If this third installment of exhumations from Neil Young’s archive seems the most sprawling so far, it’s only because it accurately mirrors the arc of his variegated recorded history through the designated period of 1976 to 1987. Featuring more than a little work with the latterday lineup of Crazy Horse, like Sedan Delivery (1978) and Touch The Night (1984), the Canadian rock icon’s collation fills in some of the blanks of his history with what has arguably become (in slightly different iterations) his favorite group of accompanists.
Yet the impact of all this curation of Young’s over the years has been somewhat blunted by its seemingly scattershot release, removed from its original context. As a result, those fans and followers who have opted to own specially-curated individual titles such as 2018’s Songs For Judy and/or The Ducks’ High Flyin’ (from NYA Official Bootleg Series in 2023) may be disappointed with their selected inclusion in this set. The same goes for material culled from reissues such as 2003’s Hawks & Doves as part of the Digital Masterpiece Series.
Plus, the reappearance of the well-known late Seventies material with The Horse on Disc 10’s Sedan Delivery barely skirts redundancy, too, however durable the Rust Never Sleeps and Live Rust recordings are. The Hitchhiker material is an exception to that rule, and, in the end, this inveterate iconoclast never lets us forget where he’s already been when he arrives at a new stopping point: see the German concert here titled Berlin, where Nils Lofgren is most animatedly part of the proceedings where “Computer Age” follows a rollicking “Cinnamon Girl.”
Like its two predecessors, this mammoth NYA collection provides yet another means to rethink Neil’s music in all its varied eras and respective contexts (mirrored in the different configurations it takes). And that goes for the artist, too: here he renamed the Island In The Sun album he shelved in favor of Trans, dubbing it Johnny’s Island.
Young’s work with Nicolette Larson, circa 1978’s Comes A Time, is also one of the most overlooked of this lot. The nineteen tracks of Union Hall beg the question of why the often lavish arrangements, including the Gone With The Wind Orchestra, didn’t meet the demand for a Harvest sequel (eventually to be filled by 1992’s Harvest Moon).
For better or worse, Archives III compiles content from Neil’s ill-fated tenure on Geffen Records. This phase of his career has yet to receive the rethinking afforded ‘The Ditch Trilogy’ from the previous decade, so it remains to be seen what demographic finds these outtakes revelatory.
Nevertheless, a plethora of previously unavailable selections from that period reaffirms that Young always takes his work seriously, even if, at times, he seems nonchalant to a fault (or, worse, illogical). For instance, Disc 14: Grey Riders (1984-1986) spotlights Old Ways’ bluegrass/country orientation with the ensemble known as the International Harvesters.
The devotees and the dilettantes of Young may alternately hold on to or jettison their earlier perceptions of these straightforward country/bluegrass efforts as mere dabbling in style. But the fact of the matter is that this music appears as it does in both audio and video form, reveals how this idiosyncratic artist can write and perform in a wholly conventional manner when he chooses to: inclusion of his Buffalo Springfield number “Flying On The Ground Is Wrong” in A Treasure, one of the eleven pieces of cinema here, reiterates that point in understated fashion that is most effective.
In its most expansive form, this anthology includes ten other films on five Blu-ray discs, totaling over 14 hours of material. Fortunately, most are concert videos, conspicuously including Solo Trans and, with the videos’ durations running from less than an hour (1978’s Boarding House) to over three (From A Rusted Out Garage), some are keepers like the heretofore unavailable Across The Water (in Tokyo with The Horse), while some are merely curios such as the previously-released satirical fiction of Human Highway).
More condensed versions of this Archives box take the form of a CD-only package and a double vinyl LP. At the same time, a sixteen-track audio sampler titled Takes was available upon pre-order in both compact disc and vinyl configurations. With the latter item already on sale via eBay, its distribution piques curiosity about how many buyers might’ve canceled their pre-orders upon receiving this item and hearing it.
While the plethora of material enclosed with NYA Vol. III, in various forms, presents something to please (almost) everyone; no single demographic may be perfectly satisfied. But it’s also true that Young’s taken an ever-increasing proprietary approach to the various archival campaigns upon which he’s embarked in recent years.
So it’s hardly a surprise that, as with Fu##in’ Up released earlier this year, there’s a palpable air of personal pride emanating from these different initiatives, a personal touch that renders Neil’s panoply of reimagined works even more distinctive than they otherwise might appear.
