[Today: A snapshot of a great band that barely was...]
A head full of tequila and I can barely get this thing going – perfect. Crazy Horse and Danny Whitten, jesus, what might have been with these guys. Whitten was the only guy in this group who could supposedly play his instrument worth a damn, but they all soound great on this one [scwer the typos, it's crazyhorsse dammit][.
Crazy ZHorze orignally started as a band called Danny & the Memories, then they were called the Rockets – by the time Neil Young started jhamming with them he decided to rename them Crazy Horse. They’d played on Neil’s album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere and After The Gold Rush (Neil fired them for sucking on that one – go figure) before they cut ehis perfect debut album. Not a bad tune. Danny Whitten’s got a great voice nd plays some mean guitar – you’ve got to hear it to believe it.
Whitten OD’d in 1972, sending Neil Young into his so-called ‘ditch’ period (which includes the albums Time Fades Away, Tonight’s The Night, and On The Beach) – not a happy time. But on songs here like Whitten’s ‘I Don’t Want To Talk About It’ (later covered by shitbag Rod Stewart) and ‘Downtown’, you can really hear where this group might have been headed. One album’s all you need really – it’s all here.
These guys ended up playing a really, really great second fiddle to Neil Young for their whole career, but if you can turn your ears around to the original…
Listen: Gone Dead Train
Listen II: I Don\’t Want To Talk About It
Tags: Crazy Horse, Danny Whitten, debut album, Neil Young, tequila
16 May 2008 at 10:36 am |
All I want to know is… why is Rod Stewart a “shitbag” and does this include Faces?
16 May 2008 at 10:53 am |
Squandered talent, bad hairdo, and a few other reasons.
No… doesn’t include the Faces stuff… although if I get drunk enough there’s a good chance I’ll change my mind on that.
16 May 2008 at 11:49 am |
Tequila and music reviews don’t mix!
16 May 2008 at 12:22 pm |
Yes indeed. This post probably isn’t going to win me the Pulitzer prize for blogging…
16 May 2008 at 3:48 pm |
I’ve always loved this band, and I’m not sure why. Even on something as recent as Greendale, it’s clear that Ralph Molina still doesn’t know how to play drums. The rhythm section has that plodding Black Sabbath quality that I think holds back many a promising song (e.g., Be the Rain). But Whitten was great, and the band’s chemistry, in all its ragged glory (pardon the pun), is often irresistible. They’re like Red Vines at the movies. You eat the first one and go, “Shit, these taste awful” and by the end of the first movie trailer, you’ve wolfed down half the bag.
Enjoy your tequila, dk.
16 May 2008 at 6:26 pm |
i’m wondering if thhis is going to be around after yoou wake up tomorrow like the missing devil’s music drunken post….???
hehe….
kudos either way!!!
great album and i love tequila too….
16 May 2008 at 6:43 pm |
Patron Silver is dangerous. It’s like getting beaten with a happy stick.
Makes me write the way Ralph Molina plays drums…
22 May 2008 at 8:51 pm |
[...] a 60 minute span, and most were lil’ shorties. So between Rod Stewart (who I understand is a shitbag), Lionel Richie, Mariah Carey and 6 other songs, they had 2-3 commercials. It reinforced the [...]
4 April 2009 at 5:32 pm |
Thanks for posting this… I have to buy this CD.
Danny Whitten was really talented…
Peace,
AB
20 April 2009 at 3:27 pm |
That first Crazy Horse album is not easliy forgotten. I still go back and play that record in amazement — Nils Lofgren’s solos and Jack Nietsche’s keybord helped these songs really rock and the two were great additions to the original 3-man lineup of Crazy Horse. It has always made me very sad to think of the great songs Whitten might have written, songs he could have sang, and guitar parts he would have played, if he’d just straightened out.