By the time Rust Never Sleeps came out in 1979 (July 2nd), Neil Young had already mastered the art of composite long players, that is, complete albums with both studio and live sources, with varying lineups of musicians. The Canadian rock icon found the sentiment in this record’s title phrase (courtesy of Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo) summed up his intent to avoid repeating himself creatively.
From the perspective of four and a half decades of hindsight, this particular LP also marks an important juncture in Young’s career. Like Freedom from a decade ahead, the album presents a resounding return to form as it is acoustic/electric dichotomy hearkens to the man’s vintage music from early in this same decade.
As such, it is a distinct contrast to the decidedly nebulous likes of ‘the ditch trilogy’ comprised of Tonight’s the Night, Time Fades Away, On the Beach (and it helps mitigate the debacle of Young’s upcoming tenure on Geffen Records in the Eighties ). The familiarity of style renders Rust Never Sleeps accessible in a way the previous three albums were not, at least upon their original respective releases (in the interim, each has gained favor to varying degrees).
But rather than come across like a strained exercise in self-conscious replication of style, Young’s performances sound revitalized all around. In that context, “Sail Away” might seem a non-sequitur in this context, but this bittersweet excerpt from sessions for Neil’s album of the previous year, Comes A Time, makes for a comforting respite from the intensity that precedes and follows it.
Attaining the very effect he sought from the preceding vagaries, a sharpening of style, Rust Never Sleeps also served to further hone Young’s long-standing alliance with Crazy Horse. First established a decade prior with Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, the chemistry was revitalized with the recruitment of guitarist Frank ‘Poncho’ Sampedro on 1975’s Zuma, and here, the foursome exhibits a readily discernible versatility.
As a result, the acoustic “My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)“ is a piece with its electric counterpart ”Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black).” This is fully reflective of the methodology of recording(s): Neil’s May 1978 performances on his own at The Boarding House in San Francisco complement those from concerts during the October 1978 “Rust Never Sleeps” tour, which were divided into a solo acoustic set and an electric set with The Horse.
Featuring much new and previously unrecorded material, these runs made for music that crackled with energy, even when forged into a whole after the fact and overdubbed to some extent in the process. “Welfare Mothers” and “Sedan Delivery” may lack substance lyrically, but there’s no denying their impact as played by the quartet; focusing on the song(s), the foursome doesn’t stretch out to a great extent, but then they’d done that on the previous studio LP four years before.
Young himself becomes immersed within the band in this format and the unity gives “Powderfinger” much of its power. Meantime, that number is of a piece with “Pocahontas” and “Thrasher” (ostensibly an allegory of his time with CSN): all are deeply affecting through the imagery of the lyrics, which gain additional force through Neil’s impassioned performances. As a result, the single acoustic guitar plus harmonica arrangements resound as loudly in their own way as those of the format featuring two guitars of Young and Sampedro bonded with the bass (of Billy Talbot) and the drums (of Ralph Molina).
Those who applaud Neil Young for his iconoclastic stance over the course of his career may forget how he has sometimes played to his audiences for the purposes of commercial prospects. 1992’s Harvest Moon, for instance, is as direct a sequel as this idiosyncratic artist has ever released, except for Live Rust, that is.
Issued in November of the same year as Rust Never Sleeps, it is, for all intents and purposes, a recapitulation of Neil Young’s career to that date. The double set seethes with all the strength of conviction in Young’s best work, both before and after its release, and, accordingly, it functions most potently in retrospect as a punctuation mark–indeed an exclamation point–to the forty-five-year-old album released just five months before.
