Neil Young News
In 2004 Rustie, Mike "Expecting 2 Fly" Cordova posted a series of articles on his experience listening to all of Neil Young's albums in chronological order. Here is one in the series. For a complete listing, see Albums in Order reviews.
Date: Sun, 28 Nov 2004 14:51:36 -0800 (PST) It sounded like a good idea, anyway. Neil Young joins with
his Buffalo Springfield and CSNY bandmate Steven Stills.
They had made some great music in the past, so maybe the
magic would still be there. I sure hoped for a great
album, I loved some of the earlier Stills albums
especially the first Manassas album. And even though
Stills more recent albums had become uninteresting and his
voice had lost some of its edge, still these were the two
guys dueling guitars on such great tunes as Bluebird and
Almost Cut My Hair and Southern Man (live.) It happened
before, perhaps it would happen again.
But it was not to be. I was disappointed in the
Stills/Young band effort Long May You Run. It had some
good songs, but compared to the genius of Zuma, Neil's
songs on LMYR are a letdown. Granted they aren't terrible
songs, as a group they just aren't among his great tunes.
Long May You Run the song was pretty good. Fontainebleau
is solid. Midnight On The Bay and Ocean Girl are ok. Let
It Shine was lifted out of novelty tune status by having a
really good lead guitar part.
I never could get into most of Stills songs though. I
loved the setting of Black Coral; I was certified as a
SCUBA diver in 1976, the year this came out. But the song
was kind of overproduced and boring. Make Love To You was
just ok. 12/8 Blues (All The Same) was, IMHO, Stills best
on this album, but even so it is a minor work. All told,
Stills' songs on this album made Neil's rather second-rate
contributions look pretty good.
I missed the Stills/Young tour. Actually at that point I
had never seen Neil Young live. But after hearing this
album I was not surprised when I heard that Neil pulled
out of tour prematurely. The Stills/Young magic just
wasn't there anymore.
Even so, hearing the album today for the first time in a
long time took me back to that year. And for that reason,
I very much enjoyed listening to Long May You Run today.
Mike - Expecting To Fly
From: Mike Cordova
To: rust@rustlist.org
Subject: Albums in order: Long May You Run
A footnote to Long May You Run and the tour's infamous conclusion.
The Stills-Young tour in 1976 ended rather suddenly after a concert in Columbia, South Carolina at USC on July 20, 1976. Stephen Stills continued onto Atlanta for the next concert while Neil went another direction in his bus.
Stills received a telegram which said:
Eat a peach, Neil".
Stills continued on with the tour but it did considerable damage to his friendship with Neil.
Another footnote on the song "Long May You Run" is that Neil Young wrote it about his first car, a 1948 Buick Roadmaster hearse. Apparently, the old hearse broke down in Blind River, Canada in 1962. on a roadtrip from Winnipeg to Toronto.
For more of Expecting To Fly's reviews, see the Albums in Order series.
Neil Young Archives - Thrasher's Wheat
Neil Young Albums Reviews