Neil Young & Crazy Horse’s “Americana”: first listen
John Mulvey, 29th March 2012
It begins as you might imagine, with a guitarist who seems about to play a sputtering solo rather than start a song, a drummer trying to work out what time to keep and, gradually, a band lunging towards a tune: “Oh Susannah”.
After a minute or so, you can hear Neil Young shout “Oh Susannah” away from his mic, prompting a choir to start chanting the title. It is at this point that Crazy Horse locate the dogged, heroic sense of purpose that has sustained them, on and off, for a good four decades. They’re moving a fraction faster than usual, in truth: as my colleague John Robinson points out, the call-and-response interplay between Young and the backing singers, aligned to the inexorable “good groove” (as Young calls it in the fade-out), make it all oddly resemble Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ “Dig Lazarus Dig”.
The photograph of Geronimo driving a car on the last page of the April 2004 issue of American History was actually taken on June 11, 1905, at the Miller brothers’ 101 Ranch, located southwest of Ponca City, OK. The car is a Locomobile, and the Indian in full headdress to Geronimo’s left is Edward Le Clair Sr., a Ponca Indian. Geronimo so admired Le Clair’s beaded vest that it was presented to him later in the day. When Geronimo died in 1909, he was buried in the vest.
The photograph was taken during a special 101 Ranch show for the U.S. press. Thousands of newspaper editors and reporters flocked to it. Artist Tom Wilkes impressed modern photographs of Neil Young, Ralph Molina, Billy Talbot and Poncho Sampedro over the faces in the original photograph in 1975 for an album cover. Never used as a cover at that time, the art was rescued from a 2010 warehouse fire, and now has been used to create the Americana cover.
Full Americana liner notes with the lyrics to the traditional songs now by Warner WBR [.pdf]
“Crazy Horse did not like white men because they encroached upon his beloved wide-open prairie. He
detested their developments that chased away the buffalo his people depended on for food and clothing.
When the cold came roaring down the Plains, the buffalo faced those raging winds with its head into the white storm, as if it were cleaning itself from hardship and discomfort. Those were the same winds blowing against Crazy Horse’s face as the footprints of white men stamped more and more across the land.
This is the original source of the Americana cover. Apparently you see Chief Geromino.
Bill explains: the surviving kin of Geronimo are sueing for return of his remains, stolen by the skull and bones society of the Russell opium trust. The remains are at yale and one of the alleged robbers is non other than Prescott Bush.
“You wake up in the mornin\' And the sun\'s comin\' up. ” by -- Neil Young
Neil Young on Tour
Sugar Mountain setlists
Tom Hambleton provides BNB with setlists, thankfully. His website is the most comprehensive searchable archives on the Internets about anything Neil Young related setlists. Goto Sugar Mountain.
memphish on 
Albert Stromann on 
liza on 
Baz on 
