Jack Nitzsche and Neil Young

From Spector to the Stones to the Springfield to The Exorcist to a solo album he won't, or can't, sell.

Neil Young News

Jack Nitzsche is well known as the producer and arranger on the masterpiece "Expecting To Fly", as well as, Harvest's "A Man Needs Maid" (performed with the London Symphony Orchestra). Crazy Horse roadie, Willie "Baby John" Hinds was quoted in Shake! magazine saying: "Crazy Horse in Jack Nitzsche's mind was an American Rolling Stones."

The following interview with Jack Nitzsche excerpted from CRAWDADDY magazine, November 1974 (Issue #42), "EXPECTING TO FLY" by David Talbot and Barbara Zheutlin:

"Don't even mention his past association with Neil Young - it only embarrasses him. He buries his head in his arms and moans when we bring up 'A Man Needs a Maid' and 'There's a World' - the two heavily orchestrated cuts on Harvest which Nitzsche arranged. He swears he only took on the arranging task because it gave him the opportunity to work with the London Symphony Orchestra. 'After collaborating with them on the Harvest thing, I got to use them free of charge on my own album, St. Giles Cripplegate,' says Nitzsche.

The careers of Nitzsche and Young have criss-crossed a number of times over the years - from Young's 'Expecting to Fly,' which Nitzsche produced and arranged on the second Buffalo Springfield album, to Young's last solo tour which featured Nitzsche on back-up piano. But Nitzsche has closed the door on the possibility of any future collaboration. 'His lyrics are so dumb and pretentious.' scowls Nitzsche. 'I mean anyone who would write lyrics like 'Someone and someone were down by the pond, looking for something to plant in the lawn' or 'Are you ready for the country?'! The tour was torture. Everyone in the band was bored to death with those terrible guitar solos. He would turn and face the band with this stupid grimace while he was playing, and I would nearly roll on the stage laughing. He takes himself so seriously.

'You know, Neil presented a different image...he appeared to be a really hip, of the people guy. But it turned out to be bullshit. Neil Young is the biggest offender of all of them - his whole lifestyle is the millionaire who doesn't give a shit about anything, about anybody but himself. He doesn't even write well. But everybody's fooled because they think they should like him - I mean if you don't like Neil Young, how funky are you?' "

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Another Jack Nitzsche interview form Spectro Pop:

"Jack was pretty drunk when he gave this interview. He had hepatitis when he was young, and his body did not handle alcohol consumption real well. He was living on a property in Bear Gulch, which was owned by Neil Young. At this time there had been some talks that maybe Jack was going to have to move. He did the interview, which was a mistake, and said way too much in his rambles.

He called me the next morning and said he really didn't remember too much of what he said. I asked if they discussed his career (the idea for doing the interview) and he answered by saying he seemed to talk about Neil a lot. As that point he moaned as he started realizing some of the things he said. 'I'm going to call Neil now and warn him about what might be printed.' He told me later that Neil told him not to worry about it, but he started sensing WWIII was just around the corner.'"

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For more on Jack Nitzsche and Neil Young see Carrie Snodgrass interview.

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