Neil Young - American Stars N Bars

Indeed...Neil goes into great detail about the recording of "Will To Love" in Waging Heavy Peace and in Shakey. He reckons it was David Briggs' "finest hour as a producer". He's also said he tried working on it with Crosby, Stills and Nash (when he showed up unnanounced during the "Boat" album sessions) but Crosby told him to leave the track as it was. Further to that Neil has also said "Will To Love" is the one song of his he could never perform live, as he'd never be able to recapture the "moment".

Neil Young is justifiably proud of "Will To Love"...IMO it is his masterpiece.

Stars And Bars was one of the first NY albums I heard (my mum's boyfriend had the tape). I spent years searching for a copy before Neil finally got wise and put out the damn CD. It's one of his more 'schizo' albums, sure, but I always loved the spontaneous feel of the thing. I'm pretty AS&B is the album Poncho Sampedro was talking about when he described how Neil would say, "Hey guys, I gave Reprise an album..." and Poncho replied "Yeah? What was on it?!"

 

Great album. When I first heard Like A Hurricane it nearly had as much impact on me as my first listen to Cortez The Killer. Have the original vinyl album in perfect condition plus the original no frills cd release.

 

I thought it was a definite step down after the run of albums that preceded it (and I'm not over-keen on 'Zuma'). An early sign of Neil's contrariness towards his audience.

'ASAB' is in effect half of a double album with 'Hawks And Doves' - both have one side of 'archive' material with a side of newer, country songs.

 

That's funny, listened to Hawks and Doves immediately after Stars and Bars and then listened to Stars again. Oh to be a Neil fan.....

 

With a side of Comes a time wedged in there too....

 

Listening to Like A Hurricane right now. Does anyone else agree that this is one of the top 10 rock, guitar tracks of all time? The solo in this astounding.

 

The tone, presumably Old Black, is incredible.

 

I still remember coming home late after a night at the bars in Kent and turning on tv for Don Kirshner Rock Concert or one of those late night shows and it was Like A Hurricane with the wind blowing on Neil and the very first time I ever heard that song. Very vivid semi-drunk memory from almost 40 years ago.

 

I agree, this is a great two sets of albums. One day I hope to get my hands on "Comes A Time" and hope to see what was in between these great albums. Haven't heard a track off that album yet.

 

Served by a motorcycle mama!

 

You've never heard Comes A Time? Not even the title track, "Lotta Love" or "Look Out For My Love"? Yer missing out, man- go pick up that album now, although it is only fair to warn you that IMO although side one is one of Neil's best the quality slips considerably on side two. That said, if you like yer "Country" Neil, Comes A Time is probably his most satisfying country-based LP, much moreso than even Harvest.

How Neil made most of the album was pretty cool too: overdubbing a huge ensemble to his solo acoustic tracks Except for "Lotta Love" and "Look Out For My Love" which were yer typically drug fueled Crazy Horse leftovers

 

You mean cough..motorcycle mama....cough

 

And you also need the track "Sail Away", from Rust Never Sleeps, which is a leftover from Comes A Time.

 

This album and Comes A Time are my favorite Neil Young albums.

 

It's a great album, IMHO.

Any album with "Like A Hurricane" on it is a must have.

When I saw Neil and Crazy Horse a couple of years ago, they performed "Hurricane" as a second encore - almost brought the house down, literally.

 

I think this album is very underrated it has some really good songs like Will To Love, Like A Hurricane, Star Of Bethlahem, etc. I think the problem is that it came between some really great albums, and it was unfortuatley judged by those.

 

Ah yes, forgot about "Sail Away" (not really one of my favourites, which could be why)

Even worse is that Chrome Dreams -the album Star And Bars was supposed to be- also circulates among collectors (I fully expect Chrome Dreams to be part of Archives II in 2031 or thereabouts...) and in spite of the quaint countrified knockoffs on side one of S & B the side two tracks are much better served on Chrome Dreams...especially when they're sitting alongside tracks like the original takes of "Hold Back The Tears" and "Sedan Delivery" and the solo acoustic versions of "Powderfinger" and "Pocahontas", among others. It's kind of like hearing Infidels by Bob Dylan and then hearing "Blind Willie McTell" (the 'full band' take) and "Foot Of Pride", knowing that Bob pulled them both off the album at the last minute...an "oh, what could have been" kinda thing.

 

Picked this album up today on your note here, thanks buddy. Also got Landing On Water, listened to that twice, AWESOME album. Really like it, my first Neil album from the 80s Geffen era.

And no, I have not heard any songs off of Comes A Time before this, my only compiliation of NY material was Decade.

 

Yer quite welcome

And if you listened to Comes A Time and Landing On Water back to back, well, that's a true Neil Young fan, right there Landing On Water has its detractors, but I've always liked it too. If you like Landing On Water, you need to give Trans a go next.

 

Thanks to the OP for rekindling my realization in the late 70's how incredibly amazing Neil Young was!
Sure, at first I knew his radio hits Old Man, Heart of Gold, Cinnamon Girl, etc.
But then I fell into that cavernous well of Neil's deep cuts...and was reluctant to climb back out for a long time.

Look at this stupendous timeline of epic releases!

1974 On the Beach
1975 Tonight's the Night
1975 Zuma
1976 Long May You Run (with Stephen Stills)
1977 American Stars and Bars
1978 Decade (comp)
1978 Comes A Time
1979 Rust Never Sleeps
1979 Live Rust
1980 Hawks and Doves

You could just play these back-to-back-to-back-to-you-know-what, and never a dull moment.
It's the best of any artists' catalog, bar none...!!!

 

I was at Jerry's, in Pittsburgh, a couple of weeks ago and passed on a copy of this album because all 4 corners of the jacket were crushed, ruining the artwork. Had I already known that Jerry doesn't really sell records that skip, I would have grabbed it and tossed the jacket. But...I shall return! I love this album!

 

Classic Neil as far as I'm concerned.

 

Yeah as long as it's upstairs and not in the Bargain Basement, you can bet the vinyl is VG minimum. I've been dealing with Jerry over 10 years, he's not a guy that goes crazy over sleeve conditions... and doesn't really care for pressings. He just wants good music in good hands.

 

Bit late to the party - this was released at the same time as the CSN ('77) album - which I think is far superior. Alan Freeman on Radio 1 played 'Hey Babe' back to back with 'See the changes'. I bought them both but prefer the latter. I have the 2003 rerissue cd aswell. I'm sure many of the ASaB tracks were lined up for 'Chrome Dreams'. I have that as a boot and if its correct - Will to Love (track2) Star of Bethlehem (track3) Like a Hurricane (track4) Too Far Gone (track5) Hold Back the Tears (track6). 12 tracks in total which could list if interested.

Btw ..I was lucky enough to see Neil and Crazy Horse at the Hammersmith Odeon ('76). He played Hurricane prior to it being on an album. Stunning !! Including the wind machine of course ! ....

 

I'll add "The Old Country Waltz," "Saddle Up The Palomino" and a great, fun lustful up-tempo "Bite the Bullet"!

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