Neil Young Archives Sessionography...now organized in one handy document!

I think it turned out that way because it features overdubbed vocals by Neil - something he tried to avoid on subsequent albums.

 

THIS NOTE'S FOR YOU SESSIONS : ONE THING, TWILIGHT are from the 5th December 1987 session.
June 1974 isn't HUMAN HIGHWAY, but acoustic demos recorded during the CSNY rehearsals.

 

Bravo, really great work!

I'm surprised to see that he only recorded two songs in all of 1972. Shakey experts, what was going on in '72? Was he taking time off to be with his family? Was he touring Harvest? It's a rare low ebb in a seemingly non-stop era of productivity.

 

The Time Fades Away tour began January 4, 1973 so probably the band rehearsed end of 1972. He had tried to include Danny Whitten in the band but he died November 18. I guess Neil worked on the Journey Through The Past film that year too.

The Neil setlist site Sugar Mountain lists four gigs in 1972:

3/11/72 (guest w/Joni Mitchell)
3/26/72 (guest w/Crosby & Nash)
7/16/72 (solo set in Toronto)
7/22/72 (guest w/Manassas)

 

Cared for his son Ben.

 

Basic track for Will To Love, at least according to Neil, was recorded after the European Tour and the night before the start of the LMYR sessions (third week of sessions), so I think April 1976. Later CSNY tried to overdub it. In the Atlantic sessionography Will To Love is listed 2-3 times between the Atlantic masters.
A copy of Will To Love (including the December 1976 overdubs at Indigo) is shown in the "A visit to the Archives " video just next the 1976 fall tapes with CH.

 

Yup, I have this all organized in a Word doc that can be updated easily based on anything that's updated/added in the Archives.

I have a feeling most of the dates listed are when the master take was finished and completed. For instance, Living With War and "The Way" have one recording date listed, even though multiple studios are mentioned (since they had to overdub the choirs later). Same thing with Earth in that they have the live shows listed, but not when/where they overdubbed the animal tracks. So it's possible that they recorded from the 20th-25th and then deemed the takes complete on the 26th.

Well "Sail Away" is mentioned as being recorded at Triiad and overdubbed at Woodlands, with multiple dates listed. The three songs above also have the same two studios listed, but only one date. And since the backing band looks to be that of "Sail Away," I made an educated guess that, just like Sail Away, the basic tracks for the others were recorded at Triaad and then overdubbed at Woodland, as well.

 

I just checked Will to Love's file again, and only the December date is listed. Which confirms to me that they're mostly focused on the date that these recordings were finished. Hopefully they'll expand to include full session date ranges at some point. Or maybe alt takes of "Will to Love" are a planned part of Archives Vol. II that will flesh this out.

Also, is this Atlantic sessionography something that is easily viewable somewhere?

 

Fixed the TNFY sessions. Good catch!

Also I'm thinking ahead with the Human Highway "sessions" in hopes that they end up releasing those Hawaii sessions as part of Archives Vol. 2. When they do, they'll be cataloged there.

 

Correct. "Lookout Joe" is from the TFA tour rehearsals, and according to Shakey, most of them were recorded. So hopefully we'll hear more of these sessions with Vol. 2.

 

Atlantic Records Discography: 1978
I think that these details on the Atlantic sessions are taken from the books of the Swiss Kurt Mohr, before the fire at the Alantic warehouse.

 

Many thanks IHeartRecordsAz!

 

These songs are labeled June Demos on a reel "In A Visit To The Archives". Another tape, probably from the same period, is labeled as Later.

 

It's interesting that they would have these sessions listed as being in 1978 when LMYR was recorded and released in 1976, though. Also, "Taken at All' is listed as having been recorded on April 1st, 1976 in the CSN box set liner notes.

 

Both clearly wrong. Neil was on tour then.

 

These masters lists during the LMYR sessions were compiled by Michael Laskow, assistant of the producer Don Gehman. I think that they are basically correct and relatively detailed. It should be interesting to know if all these tapes still exist in the Atlantic vaults or somewhere.

 

I've read that the only thing that was kept from the "basic track" was the crackling fire from Neil's ranch. The music and vocal was completely done at Indigo Ranch.

 

Neil said differently.

 

I don't believe so, as I'm pretty sure my info came from a direct quote from the man. He recorded the track under a full moon at Indigo Ranch in Malibu, retaining only the fire sounds, and maybe a little of the guitar, from his home demo. That's probably why it is listed as it is in the archives.

Of course, it's Neil, so it's hard to really believe much of anything he says!

 

I forgot to say excellent job. Definitely a labor of love.

 

That makes sense. I'd add Human Highway to that group, as it has those two studios listed, too.

 

And I thought I was organized.

This is me with all my Beatles music. Good job @IHeartRecordsAz

 

The original demo was recorded on a Sony cassette

There 's an historical interview with Bud Scoppa (NME), 1975, in which Neil said that all the five aforementioned songs were recorded in a single night. By the way I hope that this isn't the only source for backing this date. I think that this interview was known by the Neil Young archivists. But for sure they have taken their information directly from the tape boxes.

 

I used to own a three part CSNY biography set (Documento senza titolo ) that contained an incredibly detailed sessionography as one of the books, and most of the LMYR outtakes listed in that Atlantic sessions link were in that book, as well: "Separate Ways," "Traces," "Treetop Flyer," "No One Seems to Know," and so on (which makes me think that Stills and Young were being horrible judges of their creative work if they thought those were of lesser quality than most of what was actually released on that album). So I don't think it's all fabricated; but again it's weird that they mislabeled the dates of that session by two years.

Also, I would highly suspect that Neil has at least copies of those session tapes (based on him including the CSNY version of "Long May You Run" on Decade), so even if Atlantic doesn't have them, then at least he will.

 

this is f**king awesome!