As Pitchfork noted, in his 2012 autobiography, Waging Heavy Peace, Neil Young brought forth the possibility of making one of his beloved archival collections dedicated to vaulted recordings from the beginning of Crazy Horse, the Los Angeles-based band he teamed up with (after changing their name from the Rockets) following the dissolution of Buffalo Springfield in 1968. He would obviously go on to spend the next five decades working alongside them, and now, the singer-songwriter has announced an archival album of their earliest material together, Early Daze.
Featuring unreleased recordings of the first incarnations of six songs — "Come On Baby Let's Go Downtown," "Winterlong," "Wonderin'," "Look at All the Things," "Helpless" and "Down by the River" — Early Daze is set for release on June 28 through Warner Records. The collection is previewed today by a new mix of "Everybody's Alone," which was previously released on The Archives Vol. 1: 1963–1972, that you can hear below.
The original Crazy Horse lineup included Ralph Molina on drums, Billy Talbot on bass, Danny Whitten on guitar and Jack Nitzsche on keyboards. Nitzsche left the band in early 1970, while Whitten died of a drug overdose in 1972. Frank "Poncho" Sampedro replaced the deceased in 1975, and remained with the group until his retirement in 2018. The current Crazy Horse guitarist is Nils Lofgren, who had briefly worked with the band in 1971 when they cut a record without Young.
Despite his once-steadfast stance against pandemic-era touring, Young and Crazy Horse are currently on a North American tour behind their new album, Fu##in' Up. The singer-songwriter released an archival collection called Dume on vinyl back in February, and has been teasing an unearthed 1969 CSNY album that sounds like God.
Early Daze:
Side A:
1. Dance Dance Dance
2. Come On Baby Let's Go Downtown
3. Winterlong
4. Everybody's Alone
5. Wonderin'
Side B:
1. Cinnamon Girl
2. Look at All the Things
3. Helpless
4. Birds
5. Down by the River