You Can Really Love” and we recorded that one up at Neil’s house. “I Believe In You” and “Oh, Lonesome Me” were done in the studio. I don’t remember which one, perhaps Wally Heider’s in LA or San Francisco.

Was “When You Dance…” the last song you all played on with Danny?

Yes. We did vocal harmonies for other songs on After The Goldrush with him after that. Also, there were sessions with Danny without Neil, recording some of Danny’s songs which were never released. The master tapes for those sessions are missing. There are some heavy generation-loss cassette tapes around. The song titles are “Share” and “Oh Boy”, among others.

Can you tell me what you remember of the song “Wonderin'”, which is likely to turn up on Archives? Do you recall recording it, or Neil first playing it to you?

Yeah, we played it on Live At The Fillmore East. Check it out. I like the way we played it back then.

Can you tell me about those two nights at the Fillmore East in 1970? Did you feel a particular vibe?

I distinctly remember being greatly excited to be playing there. Jack [Nitzsche] was playing with us. Previously we’d been touring with the four of us: Neil, Ralph, Danny, and me. Unfortunately, none of those earlier shows was ever recorded as far as I know, such as the one in Rhode Island that you referred to or several shows that we played in Cleveland at a club known as Le Cave.

What do you think are Neil’s unique qualities? What really sets him apart?

It’s a mixture of talent, intelligence, soul and hard work. He could be the definition of an artist.

Do you have a favourite Neil story? Perhaps something that throws light on a particular aspect of his character?

Yeah, I’ve got a bunch. We’ve known each other for a lot of years now – most of our lives. We trust each other and you don’t mess around with that.

INTERVIEW: ROB HUGHES

GRAHAM NASH

The silver-tonsilled Blackpool native who left The Hollies to join CSN, later CSNY.

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UNCUT: When did you first meet Neil?

NASH: I met him in New York City in Bleeker Street, in the Village. That would have been early 1969. We had done the first CSN record. It had been out and obviously it had been very successful. And then we realised that we would have to go out on the road, and Stephen [Stills] wanted to play with somebody else in the band. David [Crosby] and I are decent enough rhythm guitar players, but we’re not lead guitar players like Stephen was. And he had had a history, in Buffalo Springfield, of playing lead guitar parts off Neil. And so it was decided to ask Neil to join. But I wouldn’t entertain the idea before I met him. I wanted to know who he was. Obviously I knew who he was, as an artist – obviously he was Neil Young, even then – and I’d heard “Expecting To Fly” from the Buffalo Springfield, and I thought it was absolutely fantastic. I was very much a fan of Buffalo Springfield, I thought they were fantastic. So I said, let me go to breakfast with Neil and I’ll make the decision after breakfast. And, of course, after we’d finished breakfast, I’d have made him prime minister of Canada! He was very funny, very droll, very dry sense of humour and I liked him immediately.

How did you find Neil worked in the studio? Did he come in with fully-formed ideas, or was he open to input and suggestions from other people?

On the Déjà vu album, Neil’s music was made on Neil’s ranch down just south of San Francisco. He would make the tracks, he would bring them and we would sing our parts on it and then he’d take the parts back home and mix them. So it was kind of a separatist deal – and I think some of us were a bit annoyed about that at the time– but it worked. And what works is always the best thing to go with.

Can you describe was his relationship with Stills was like?

Again, in the studio, there was a special understanding when they played lead together. They always played off each other, sparked ideas. But, with us, Stephen concentrated more on vocals.

What do you remember of the “Helpless” sessions? This is more like a Neil solo song than CSNY.

Yes, it was. Neil kept waiting for us to slow down so he could sing it in the tempo that he wanted. Then some time about two, two-thirty in the morning we’d slowed down enough to catch up with Neil’s coma-paced speed, and then we cut Helpless. It is a tremendously slow song, and it has to be played together, as a unit, otherwise it just doesn’t hang together. But I think it’s a beautiful track.

The Déjà Vu sessions seemed pretty traumatic…

Yes, they ran the gamut of emotions, from thrilling to soul-destroying

You, Stills and Crosby had all split, or lost, partners.

Yeah, David’s girlfriend had been killed, I wasn’t with Joni, Stephen had split with Judy Collins. It was a sad time. But we did have some good music to make.

How did Neil respond to this?

Same way Neil always does, he gets on with the job in hand. He gets on with what we’re supposed to be doing. He’s a tremendously focused man. I appreciate that in him.

You once told UNCUT the Déjà vu sessions were “insanity” ­ particularly the story of Neil¹s bush babies, Harriet and Speedy. What else do you remember about Neil from that period?

It was all crazy. We were staying by the Caravan Lodge Motel, just by the studio there at Wally Hyders (?) in San Francisco, and we all had our own rooms, and it was just fucking madness. You’d go and knock on Neil’s door and this thing would just jump across the room and you’d go, what the hell was that? And he’d say, “Oh man, these are my two bush babies, Harriet and Speedy. I was a bit lonely so I got two friends.” Drugs? Of course, are you kidding? There were so many drugs around that time it was insane. We thought it was creative then, but I haven’t snorted cocaine since 1984, not for about 25 years. At the time we thought it was good, but we were wrong. Cocaine never helps creativity. Marijuana is a much more creative drug than cocaine. But around those sessions I think we were on everything.

What did you think about his early run of solo albums?

Fantastic. I love his stuff. His work rate is prodigious but more importantly his strike rate was even better. There aren’t many duff tracks on any of his albums.

Has Neil changed over the years?

Well, how have we all changed? Let’s start with me, David and Stephen. We started out when we found that we had a certain sound and we made a couple of really fine records. And then you start to get comfortable with stardom and money and fame, etc, and then you come back to being normal. And that’s what I’ve always tried to do. You have to try and remain normal. Neil is very good at that. I think that’s what informs his workrate and his focus – he’s never let stardom get to him at all.

INTERVIEW: JOHN LEWIS