Neil Young and Crazy Horse - "Ragged Glory": classic or dud?

"Country Home' gives me chills on the verses

.

classic

If the lyric is so obvious, why can he not understand it? Dude, it's a song about driving. You twit.

Ragged Glory = aces is my book. Definitely some kind of hard-rocking peak for Neil. Unfortunately, it was followed by quite a slide in quality, albeit with a couple positive bumps on the way down (parts of Harvest Moon, genius Dead Man sdtk). I still get kinda tired of Over and Over and Love to Burn and their 10+ minutes length, and Mother Earth is a bunch of bullshit hippie-claptrap (nice harmonies though). The rest of the songs I warm to very quickly when I pull the album out - and the overall sound, the really thick production, is what saves the record. Massive massive - for the first time those guitars sounded really huge gigantic and powerful.

I actually like the so-called cash in Live Rust much better.

i always mention this when talking to friends about this album, but just receive blank faced responses. please, ILM, tell me yzall hear this too? or have i got a rogue mispressing??

Live Rust is a great first Neil Young purchase - great mix of acoustic/ELECTRICCCCC stuffz. Weld (on vinyl, natch - took it back to the store for a replacement because i thought the crunch of the opening 'hey hey my my' hadda be a mistake) was my first foray, and that's pretty killer too...

reading Jimmy Donagh's 'shakey' at the moment - awesome book, AWESOME. makes me wish that Buffalo Springfield box set had been a fuck of a lot better, though... any news on the Archives?

And so is Ragged Glory.

is 'mother earth' really horrible, then? not there yet - went out for lunch.

one of the best crazy horse shows ... ever? listening to it now, I'm willing to make the argument! http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/53529610221/back-on-the-boardwalk-a-perfect-tape-for-your

Holy crap, that setlist. They one they eventually settled into for the tour (and on Weld) wasn't nearly as interesting.

Thanks for posting that!

Thanks for this, Tyler. I adore Weld and keep meaning to find shows from that era.

haha of course the best crazy horse show ever would have to include.....T-BONE

what is the DL file called? the link appears to link to "catalyst.zip" installer for star app (?)

xp yeah, this one is a little funkier and more relaxed than weld. a super good time. and one of the only live t-bones! IMPORTANT.

sendspace is lame-o, sorry -- you want to click on the "click here to start download from sendspace" button, not the big "DOWNLOAD" at the top.

huh I remember getting a boot of this show while in college. yes it is awesome.

you want to click on the "click here to start download from sendspace" button

Thanks Tyler - I did. Still appears to be an application file.

Ah - now it's right. forget my nonsense.

ftr I went to UC Santa Cruz. not in time to see this show, although I did see one of Neil's "surprise" pre-tour shows a couple years later with Booker T. and the MGs, which was pretty amazing. he even played "I Believe In You" at that one.

Looking forward to this...

I saw NY and Crazy Horse two weeks ago on the first gig of their European tour. Great stuff. Setlist was:

Love and Only Love
Powderfinger
Psychedelic Pill
Walk Like a Giant
Hole in the Sky
Heart of Gold (Acoustic solo)
Blowin' in the Wind (Acoustic solo)
Singer Without a Song
Ramada Inn
Fuckin' Up
Cinnamon Girl
Mr. Soul
Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)
Like a Hurricane

looks killer, hoping they swing back through the states later this year.

They really ripped through the songs. I was expecting a more sedate performance, but no...

Yeah, it'd rule if they came back through the US. I had to choose between them and the Who last winter, and I don't regret choosing the Who, since it'll probably be my last time seeing them, but I really wanna hear the Psychedelic Pill stuff live.

A letter in the Irish Times:

Wed, Jun 19, 2013

Sir – On June 15th I attended a concert in the RDS by Neil Young and Crazy Horse. My wife and I decided to shell out the ticket price of €76 each (plus the unavoidable Ticketmaster add-on of €6 each approximately). We did this because one of the musical tastes we share is a love of Young’s well-crafted and moving country rock songs as exemplified by the albums After the Gold Rush, Harvest, Comes a Time and Harvest Moon.

I am well aware that Mr Young also has an amount of material in his repertoire that diverges considerably from the style of the above albums, and I fully expected the concert would include some such material. However, nothing could have prepared me for the exhibition of narcissistic self-indulgence that constituted Saturday night’s performance.

To give an idea of what transpired, imagine your neighbourhood wannabe garage grunge band were given the RDS stage and a full set of electronic pedal effects to play with. Imagine also that this group of youngsters had no discernible musical talent, but sure knew how to make some noise. One could possibly make a case for spending a tenner to listen to such a group, on the grounds that youth must be encouraged and that there might be some hidden talent there to be discovered. However, when you are paying out a considerable sum to hear one of rock music’s so-called legends, it is surely reasonable to expect said legend will make some effort to entertain his audience, and perform a representative selection from his repertoire.

If Neil Young wants to see how performers ought to behave towards an audience, he could do worse than to sit in on the set played by one of his support acts, The Waterboys. Here was entertainment that anyone could enjoy in terms of musicianship and audience interaction, even someone not familiar with the Waterboys’ repertoire.

I want to call publicly on Aiken Promotions and Neil Young to refund my money for this event. It’s about time that rock music performers and promoters realised that they are privileged to still have access to the audience that made them wealthy in the first place, and not vice versa. – Yours, etc,

JOHN O’FLYNN,
Grosvenor Court,
Clontarf ,
Dublin 3.

haha!

yeah, i mean, i'll take "walk like a giant" and "ramada inn" (tho i guess combined that's like 1/3 of the show), but can probably take or leave the rest... definitely don't need that terrible new "hole in the sun" tune.

perform a representative selection from his repertoire
i dunno, it's pretty representative! at least four or five of his best-known songs?

Here was entertainment that anyone could enjoy in terms of musicianship and audience interaction, even someone not familiar with the Waterboys’ repertoire.

I was at that Mpls show!

The Ragged Glory show I saw in Philadelphia is one of the few shows I really wish I could travel back in time and enjoy again. I must have been around 15, iirc my mom gave me a ride there. I don't remember much about it at all, and in fact remember as much of social distortion and Sonic youth as I do Neil Young.

I'm sure I've posted this before, but the Ragged Glory show I saw in Chicago was all kinds of amazing; they were on fire. It was also one of the best Sonic Youth sets I've seen. During their set, a crusty older guy (like mid-40s; I was 18) said to me, "You like this shit?!" I said, "Yeah! It's just like Crazy Horse, but faster!" He listened for a minute and said, "Hey, you're right!" He was wearing a pretty distressed t-shirt from the 1986 Rusted-Out Garage tour.

"Blowin' In The Wind" was a surprise, preceded by an elderly man tying a yellow ribbon around the massive prop mic stand; the first Gulf War had started a few weeks prior.

He introduced a song by saying, "Here's one from the Crazy Horse archives!" (just like he does on Weld) and I was hoping for something relatively obscure, but no, it was "Cinnamon Girl" (which was still great).

A few younger kids several rows in front of me were apparently only there to see Social Distortion (whose set was boring and awful); they left after SD, and their seats remained empty throughout Neil's set. I hope/assume they look back on that with profound regret.

The crowd demanded a second encore even after the house lights went up, and Neil obliged, playing "Welfare Mothers" with the house lights on, which was totally thrilling.

B-side and one of my favorite Neil songs of any:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvAZjefHoiQ

I do remember the crowd at the Philly show being exactly what you would expect for the bill: hippies, bikers, punks, boomers.

Significantly -- because retrospective views often portray RG as part of his BIG COMEBACK! -- the arena in Chicago was mmmmaaayyybe half-full. Probably closer to 1/3 full. And maybe that's why there's so many goddamn tight shots of the audience in the first few rows in the Weld video, because wider shots would reveal many empty seats.

that's interesting — i guess it took Harvest Moon to bring back some of his audience. By the time I saw him for the first time in '93 he was definitely selling out arenas.

The Philly show wasn't even at the Enormodome. It was at .. the Civic Center? Tbh I don't think I'd ever seen anything else there. It's a lot smaller than Rosemont Horizon.

My memory of the Mpls show is that if it wasn't completely full, it was pretty close

Pretty sure Philly show was packed.

I saw them in 96 at the Target Center w/Sponge opening up and I'm pretty sure it was packed or sold out

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/neil-young-and-crazy-horse/1996/target-center-minneapolis-mn-23d1b453.html

The Philly show wasn't even at the Enormodome. It was at .. the Civic Center? Tbh I don't think I'd ever seen anything else there. It's a lot smaller than Rosemont Horizon.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, July 15, 2019 11:54 AM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Makes sense. The back half of the Horizon was cordoned off with a huge black curtain. Come to think of it, I've never seen an arena show so poorly attended.

that's interesting — i guess it took Harvest Moon to bring back some of his audience. By the time I saw him for the first time in '93 he was definitely selling out arenas.

― tylerw, Monday, July 15, 2019 11:52 AM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

There was some high-profile press in '90-'91: the Village Voice did a big feature on him, iirc, and the Chicago Tribune put him on the cover of their Sunday Arts section (the article teased a then-massive-sounding 10 CD boxed set tentatively called "Archives"). But he was absent from MTV ("Over and Over" only aired at 3am), and the "Godfather Of Grunge" tag was a year off -- Nevermind wouldn't come out until five months after the Ragged Glory tour ended. I think it was a combination of Harvest Moon plus Nirvana/Pearl Jam residue that resuscitated his old fans and brought in new ones.

Come to think of it, when I saw the Roxy Music reunion at the Rosemont Horizon I'm pretty sure a portion of the arena was cordened off with a curtain, too.

I saw the Ragged Glory tour in DC. If I recall correctly, Sonic Youth were extra noisy. Neil was fantastic as usual.

I saw the Ragged Glory tour at the Meadowlands: me, my best friend (who's dead now), my mom, and my aunt (who used to tell me stories of seeing the Allman Brothers at the Fillmore). I remember it being pretty full. I also remember Neil seeming to have a little fun at Sonic Youth's expense during his set - he said "Lemme try that!" in the middle of one song, then ripped into a short but very Thurston Moore-ish burst of guitar noise.

Neil was already on the uptick in the late 80s. Both 'This Note's for You' and 'Freedom' were hits as records and had quite a few tunes on the radio with "Rockin' in the New World" becoming a garage/cover band staple from the day it came out.

I know they were a part of me becoming a Neil Young fan in high school, although I had a couple CNSY and Neil 8-tracks that I had found as a kid along the way.

I bought "Ragged Glory" the day it came out on cassette.

Freedom and the Eldorado EP restored him critically, Ragged Glory consolidated him (P&J win), Harvest Moon was the perfectly timed commercial restoration: holiday release of a sequel to his best-selling album, etc.

Eldorado EP

Japan only, though, no? Not sure how much it helped.

it got Stateside reviews.

Did it? Where? I remember reading about it, but don't remember many reviews. The Fricke (five-star) "Freedom" review in RS mentions it only in passing:

“Don’t Cry,” “Eldorado” and a frenzied cover of “On Broadway” come from a recent killer EP, Eldorado, culled from sessions last year in New York with a basic trio and the amps cranked up to 11. The EP, alas, was only released in Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

I can't do a Google search, but Christgau reviewed it.

HIs might be the only review I remember seeing, and his blurb stresses its rarity and price.

Eldorado [Reprise (Japan), 1989]
This is certain to become a legend on rarity alone, and if you believe mad guitar is all he's good for, you may even think it's worth a buck a minute at the $25 it cost me. I think it's versions and/or work tapes, with two otherwise unavailable songs and mad guitar that ends too soon. I'm glad to own it. But I get reimbursed. B+

Should also note, I bought Freedom the day it came out, a long box CD. I was already in the habit of going to record stores and tracking down rare releases and imports. To this day, I don't think I even know what the El Dorado cover looks like.

Eldorado was available at my local Best Buy but I never went for it, too much gold at yeah about $25 iirc. In our digital age it’s essential.

It's insane that "Cocaine Eyes" is unavailable anywhere else.

not even streaming on neil's archives site — pretty dumb, it is great. "heavy love" too ...

yes!

I agree it's great, and I know I have a digital copy of it somewhere. I'm just saying I've never seen it in the store, as far as I can remember. xpost you saw it in Best buy in '89?

was just listening to that santa cruz 1990 live boot and "over and over" really struck me — that song is packed with hooks. Maybe it shoulda been a hit. The video is pretty bad, haha.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3PV8rDez5c

UK viewpoint on Eldorado: can’t remember if it got reviewed, but I do recall John Peel playing it on his show and declaring it a huge return to form etc, and then playing Freedom a bunch as well. Think he got off the train pretty sharpish with Harvest Moon tho.

not at all a favorite of mine

HM that is

Other crucial steps in the comeback were "This Note's for You" getting on MTV, and especially stomping through "Rockin' in the Free World" on Saturday Night Live.

On July, 3rd he played Over and Over and Love and Only Love with Promise of the Real at the Waldbühne in Berlin. Especially the latter was absolutely divine. Ragged Glory has always been my fave post Zuma album.

It might be my favorite Neil album, to be honest. I certainly listen to it more than any other.

I bet its mine, it is the definitely the album that made me fall with his music, I used to listen to this while mowing the lawn so it invariably triggers a sense memory of the smell of gasoline and cut grass, the lawnmower engine was like another guitar feeding back...I'm sure Neil would approve

"Over and Over" was--think I posted this at the time--the most surprising omission for me on the Neil poll a few years ago. Fantastic song. Really, it and "Driftin' Back" are the only two songs he's done post-Rust Never Sleeps I'd rank with his early albums.

I heard a 50s song today that the exact “whoah” call and response used in “farmer John”
Which was disappointing because that’s basically my favorite part of ragged glory

Wait I thought Farmer John was actually a cover of an oldies song LOL. I must be thinking if the same song you heard.

“Farmer John” was a cover, of a song originally done by The Premiers. Maybe some other songs sound similar too, can’t recall.

My fucking Shazam died or didn’t work or some shit happened so I lost what I heard
I think it was a girl group though, could be mistaken

The name of the was not farmer John, that I remember

*song

I know the Premiers' version from the original Nuggets. They may have gotten the "Whoah" etc. from an earlier record, dunno: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmer_John_(song)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8l5s1nY_yE

Should have looked it up before using the word “original.” Never knew about the Don and Dewey version.

Don & Dewey were serious orginators, having first cut "Farmer John", "I'm Leaving It Up To You", and "Koko Joe".

Yeah---later Don, AKA Sugarcane Harris, also played electric violin w Mayall and Zappa, among others---this article is flagged for insufficient citation, but as far as I remember it's accurate (did not know about the alleged Tupelo Chain Sex connection),:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_%22Sugarcane%22_Harris

Forgot they did the original "Justine" too.