Rock’n’roll is not lazy”

John Fogerty on turning 80, playing Glastonbury and reclaiming his Creedence catalogue 

John Fogerty: still full of energy and fire

DAVID MCLISTER

HAPPY 80th Birthday, John! What was it like to celebrate onstage at New York’s Beacon Theatre?

That was a wonderful and heartwarming thing, certainly one of the highlights of my life, to be celebrating a birthday with my family and fans at the same time. But I must say that turning 80 is not only a landmark, it’s a bit shocking. I don’t look a day over 79! 

I believe you poured yourself some champagne on stage?

Yeah – I don’t remember if I drank it or not, though. I kind of have a rule about that, but certainly I was saluting my audience. 

You’ve re-recorded many of your old classics forLegacy: The Creedence Clearwater Revival Years , staying faithful to the original arrangements. After years of legal issues, was that an important part of reclaiming these songs?

Very much so. Those old Creedence records always said: “Arranged and produced by John Fogerty.” I never thought I’d be required to go over that territory again in such a specific way, but here I was doing, say, “Proud Mary”, recreating each part that I thought I knew so well. But after 55 years, you’re not going to remember every little molecule. 

Sometimes I’d listen to a guitar lick on “Up Around The Bend” or “Green River” and say, “Oh my goodness! How did I ever do that?” So in some cases it meant I had to relearn and then practise a lot. It was so much fun. Of course, a lot of that stuff is just ingrained in my DNA. 

Taylor Swift has done a similar thing with her back catalogue. Did you find that inspiring?

This project was a secret for a while. We were trying to keep it under the radar until we could announce it in an official way, so that it didn’t just trickle out by rumour. And I was very much lobbying for this record to be called “Taylor’s Version”. I just thought it was kind of funny, because she re-recorded her earlier albums and I certainly had similar reasons for doing that. And there’s an added joyfulness to all of this since I got my publishing back a few years ago. Being free and emotionally secure enough to do this record is a sign that my re-engagement with my own music was complete.

“I was trying to be the best in the world”

Thinking back to your younger self, how do you account for CCR’s incredibly prolific run of hit singles and albums?

After “Suzie Q” was a hit at the end of 1968, I decided I didn’t want to be a one-hit wonder. So I got busy and just took it on. I thought my bandmates were going to do the same thing, but it didn’t work out that way. I realised that if I was really going to go forward, it was up to me. So I’d stay up every night, until three or four o’clock in the morning, writing songs like a maniac. Then I’d show up for a noon rehearsal the next day. I was trying to be the best in the world. 

You play Glastonbury this month, 18 years since you last appeared at the festival. What can people expect this time around?

I’m very much looking forward to it. I want to play a great rock’n’roll set. I have a wonderful band that includes my two sons, Shane and Tyler. We’ve been playing together for some time now and we all really enjoy it. Rock’n’roll is not lazy. It’s got to be fearsome and aggressive, full of energy and fire. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do. 

ROB HUGHES

Legacy: The Creedence Clearwater Revival Years is released by Concord on August 22

THE ZANE LOWE INTERVIEW

Es wird mal wieder Zeit für ein Brian Eno-Interview, und mir würden genug Fragen einfallen, auf deren Antwort ich selbst neugierig wäre. Nicht so leicht, mögen manche denken, denn seit der Zeit des Internets gibt es zahllose Interviews mit Eno, zur Musik, dazu, wozu Kunst da ist, zu Gaza, dem aufkommenden Faschismus in den USA. Meine aufregendste Zeit muskalischer Entdeckungen liegt tatsächlich in den Zeiten vor der Erfindung des Netzes, in der analogen Ära.

Damals stolperte man über Neuerscheinungen, oder man benutze gewisse „Kanäle“, um auf dem Laufenden zu bleiben. So ging ich in der zweiten Hälfte der Siebziger Jahre in Würzburg regelmässig zu Montanus, um die neuesten Ausgaben des Jazz Podiums und des Melody Maker durchzustöbern. Was heute allgegenwärtig ist, musste damals ausgekundschaftet werden. Nur wenige Magazine halfen da, die eine und andere Radiosendung.

Heute ist der Blick auf die neuen Klänge der nahen Zukunft geradezu gleichgeschaltet – und sehr oft mit einem Blick zurück verbunden. Mit einem Schmunzeln merkt Brian Eno im Gespräch mit Zane Lowe an, dass damals, als Roxy Music am Start war, die Geschichte des Rock‘n‘Roll gerade mal 16 Jahre jung war, wenn man die Stunde Null bei Bill Haley ansetzt. As time goes by.

Meine einzige Roxy Music-Story ist die, um die mich viele beneiden, die Fans der ersten Alben der Band sind, die ursprünglich mit dem Anspruch auftraten, „anti-hippie“ zu sein, und dem allzu schnell kodifizierten „styling“ der Hippie-Kultur unverbrauchte Mythen und Fantasien entgegenzustellen. Nun war ich um 1991 herum (oder Jahre später) in seinem alten Haus in Maida Vale, als er mir nebenbei mitteilte, dieser Raum hier, in dem wir sassen, wäre damals der Übungsraum von Roxy Music gewesen, wo sie wie verrückt die Stücke ihres ersten Albums einstudiert, entwickelt, geprobt hätten.

Ja, ich nahm es zur Kenntnis (Roxy gehörte nie zum Soundtrack meines Lebens), und war froh, ihm in seinem Arbeitszimmer über die Schulter zu schauen, als er ein am DX-7 entwickeltes Stück für „The Shutov Assembly“ den letzten Schliff verpasste. Ein absolutes Lieblingsalbum. As time stands still. (m.e.)

Vom Opener „Our prayers will never be answered again“ bis zu „In a Future Age“, in dem Jeff Tweedy uns auffordert, „unsere Gebete in unverschämte Wagnisse zu verwandeln“, schleppt uns das drittbeste Album, das Wilco je aufgenommen hat, durch unseren zwischenmenschlichen Müll, nur um uns dann höflich zu bitten, ihn selbst aufzuräumen. Cool.

Und da ist genug Zucker in der Medizin: also, Leute, von den süchtig machenden Pop-Hooks des Albums in den Bann gezogen, umgarnt uns die Band mit cleverer Ironie und reichhaltiger musikalischer Bearbeitung, die uns so leicht nicht mehr loslässt. Während das Album seine Feinheiten preisgibt, wird deutlich, dass die Band exponentiell wächst. Und das anno 1999. Nachdem sie sich selbstbewusst von ihren alternativen Country-Geistern verabschiedet haben, ist Wilco zu einer Band geworden, von der wir alles und nichts erwarten können. Mit Summerteeth haben sie ein Album geschaffen, das so wunderbar doppeldeutig und ungewiss ist wie das Leben selbst. Einst schrieb mir Elizabeth Hand dazu:

„Another album I must have listened to almost every day for a decade. I finally put it aside last year, and this morning found myself in the mood to dig it out again. Beautiful and eerie; the sunny “Pet Sounds” production belies the dark lyrics. You could write an entire essay about the influence of “Pet Sounds” on“Pieholden Suite,” though my favorite song is the alternate version of the brilliant “A Shot in the Arm,” a hidden track (along with “Candyfloss”) which gives “Sergeant Pepper” era John Lennon a run for his money in under four minutes. Gorgeous, desperate, and so dark it’s exquisitely painful to listen to. “Maybe all I need is a shot in the arm/Something in my veins, bloodier than blood.” An entire hidden thread of my life had this as its soundtrack (note: nothing to do with drugs). “You’ve changed: What you once were isn’t what you want to be anymore.”

Es folgten bald darauf ihr zweitbestes Opus, das viele für reinen Sternenstaub und dunkelstes Gold halten, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, und dann das überwältigende wie tollkühne Meisterwerk A Ghost Is Born. Unendlich sanfte und wilde Lieder kreuzen sich gnadenlos! Seit damals bin ich Fan und freue mich sie im Juni in meiner alten Heimat zu erleben. Übrigens mag ich alle ihre Alben seit diesen drei großen Würfen der frühen und dunklen Jahre.

Auf jeden Album seitdem finde ich Juwelen und Songs, die den direkten Weg unter meine Haut einschlagen, und immer wieder mal ein neues Lieblingsalbum, das sich den drei Geniestreichen ebenbürtig erweist. Meistens Sky Blue Sky, betörend verstörend in seinem sanften Flowflow! Derzeit ist mein Album Nummer Vier The Whole Love, mit zahllosen Songs zum Versinken, allen voran der tiefgründige 12-Minuten-Schleicher „One Sunday Morning“, mit seiner Verschmelzung von Wehmut und Freude. Läuft in meinem spanischen Leihwagen in dieser Woche „on high rotation“! (Michael E.)

Auf der kleinsten kanarischen Insel El Hierro trafen sich jetzt grosse Schaffende von den glücklichen Inseln: Madeira, Azoren, Kapverden. Sie kamen zusammen, um sich über die Lage des Tourismus auf ihren jeweiligen Archipelen auszutauschen. Weil auf diesen atlantischen Meerinseln vorwiegend Portugiesisch gesprochen wird, hatte ich mir ein junges Englisch sprechendes chica organisiert zum Übersetzen.

José Luis Rivero, Wirtschaftswissenschaftler von der Universität La Laguna/Teneriffa moderierte die spannende Runde – claro – auf Spanisch.

Den für mich attraktivsten Auftritt bot Urbano Bettencourt Machado von den Azoren. Er ist Journalist und Schriftsteller, ein anerkannter Intellektueller, der viel für die Musik tut. Seine engagierte These lautet: gegen die Religionen kann nur die Liebe zur Musik als internationale Sprachen antreten. Er berichtete von Philharmonien, also grossen Orchestern, die unterwegs sind und Künstler wie Kurt Weil und Bertold Brecht im Programm haben. Mich fasziniert der Gedanke, dass unsere grosse Kultur bis in die kleinsten Archipele vordringt. Ich fragte ihn, wie es mit dem Jazz aussehe. Er erzählte mir, dass es eine amerikanische Airbase auf den Azoren gebe. Dort gibt es Jazzmusiker, die den an Jazz interessierten Einheimischen die Jazzmusik beibringen. Aber es sei ja klar, dass die afrikanische Musik den grösseren Einfluss habe. Ich fragte ihn auch nach grossen Dichtern auf den Azoren. Er nannte Antero de Quental mit Daten 1842-1891.

Glückselig wer
vorüberging am Weh
Des Lebens und der Leiden-
schaft Getose
Unwissend wie
vorübergeht die Rose
Und flüchtig wie der
Schatten ob der See

Madeira war vertreten durch den Musiker, Journalist und Schriftsteller Juan Carlos de Abreu. Er verriet mir, dass das nächste Treffen seine grosse Stunde sei, das Thema wäre POESIE.

Javier Morales Febles lehrt als Agraringenieur an den Unis in La Laguna/ Teneriffa und Las Palmas/ Gran Canaria. Ich glaube, er ist unser Vizepräsident, der sehr nah an seinem Inselvolk ist. Wo sieht man schon mal einen Wissenschaftler oder Politiker aktiv bei den lokalen Tänzen ‚mithupfen‘?

Cabo Verde, der afrikanische Inselstaat mitten im Atlantik, erhielt meine grösste Aufmerksamkeit. Ich war sehr neugierig auf den Mann von den Kapverden. Leáo Lopes heisst er. Er ist Filmregisseur, Künstler, Professor, in seiner Zeit als Kultusminister gründete er das Institute of Art an der Universität von Mindalo. Er zeigte kleine touristische Bauprojekte und Märkte mit lokalen Produkten. Im gemeinsamen Gespräch nach seinem Vortrag fragte ich ihn nach interkulturellem Kulturaustausch, ob es Residenzen für Künstler gäbe. Er gab mir für meinen Künstlersohn seine Kontaktadresse.Leáo Lopes hatte zwei Künstler mitgebracht, einen Gitarrenspieler und Sänger und eine Tänzerin. Tiolino y Rosy Timas.

Wie klingt der Sound von den Kapverden? Darauf war ich sehr gespannt. Vollkommen entspannt betrat ein junger hübscher Mann mit seiner Gitarre die Bühne und begann ein langes Lied zu singen. Man konnte ahnen worüber er sang, als die Tänzerin mit um den Bauch gebundenem Ball einen Geburtstanz hinlegte. Sehr graziös vollbrachte sie das Wunderereignis. Aufgrund der Tänze, die alle das Bild der Frau zum Thema hatten, konnte man die Songs gut einordnen. Rosy Timas ist einen begabte Choreografin, die verstand, eine Hausfrau, eine Braut, eine Büroangestellte oder eine verführerische Frivole zu tanzen.Die Rhythmen waren vielfältig : Mazurka, Chachacha hörte ich heraus. Tiolino sang ein Lied von Cesaria Evora, der wohl berühmtesten Sängerin von den Kapverden. Die Beiden bekamen viel Applaus- Ich sah einige Einheimische auf ihren Sitzen tanzen und klatschen zu den afrikanischen Klängen von einer der glücklichen Inseln in Makaronesien. Vamos!

Swimmingpools spielen eine rare Rolle, aber ich unterschlage Erinnerungen, würde ich den Serientraum aus Kindertagen aus dem Spiel lassen, das warme Wasser, in dem die Füße spielen, und die Magierin, die von hinten an mich herantritt. Im Süden Spaniens jetzt ein anderer Traum, und tatsächlich strömt in der Dämmerung, aus schwarzen Lautsprechern, die zweite Sologitarrenplatte von Bill Connors, mit ihrem Hauch von Latino, und einem dritten Swimmingpool (auf dem Cover), der nicht weniger zum Verweilen animiert als dieser hier, und jener aus den frühen Märchen aus 1001 Nacht. (m.e.)

In den ersten Minuten dieses Albums der bolivianisch-amerikanischen Geschwister Chuquimamani Condori und Joshua Chuquimia Crampton, da glitzern die Gitarren wie Tempelglocken und bilden dämmernde Akkorde. Stürme von Geräuschen wehen hindurch, mal verblüffend in ihrem zischenden Rauschen, mal fremdartig in ihrem Glanz und Rauschen. In von menschlichen und maschinellen Effekten verfremdeten Klangfarben sprechen „Voiceovers“ einleitend und rückblickend über etwas, das wie Stereofelder von lokalen Radiosendungen klingt. It’s a strange world. Irgendetwas passiert hier. Aber was? Nun, wir haben eine interessante Interpretation der Andenmusik. Über Jahrzehnte haben die Musiker diesen Boden vorbereitet, alte Rhythmen von ihren Großeltern gelernt und an Klangzeremonien teilgenommen. Im Jahr 2023 haben sie ein kleines Fenster in die Welt von Los Thuthanaka für die Öffentlichkeit gebaut. In einer aufschlussreichen Ausstellung im MoMA boten sie den Besuchern Kopfhörer und einen Sitzplatz vor einer monumentalen Collage an. Zu den Bildern gehörten traditionelle Medizin und Tiere, die in den Erzählungen der Eingeborenen eine zentrale Rolle spielen. An anderer Stelle hockt ein Ahnenpaar mütterlicherseits zwischen einem monumentalen Soundsystem und schießt Glasscherben und Blitze in den Nachthimmel. Los Thuthanaka klingt so, wie man sich dieses Wandbild vorstellen könnte. Und das ist erst der Anfang.

Manchen mag Kevin Ayers bekannt sein, aus alten Hippietagen, von frühen Soft Machine-Alben, oder seinen Soloalben. Oder von seinem „Lampenfieber“. Er stand für fantasievolles, postiv versponnenes Liedergut, undals er einmal nach vielen Jahren der Stille anno 1992 mit einem feinen „Comeback“-Album daherkam, freuten sich die „alten Fans“, wie unverbraucht seine Stimme und sein Charme daherkamen.

Michael Frank traf ihn damals in meiner alten Heimat in Dortmund zum Gespräch. Und Freunde seiner Musik werden HIER das eine und andere von Interesse finden, etwa seine Kindheitsvorliebe dafür, die Dinge des Lebens langsam anzugehen. „The Unfairground“ war sein letztes Werk – ich habe es in guter Erinnerung, und ganz sicher ein, zwei Songs daraus in den frühen Jahren der „Klanghorizonte“ gespielt. John Mulvey schrieb damals:

„From what I can tell, Ayers seems to have been mooching about the south of France for an extraordinarily long time, probably doing not much more than some fairly concerted wine-tasting. We spent a while yesterday trying to work out what he lives on – does he have independent means, maybe? But Ayers always comes across as one of those charming, insouciant wasters who sort of glide through life untroubled by the dreary realities that trouble the rest of us. In fact, listening to „The Unfairground“, Ayers tackles angst, romantic mishaps and fear of ageing with a sort of rueful shrug.“

Unser Interview mit Robert Fripp aus dem Jahre 1997 findet sich in diesem „Blogtagebuch“ am 28. März – unter dem Titel „Everything broken will flow“. m.e.)

SIDE 1 

1 DON’T CRY NO TEARS

Zuma opens with joyous, chiming guitars, heralding a new lineup for his doughty lieutenants and his emergence from the darkness of the Ditch…

ALAN SPARHAWK: Pulling a few parts from a song called “I Wonder” that he’d written as a teenager, Neil Young and Crazy Horse kick off the record with this tight electric strummer. After losing Danny Whitten three years prior, this would be the world’s introduction to Frank Sampedro on guitar. The new lineup became the foundational combo that went on to decades of recordings and legendary live shows. The arrangement is very simple – drums, bass and two electric guitars, barrelling into the horizon – but it’s a pop gem, a stomping melodic ringer with vocal harmonies that attest to the fact that the rhythm section, Ralph Molina and Billy Talbot, originally started together performing as a doo-wop group. Three-part harmony is a secret and beautiful weapon. I’ve played this song in a Neil & Crazy Horse tribute band from where I live [Tired Eyes]. I love the opening Aadd9 to A riff in the intro, I love singing the vocal harmonies on the chorus hook and I love hearing Rich [Mattson] hit the big, dirty, country-tinged guitar solo. It’s not the first or last layered ‘(I’m hurt, but) I don’t want to hear about how I hurt you’ song from Neil, but this seems especially pointed, in the wake of the recent breakup of his relationship with Carrie Snodgress. There would be more pointed, expansive and iconic tracks later in the album, but this is perhaps the song that most adeptly strikes the balance between loose/fuzzy and focused/funky. It is the arrival of a band that would anchor an era and influence generations.

2 DANGER BIRD

Young unleashes “Old Black”, creating a guitar sound so potent it made Lou Reed cry every time he heard the song…

KURT VILE: I remember when I first heard “Danger Bird” in my early twenties. At the end there’s a part where the band sings along, then he jams. You think the song is over but then he does that Neil thing and comes back for another verse, he goes to that same change, but this time there are no vocals. He hits a descending chord then digs in one last time with that crazy lick that just pokes through the speakers. Me and my friend just looked at each other. It still hits me every time. He is lost in his guitar. Lou Reed was in love with that guitar tone and it feels like the first time Neil got that sound in the studio, maybe piggy-backing two amps together and getting that really distorted, crunchy reverb sound. It symbolises Zuma. I’m not sure he found it again until Rust Never Sleeps.

He often has bookends. In this case it’s the second track and the second-to-last. He’s not messing around – there’s a catchy song to start then he introduces the vibe with “Danger Bird”. It’s structured a bit like the first album with Crazy Horse or On The Beach, with these longer tracks that are more like mantras. “Danger Bird” is a looser version of that. I know that I could make out all the words if I wanted, but you can let it wash over you, just like that Danger Bird does in the sky. “Danger Bird” stands for Zuma. You address that first. It’s something new but with those elements that already existed and living a life we can only dream of.

3 PARDON MY HEART

Written immediately after his split from Carrie Snodgress, Neil previewed this vulnerable acoustic hymn at New York’s Bottom Line in May 1974: “It’s one of the saddest love songs I’ve ever heard.”

SARABETH TUCEK:I clearly remember the first time I listened to Zuma. I was in Oakland, recording my first demos with a friend in his home studio. I’d heard several of the songs, but never the whole thing in one sitting. I was nervous recording, so I made a rookie mistake and drank too much whiskey and fell off my stool while doing my vocals. My friend said I needed to relax, that I needed to listen to Zuma alone while laying on the floor. So I laid down, he dropped the needle, left the room and I left Planet Earth.

“Pardon My Heart” is really good at expressing that time in a relationship when you kind of know it’s over, but you reflect back to better times and it’s just this painful back and forth. The lines that kill me are: “It’s a sad communication/With little reason to believe/When one isn’t giving/And one pretends to receive”. It captures that inner tussle and wondering if you both are just going through the motions. I read Neil Young has only played it live twice. From the title, I feel that maybe he’s embarrassed about expressing these feelings. Like, ‘Excuse me for doing this, but I have to tell you.’ It’s a simple love song that describes something very complex. It’s the poetry you make from a deep conversation with yourself. It’s the getting ready to say goodbye. It’s true and beautiful and I’m grateful for its words. Good songs help.

4 LOOKIN’ FOR A LOVE

After the Zuma Beach sessions, Young and the Horse decamped to his Broken Arrow ranch. This late addition to the album was recorded after Young underwent throat surgery and finds him cautiously optimistic, reflected in its sunnier country-rock outlook.

EVAN DANDO: The Stones had that three-album run of Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers, and I think Neil Young was kind of like that with On The Beach, Tonight’s The Night and Zuma. For me,it’s a really similar phase of time in his career. “Lookin’ For A Love” is just beautiful. He’s not afraid to say what he thinks. He’s not worried about being goofy and fucked up and weird. That’s what’s awesome about him. He doesn’t give a shit, man. “Lookin’ For A Love” is like a hymn, it’s all the notes you want to hear. The part where he goes [sings]: “Where the sun hits the water/And the mountains meet the sand/There’s a beach that I walk along sometimes/And maybe there I’ll meet her/And we’ll start to say hello/And never stop to think of any other time”. It’s like a really wonderful melody in its normalness. And there’s something about those electric guitar arpeggios, they’re so even and perfect to time.

“For me, Crazy Horse are like the definitive garage band”

EVAN DANDO

My favourite part is the fadeout, where he’s like [sings]: “When she starts to see the darker side of me”. It’s all just falsetto at the end. It’s a perfect recording – beautiful, fragile and really shattering. For me, Crazy Horse are like the definitive garage band. More than anything, I would just love to be in that band. They’re doing something so simple, but it’s also fucking transcendent and archetypal. I’m so envious. No-one records like Neil Young.

5 BARSTOOL BLUES

A woozy yarn written after a day of drinking – “I woke up and I went, ‘Fuck!’ I couldn’t remember writing it…”

MJ LENDERMAN: I read [Jimmy McDonough’s biography] Shakey and loved the story about Zuma and “Barstool Blues”. There was a lot of cocaine and alcohol involved. They recorded in this house in Malibu in a very small room and I don’t know how they managed to get the record to sound so good, being so loud in such a tight space. “Barstool Blues” is a pretty simple, straightforward song, but the thing I really like about it is, it’s a bit nerdy. A normal blues would be played on three chords, the 1 chord, the 4 chord and the 5 chord. This song goes 5, 4, 1 on the verses, but where the 4 is supposed to be they substitute a minor 2, which I feel pulls on the heart a lot more. It’s that additional emotion in the music that always got me.

I always picture this one as a bar scene. Maybe he’s there in Malibu around all these famous women and he pictures an ageing superstar sitting in the bar reading the tabloids and celebrity magazines and thinking about the people in the pages. It seemed like a weird time for Neil, post-Carrie. He was in Malibu with piles of coke, lots of women in bikinis coming off the beach. He’d been through the CSNY tour and seemed to have this real distaste for Hollywood and celebrity. This era is my Neil sweet spot, the stretch from On The Beach and into American Stars ’n Bars plus Homegrown, which never came out at the time and is awesome.”

SIDE 2 

1 STUPID GIRL

Unflinchingly raw and arguably the cruellest song in Young’s canon (“ You’re just a stupid girl/You really got a lot to learn ”), cut with Crazy Horse at 4am. “We were all messed up,” he confided later.

CHRIS FORSYTH: I’ll start by noting that I’m of the belief that Neil Young is an artist who has limited ability, or inclination, to evaluate his own material – he just channels it, puts it out, and moves on. The upshot of this dynamic is that Neil’s work, for better or worse, can be unfiltered to the point of being erratic. “Stupid Girl” certainly seems to be a case in point. Unlike the Stones’ song of the same name, there’s no campy wink in the delivery, just pure venom.

Whereas Jagger often seemed to ratchet up his misogyny as a calculated, trolling provocation, Neil’s scorn for his subject feels palpably, bitterly, crudely sincere. He really means it. The lyrics on the page are mean-spirited enough; however, I think it’s actually the vocal take itself that pins the discomfort needle in the red. But then again, much of Neil’s work, especially the Ditch-era stuff, is a musical manifestation of the darkness, decadence, and discomfort of the times, and “Stupid Girl” is not here to make anyone feel good. Neil doesn’t even sound like he’s enjoying it, exactly.

Considering Neil Young’s status as a rich, indulged player in the fast and loose ’70s, it’s easy to read “Stupid Girl” as an asshole rock star’s callous dismissal of a woman on the losing end of the grossly imbalanced backstage sexual power dynamic. It’s not pretty. But if you listen to Neil Young precisely for his lack of filter, this is as raw as it gets. And he’s not pretending otherwise.

2 DRIVE BACK

Young and Poncho Sampedro lock in to clamorous effect, complete with splenetic lyric: “ Drive back to your old town/I wanna wake up with no-one around ”.

STEVE WYNN, THE DREAM SYNDICATE: I was 15 years old when Zuma came out. I’d been listening daily to Tonight’s The Night, which had come out six months earlier and turned my head around, changing my entire idea of what kind of singing, playing, chemistry and sounds were possible on a record – my first brush with the notion that things didn’t always have to be technically good, ideally realised, well crafted, to be effective. This album almost felt like a disappointment in how easy it went down. But sometimes easy is good. And… that tone.

Zuma is the record where Neil Young and Crazy Horse found their sound, their essence, their tone. Sure, Neil had flirted with the crunch and ooze that two guitars could conjure up previously on songs like “Cinnamon Girl” and “Southern Man”, but it was Zuma where he brought Frank Sampedro on board and they found that sound. You know it when you hear it. It’s the Crazy Horse sound – the one he pretty much stuck with year after year right to the point where I saw them play what will likely be one of their last shows last summer in Forest Hills.

“They found that sound. You know it when you hear it… that primordial ooze”

STEVE WYNN

You could take “Drive Back” and put it pretty much on any Crazy Horse album that followed and it would fit right in. This is the song, more than any other on the album, that digs deep, hunkers down and gets that primordial ooze that bands have tried to get ever since. But nobody can do it like they could.

3 CORTEZ THE KILLER

Astonishingly, the first song Young and the Horse recorded for Zuma – on May 22, 1975 – this sweeping, phantasmagorical epic was later banned (according to Young) by General Franco. A missing verse – lost during a powercut at Briggs’ rental – was unexpectedly reinstated by Young on the Horse’s truncated 2024 tour…

BLAKE MILLS: “Cortez…” starts with this elongated instrumental stretch and a chord progression that keeps cycling without ever resolving. What that creates for me is this sense of a song that never comes home. The vocal melody does the same live orig “Th an a unr Yo a so doo Jan to r mo Ho aft fro its thing, it never quite arrives or peaks in the way you might expect. So this is a piece of music that never comes home and it’s a story of people being robbed of their home, or at least this idealised version of what home was like before somebody came and fucked it all up. As a song, it is such a good document of that thing they do as Crazy Horse. Their strengths do not rely on flawless execution. It’s more like Charlie Chaplin cat-walking across a roof and miraculously not falling off.

Neil was part of an extremely political generation of musicians who were writing these songs protesting the world they were seeing. They were young and pissed off. “Cortez…” feels like part of that tradition of commenting about injustice as a source of inspiration. The other interesting thing he does is the final verse, where he suddenly breaks the history lesson and personalises it in a way that leave a question – what time period is he singing from? He suddenly weaves the narrator in, in a way that makes the whole thing feel less academic and historical. You get no real sense of the character who sings the song until that very last verse, when he swoops in like David Attenborough.

4 THROUGH MY SAILS

Recorded with Crosby, Stills and Nash at Young’s Broken Arrow ranch prior to their 1974 tour, Zuma ’s closer finds sustenance in warm, pristine harmonies, sparse acoustic backing and the leisurely echo of congas. “ It feels like I’m gone… ”

STEVE GUNN: “There are so many different layers to Zuma. It seems like a departure, the end of a relationship and his whole CSNY life. “Through My Sails” is such an emotional and vulnerable song and I think there’s a pattern of his where he’d find something very appropriate that might not be from that session and use it to end the record. He does the same on American Stars ’n Bars with “Will To Love”. I think he is more careful about the sequencing than you might think. There’s a lot of subtlety there.

This was originally a CSNY tune and probably one they rejected as it’s so Neil. You can hear their harmonies, but it has Neil’s very dreamlike quality. There was always tension with that group and Neil was always the outsider, so I think he put this song here to close that chapter because the machine of that supergroup was taking him in a direction he didn’t want to go.

I came to Neil through grunge and as I learnt more about his life and the way he approached music and celebrity, I found it so interesting. The albums around this time are so rich, with this meditative atmosphere. There is something particularly fractured and delicate about this. I know I picked the one with hardly any guitar and a lot of the other heavier songs are amazing, but I feel this is the perfect way to end a record. It’s mysterious, loose and it feels very poignant.

UNCUT: What was Neil’s mood going into Zuma following the break-up with Carrie and the CSNY ‘Doom’ tour?

BILLY TALBOT: My main memory of Zuma is being in Malibu in some bar having a beer with Neil and talking about how he was happy that we were going to do some recording. He was happy about that, and that’s all he was thinking about. I don’t think he was thinking much about Crosby, Stills & Nash at that point. He was past that. Neil is always moving forward. As for Carrie, it wasn’t spoken. It was like any other gang. You don’t speak about things when you are trying to get past them – you try to have a good time, but you don’t moan and groan because that’s not how to get past things. If you do any moaning and groaning, you do it by yourself. 

What was it about Poncho that made you think he’d work for Crazy Horse?

He had a simple new attitude towards music. He wasn’t somebody who had been playing music with everybody always telling him how great he was or anything like that. He always loved the music, he loved playing and he loved making music. He wasn’t trying to be a star in any way. He wasn’t not trying to be a star, he just wasn’t thinking in that way and that’s what I liked. So I asked him to come and join us somehow. He came to my house, we played together a bit, then I invited Ralph and Neil down and we all played and it was fun. That’s all we could ask for, as Danny had passed.

Was there a point where you realised this was the new Crazy Horse?

We didn’t talk about this being Crazy Horse, it all just happened. Neil went to Chicago and invited all three of us to join him – me and Ralph and Poncho. I said we should bring him as it would work, and we did and it did – it worked. When the record [Zuma] was released eventually, we called it Neil Young And Crazy Horse, but we weren’t thinking about that at the moment. We were just trying to get back on track. Danny passing was a real blow. That was what we’d been doing for years. Ralph and Danny and I had been traipsing around as a vocal group, then decided to start playing instruments. Then we got together with Neil and just as we were really getting into it, Danny passed. It was a disruption to this whole force that had been moving forward, so we had to regroup and find our way. We did, fortunately. I guess it was in the cards. It just gelled – but like anything that comes together, it was one of those things. 

How did Poncho change the sound of Crazy Horse?

Poncho is another person, so it’s bound to be different. That’s how it is in life. Each one of us is unique. Especially in a group when you have three or four guys. Danny was one person, he was himself and he’d been great with us, and now he was gone and Poncho came into the picture and he was also himself. If there was any change to the Horse that was it, the new element. 

Tell me about the vibe at Briggs’ beach house – it sounds quite wild?

It might sound wild and at times it might have been a little wild, but we were more interested in the music because Neil was taking us in that direction. He really wanted to do what he wanted to do – and he wanted us to do it with him. He didn’t lose sight of that picture and what he wanted to create. He kept the partying to a minimum, so I don’t know where these stories all came from. 

Who else was around the house during the sessions?

James “Sandy” Mazzeo was there, he did the cover. He was in the house with me and Ralph and Poncho and two or three others. We were staying on the beach in Malibu, you can’t complain about that. The weather wasn’t the best, it was foggy in the morning, but I was a young man away from my family and all these things taken together are kind of like a formula for adventure and it all shows up in the music. 

How did you get such a good sound from the small room you recorded in?

When we record with Neil, we don’t think about leakage that much. What we wanted to do on Zuma was play together in the same room and whoever was engineering had to find a way to record that. We played together as a band and it’s better for any band to play in the same room than separately. 

“It just gelled”: Frank Sampedro (right) with Young and Billy Talbot in Copenhagen, March 16, 1976

Visitors: Bob Dylan; (below) Rod Stewart and Britt Ekland

Why a house?

When you go into a studio, you are there for one reason – to record. That immediately puts a mood on it. When you are in a house, you aren’t thinking the same. You set up and you play and that’s the best thing for a musician to be thinking. Not that you’re about to record, but that you’re about to play. That was good for Crazy Horse. Neil could go into the studio with CSNY and big-time producers with reputations, he could handle that – but it affected Crazy Horse in a detrimental way. Music is music, and once it’s released you can listen to it and it doesn’t matter if it was recorded in a house or a studio. But in the house, we could be ourselves. 

“It’s better for any band to play in the same room” 

BILLY TALBOT

How about the individual songs?

I really remember “Cortez…” because we were doing it and the power went out. We kept playing because we didn’t realise the power was out – it was working in our room, it was in the other room where they were recording. The power came back on and we were still playing. It went off about halfway through the song and came back for the last two-thirds. We then stuck it all together but there was always this missing verse. Then when we did the last tour, Neil reintroduced it. That was the first time I’d heard it since Malibu. I don’t know how he found it, but somehow he did. We played it live and it’s back in the song. 

Was Neil working out some of his issues with the break-up on songs like “Stupid Girl” and “Barstool Blues”?

“Barstool Blues” maybe, but not “Stupid Girl”. I think “Stupid Girl” was just an interesting idea for a song and he was having fun with that one. “Barstool Blues” was definitely a reflection of that time, being in a bar alone or maybe with your mates and basically thinking about not being with your woman any more. That’s a state that a person finds themself in in certain circumstances.

GIJSBERT HANEKROOT/REDFERNS; VINCE MAGGIORA/SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE VIA GETTY IMAGES; HELMUT REISS/UNITED ARCHIVES VIA GETTY IMAGES 

Do you remember Bob Dylan popping in?

I remember Bob popping in and then popping out. He jammed on a song or two and I did my best without knowing what the song was or anything about it. With Neil we would discuss the changes. We might play simply, but we’d know the changes and that’s important. Bob didn’t tell us the changes, so I am sure it was a unique experience for him as well as for us. 

How about Rod Stewart?

He was interested in seeing if Neil had a song he could do. So Neil played one of our tracks to him and because he wasn’t interested in Rod Stewart doing a cover of his, he played something from the record he liked but knew Rod Stewart would never do – it might have been “Drive Back”. It was a little odd, but he had a very beautiful woman with him [Britt Ekland] and that’s the main thing I remember. He then had a big hit with “I Don’t Want To Talk About It”, Danny’s song. He might have got it at that session. 

At what point did you realise you were making a record?

Whenever we recorded, we thought of it as a record that would be released, but we didn’t really think about that – it’s about what we are doing in the moment. That sort of stuff doesn’t get to me – what is going to happen to it afterwards. I am trying to concentrate on what the hell is going on, so I can put myself into whatever I am playing on the bass. 

What was the Northern California Coastal Bar Tour like?

We went to these places that were dark outside then lit up inside. People were surprised to see us. When we played it was fun, because it kept the music alive. It wasn’t like this thing you’re supposed to do because you’re up on a stage with thousands of people waiting to hear you. It was nothing like that. We played these spaces where it was a surprise we were there, so the whole feel of the performance was in a different place for everybody. I don’t think we made money playing those bars, but we had fun. 

Do you think of Zuma as a key album for the Horse?

Back in those days, it was just what we were doing. When you look back, that’s one thing, but when you are in the midst of things, you’re just trying to make sense of the moment and what’s happening. Poncho came in and it started working and that was good, that’s all we knew. We weren’t thinking beyond that. When I look back, I feel it is a really good record. What we have done every time, on Zuma or anything else, is a coming together of the band and each one is about its own time and the music that represents that time. 

INTERVIEW: PETER WATTS

Oh mit einem Zittern
Weiche lustige Sache

Euphonisch
Flüstert auf dem Boden

Platonisch
Versteckt in einer Schublade

Cool wie ein Flimmern
Blauer Wuschel
Gleitet durch diese Finger

Verbirg es
Lauf ein wenig ängstlich

Aber fühle es
Öffne dich stattdessen

Wessen Zittern
Verstrickt in der Morgendämmerung
Dieses schöne Durcheinander
Kaum noch zu halten
Vergessene Tage
Fallen weg
Von uns
Von uns

Ladet es ein
Niemals sicher zu sein

Erregt es
Es schreit nach mehr

Oh kleiner Sonnenstrahl
Gefangen in einer Wolke

Wir zittern
Verstrickt in der Dämmerung
Dieses schöne Durcheinander
Kaum aufgehängt
Vergessene Tage
Wegbrechen
Von uns
Von uns

Lass uns hier verweilen
Moosig in der Dämmerung
Diese unordentliche Liebe
Kaum festhalten
Oh schöne Tage
Weglaufen
Mit uns
Mit uns

Meine schönen Tage
Wollt ihr nicht bleiben

Easy does it, könnte eine Besprechung von „Luminal“ lauten: wenig ruft die wilden Welten von Here Come The Warm Jets oder Nerve Net in Erinnerung, oder den Power Pop der Zusammenarbeit von Eno und Hyde. Ist das nicht alles ein wenig smooth umd sentimental? Was assoziieren wir frei? Verrückte Kissenschlachten früher und später Liebe, Glückstaumel der „salad days“, ach ach ach! Ist es nicht viel leichter, das eigene Dunkel zu erkunden, mit „dark songs“ und einem „dark album“, das Spätwerke alter Meister oftmals offerieren?! Warum nur verzaubert mich dieses Songalbum mit Beaties mildrauchigem Timbre und Brians Quantum Samt so sehr?

Ein Punkt jedenfalls sind die lyrics von Beatie, die nichts ausformulieren, und, wie Impressionisten, der Flüchtigkeit der Linien und Bilder ihren seltsamen Tiefgang anvertrauen. Auch mit Reimformen wird sehr luftig gearbeitet, was die deutsche Übersetzung unterschlägt, z. B. ganz am Anfang der Hauch von Reim von „floor“ und „drawer“: Oh with a quiver / Soft funny thing  / Euphonic / Whispers on the floor / Platonic Hiding in a drawer…“ Genauestens tariert sind die Kürze der Zeilen und die Länge der Strophen: bei de drei „Siebenzeilern“ ein Hauch von Crescendo und Brians „Chor“. Zudem seine „synths“ – vintage Eno and inventive!

Es gibt zudem auf „Luminal“ keinen einzigen Wechselgesang a la „Nancy und Lee“, und das verblüfft, denn stimmlich die Zwei „a match made in heaven“. Das ist die Kunst: Understatement liefern, ohne Intensität zu opfern! Und dann diese beiden herrlichen dreisilbribigen Eigenschaftswörter „Euphonic“ und „Platonic“! Da komme ich gleich auf launige Tangenten!

Lese ich allein Beaties Texte, kommt mir sogleich die alte Lust an Lyrikinterpretationen in den Sinn, in jenem schönsten aller germanistischen Proseminare über „Konkrete Lyrik“ (Münster, 1973/74), und im legendären Englischunterricht von Dr. Egon Werlich. Hier, auf „My Lovely Days“, entfalten sich bewegte Liebestaumel mit äkustischem Gitarrengezupfel und dem simpelsten aller Melodiegaranten namens Omnichord. Kein Wunder, dass „My Lovely Days“ demnächst die zweite Singleauskoplung wird!

Aber, und das ist das grosse verblüffende Aber: stets ist ja das Träumen als Träumen präsent, als fluider Seinszustand – und im Laufe der Lieder von Luminal findet alles Dunkle seine Risse. Beiläufig, der Logik von Traumbildern, Traumsequenzen folgend. Nichts bleibt unverwundet.