Neil Young rarity, new Graham Nash song, and Jerry Garcia's David Crosby cover released
It’s a busy day in the CSNY universe.
First off, Neil Young is streaming a second track off his upcoming box set The Archives Vol. II: 1972-1976, which is due November 22. It’s a lovely, stripped-back folk song called “Homefires,” recorded in 1974 with bassist Tim Drummond. You hear the whole song at Neil Young Archives (if you’re a subscriber), and listen to a two-minute, twenty-second clip here:
https://twitter.com/NeilYoungNYA/status/1318764357589893120
This comes two days after Neil released a song off his upcoming 2003 live album Return to Greendale (due 11/6) on NYA, and here’s a short clip:
Bandit – Return to Greendale
The second new track from the live album is now streaming exclusively on https://t.co/Lw3ovmPLRt or on the Neil Young Archives mobile app pic.twitter.com/mSunsmBCpO
— Neil Young Archives (@NeilYoungNYA) October 19, 2020
Meanwhile, Graham Nash has released a new song, “Vote,” which he originally wrote in the Nixon era but never finished or recorded, and now living through the Trump era inspired him to finish it. “In 2016, 48% of the American people who could vote, didn’t,” Nash told Rolling Stone. “Now, maybe they thought Hillary had it sewn up. Maybe it was snowing that day. Maybe the kids were driving them crazy and they couldn’t get to the voting booth. But 48% of the people didn’t vote and look what happened. We must use the most powerful voice that we have, which is our vote.”
“I wanted to make sure that people understood that there were many people hitting rock bottom,” he continues, “and because this new Covid relief bill hasn’t been signed yet, there are people that are going to be made homeless, who will starve and won’t have enough money for rent and meds. It’s crazy.”
Listen and watch the Andy Thomas-created video:
Lastly, the 15th installment of the GarciaLive series is coming December 4 (pre-order), and it’ll include a newly-released rendition of Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders, and saxophonist Martin Fierro performing the David Crosby-penned “The Wall Song” in 1971, a year before it was released on the 1972 Crosby & Nash album Graham Nash David Crosby (with Jerry on guitar). It sounds great with Jerry singing, as you can hear:
In recent related news, Neil sued the Trump campaign over unauthorized usage of his song and released an anti-Trump single. Croz blasted Mike Love and his current, Brian Wilson-less version of The Beach Boys for playing a Trump fundraiser.
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Must-Hear Folk Albums of 2020 So Far
Bill Callahan – Gold Record
Phoebe Bridgers – Punisher
Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit – Reunions
Arlo Mckinley – Die Midwestern
Bob Dylan – Rough and Rowdy Ways
Neil Young – Homegrown
In a 1975 Rolling Stone interview, Neil called his long-shelved-and-now-finally-released album Homegrown "the darker side to Harvest." With more hindsight, he called it "the missing link between Harvest, Comes a Time, Old Ways and Harvest Moon" in Jimmy McDonough's 2002 Neil Young biography Shakey. Those albums are all on Neil's folkier, more acoustic side, and Homegrown is indeed cut from that cloth. As soon as you hear the opening of "Separate Ways," you're transported right back to the warmth of the Harvest era. It's of the same proto-slowcore variety of that album's opener "Out On the Weekend," but even more haunting and melancholic. Just 30 seconds in, and Homegrown already lives up to the description Neil gave Cameron Crowe of it 45 years ago.
That same mood carries over into second track "Try," which -- like "Separate Ways" -- features The Band's Levon Helm on drums, and Levon really managed to capture the bare-bones, slow-paced drumming style that these types of quietly revolutionary Neil Young songs always demanded. "Try" is also one of two songs on Homegrown with backing vocals by Emmylou Harris (the other being "Star of Bethlehem"), and her soaring voice makes for a truly lovely contrast with Neil's more somber delivery. And as melancholic as those songs are, they've got nothing on the melancholy of the entirely-solo cuts "Mexico" (voice and piano) and "Kansas" (voice, acoustic guitar, and harmonica), or on "White Line," which features Neil, his acoustic, and his harmonica joined only by some lead guitar by The Band's Robbie Robertson. It's on those breathtaking songs where you can really hear why Neil -- coming right off the release of On The Beach -- might have felt like he was digging himself into a hole of dour, depressive music. But all these years later -- now that Neil has cemented his legacy over and over again and proven to be an artist who can evolve and adapt with the times without losing his own uniqueness -- those songs feel like buried treasure, especially for fans who gravitate towards his most hushed material. Full review here.