Crazy Horse Albums (7)
'The Complete Reprise Recordings 1971-'73'
Release Date 5/15/2006
Tracks 31
Label Rhino
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
In 2005, Rhino Handmade, the Internet-only mail-order specialty label dedicated to limited-edition reissues from the vaults of Warner Bros. Records, released Scratchy: The Complete Reprise Recordings, by Crazy Horse. The two-disc set contained Crazy Horse's two albums for the Warner subsidiary Reprise Records, Crazy Horse (1971) and Loose (1972), on the first CD, with the second CD containing rehearsals and outtakes, plus two tracks recorded by the group in its '60s doo wop days as Danny & the Memories. Only 2500 copies of the set were printed, and they sold out quickly. So, the British branch of Warner Bros. decided to re-create the album for conventional retail, minus the Danny & the Memories tracks, as The Complete Reprise Recordings 1971-'73. Crazy Horse went on to make several additional albums for other labels over its career while, of course, gaining its greatest recognition as a backup band for Neil Young. But even on the material heard here, the group's essential nature is clear, confusing as it is. In essence, the history of Crazy Horse, not unlike the history of Fleetwood Mac, is one of a rhythm section, in this case bassist Billy Talbot and drummer Ralph Molina, backing a changing population of singer/songwriter/guitarist frontmen (and that's even leaving Young out of the discussion). It didn't look like that would be the story at first, however, as Talbot, Molina, and singer/songwriter/guitarist Danny Whitten made up the core of the initial group, as they had Danny & the Memories and the Rockets, another early configuration. Adding two talented journeymen, veteran pianist/arranger Jack Nitzsche and young guitarist Nils Lofgren, as quasi-members, they made Crazy Horse, a highly regarded country-rock effort in the style of the Young/Crazy Horse albums Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere and After the Gold Rush. Whitten, with his singing and playing, and with standout songs like the future Rod Stewart hit "I Don't Want to Talk About It," was the obvious star, but he was also the band's first casualty, suffering from a heroin addiction that caused him to be dismissed from the group shortly after the LP was released. That sabotaged promotion for the album, and it never found the audience it deserved. Nitzsche and Lofgren went back to their other activities, and Talbot and Molina were forced to recruit three new members to make Loose, which, not surprisingly, sounds like the work of an entirely different, and vastly inferior, band. This means the first 11 tracks on the first disc here are the only essential ones, although some of the playing in the outtakes is powerful. Even two tracks shorter, the package is an important one for fans of '70s country-rock. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
'Gone Dead Train: Best of Crazy Horse'
Release Date 11/15/2005
Tracks 20
Label Raven
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
While Crazy Horse have often been praised as one of America's great rock & roll bands, that's usually when they've been working in collaboration with fan, friend, and frequent patron Neil Young. On their own, Crazy Horse have recorded a handful of worthwhile albums, but they've never connected with audiences the same way they have when working with Young. Of course, it doesn't help that the band has never had a consistent frontman, guitarist, or songwriter of their own, with bassist Billy Talbot and drummer Ralph Molina the only musicians to play on every Crazy Horse album. (Original guitarist Danny Whitten died of a drug overdose in 1972, while Frank "Poncho" Sampedro has often drifted out of the group, usually to work with Young.) Crazy Horse's career has followed a strange and crooked path, but they've also made some fine music along the way, and Gone Dead Train is a compilation which attempts to make sense of the band's checkered recording history outside of their work with Neil Young (though his unmistakable guitar tone is apparent on several tracks here). Gone Dead Train features material from four of Crazy Horse's five albums (the band's wildly disappointing second album, Loose, has thankfully been ignored), and while each record has a distinct personality of its own, the sequence gives the material an admirable flow, from the gutbucket country-rock stomp of their self-titled 1971 debut to the "Neil Young without Neil Young" fury of 1989's Left for Dead. The disc also includes two cuts from the first and only album (released in 1968) by the Rockets, which featured Talbot, Molina, and Whitten before they formed Crazy Horse (and the woozy "Pills Blues" sounds like an uncomfortable foreshadowing of the drug problems that would take Whitten's life four years later). Gone Dead Train shows that Crazy Horse don't have to have Neil Young around to make great rock & roll records, and makes you wish they'd head into the studio on their own a bit more often. ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
In 1987, Crazy Horse mainstays Ralph Molina and Billy Talbot had a falling-out with their perennial employer, Neil Young, who, in his mercurial way, had decided to organize a horn-filled R&B band called the Bluenotes. Crazy Horse guitarist Frank Sampedro stayed on with Young to play keyboards, but drummer Molina and bassist Talbot were not part of the new ensemble. They responded by organizing yet another new lineup of Crazy Horse. Left for Dead, the fifth Crazy Horse album in 18 years (and the first in 11), its title seeming an unmistakable allusion to the treatment received from Young, is also the fifth Crazy Horse album with a different frontline of musicians. Molina and Talbot are in place as ever, but there is a new lead singer, rhythm guitarist, and primary songwriter, Sonny Mone, and a new lead guitarist, Matt Piucci, formerly of the Rain Parade. Nevertheless, the style of the music much of the time strongly recalls Neil Young & Crazy Horse, particularly in the 1975-1987 Sampedro era. The opening tracks, "Left for Dead" and "Child of War," very much display the harsh, guitar-heavy approach of Young with Crazy Horse, albeit without Young's distinctive voice and lyrics. Mone, like Young, has a high, strained tenor, but it couldn't be mistaken for Young's, and of course his songwriting ability usually doesn't approach Young's, even though he is clearly influenced by Young. (For example, he borrows the phrase "Tin soldiers and Nixon" from Young's "Ohio" for "World of Love.") But the melodic, mid-tempo "I Could Never Lose Your Love" easily could be mistaken for a Young composition. And the primitive production (a press release admits that the disc sounds "like it was recorded in a mine shaft"), with lots of distortion and echo, also has that live-in-the-studio, warts-and-all Young & Crazy Horse feel. Thus, not for the first time in its career, Crazy Horse has made a Crazy Horse sound-alike record, which may be the fate of a "band" that is really just a rhythm section, or, to put it another way, a bunch of different bands playing in similar styles under one name. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Six years went by between the release of Crazy Horse's third album, At Crooked Lake, and its fourth, Crazy Moon, and a lot of water went under the bridge in the meantime. Crazy Horse was, in effect, three different bands on its first three albums because the only constants were bassist Billy Talbot and drummer Ralph Molina as lead singers, songwriters, guitarists, and keyboardists came and went. The band name seemed to be retired by 1973, but in 1974 Talbot and Molina hooked up with singer/guitarist Frank Sampedro as Crazy Horse, leading to sessions with their erstwhile employer Neil Young that resulted in the Young/Crazy Horse album Zuma. At the same time, they recorded some Crazy Horse tracks that sat around for years, finally being finished off in the summer of 1978 for release here. The result is the first album since their debut, 1971's Crazy Horse, that sounds identifiable as the band that backs Young. In part, that's because Young himself is present on guitar on the tracks "She's Hot," "Going Down Again," "New Orleans," "Downhill," and "Thunder and Lighting," and brings along his production associates David Briggs and Tim Mulligan as well as his pedal steel player Ben Keith. But it's also because this is a well-realized effort on which Sampedro proves to be the first of the many successors to original guitarist Danny Whitten to fit in well with Molina and Talbot; because Molina and Talbot have upped their participation beyond providing the rhythm and some vocals, contributing to the songwriting as well; and because the guest musicians include a bevy of Crazy Horse alumni and friends including keyboardist Barry Goldberg (producer of the pre-Crazy Horse band the Rockets); Greg Leroy (Crazy Horse guitarist, 1971-1972); Bobby Notkoff (Rockets violinist); and Michael Curtis (Crazy Horse keyboardist, 1972). This is something of a Crazy Horse reunion effort, and it shows the band off at its best, or at least probably as good as it could be without co-founder Whitten, who died in 1972. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Crazy Horse's first release was so good that their sophomore effort could not hope to top it. It didn't, but they aren't the same band that made the first record, either. Gone are Nils Lofgren, Danny Whitten, and Jack Nitzsche, leaving the rhythm section of Billy Talbot and Ralph Molina to recruit old friends Greg Leroy, George Whitsell, and John Blanton to round out part two of the group. Surprisingly, Loose is a very listenable album. Mainly country/rock in nature, nothing here doesn't have some sort of charm to recommend it. Warm and smoky, Crazy Horse's Loose lives up to its name. ~ James Chrispell, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
After releasing a promising debut album, Crazy Horse, in February 1971, Neil Young's former backup band was reduced to its rhythm section of bassist Billy Talbot and drummer Ralph Molina, who enlisted three new members -- George Whitsell, Greg Leroy, and John Blanton -- to make Loose (January 1972), essentially the work of a different, inferior group. Nine months later, 40 percent of the membership of Crazy Horse has turned over again for the band's third album, At Crooked Lake, with the departure of Whitsell and Blanton and the arrival of Rick and Michael Curtis. This lineup turns out to be better than the one that made Loose, but still nowhere near the one that made Crazy Horse. And, as fronted by yet another couple of lead singers and songwriters, it again seems like a different band. The Curtis brothers are competent performers, particularly Rick, who writes or co-writes five of the ten selections and sings in a slightly whiny voice while contributing rhythm guitar and banjo. Keyboardist Michael Curtis gets his name on a couple of tracks, and Leroy writes three, among them the attractive ballad "Your Song," while adding effective lead guitar and bottleneck playing. With the acoustic guitars strumming and occasional steel guitar interludes, this is country-rock in the style of Poco, sometimes, as in Leroy's "85 El Paso's," going into straight country. But the songwriting still isn't as good as that of Poco, the Flying Burrito Brothers, the Eagles, or for that matter, the material banished Crazy Horse member Danny Whitten (who finally died of a drug overdose the month after this LP was released) contributed to the first album. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Since Crazy Horse first came to public attention as the backing band for Neil Young in concert and on his albums Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere and After the Gold Rush, it makes sense to expect that the band on its own would play something similar to the hard guitar rock and country-rock heard on those albums, albeit without Young's distinctively quirky singing and songwriting, and that is what one hears to a large extent on the debut album Crazy Horse. (Although this is their first recording under that name, core members Danny Whitten, Billy Talbot, and Ralph Molina have appeared previously on record as part of the doo wop group Danny & the Memories and the rock band the Rockets.) But there is more going on than that. Also joining in, as singers and songwriters as well as sidemen, are veteran arranger/producer Jack Nitzsche and guitarist Nils Lofgren, while Ry Cooder adds slide guitar to a number of tracks. The result is a varied group of songs that range in style from rock and country to blues and folk. The overall quality of those songs is quite high, starting with Nitzsche and Russ Titelman's "Gone Dead Train," previously heard being sung by Randy Newman on the soundtrack to Performance. (Nitzsche and Titelman also contribute the pop-ish "Carolay.") The country hoedown "Dance, Dance, Dance" is a good Young cast-off, while the driving "Beggars Day" and "Nobody" were penned by Lofgren. These contributions serve as the supporting material for Whitten's songs, however, as his five numbers are among the album's best, whether he's rocking out on the ominous "Downtown" (which appears to be about scoring dope) or sadly crooning the heartbreaking ballad "I Don't Want to Talk About It." (After being revived by Rod Stewart on Atlantic Crossing in 1975, the song was a chart single for him and went on to become a minor standard with covers by Rita Coolidge, Everything But the Girl, and Ian Matthews, among others.) Crazy Horse made the case for Whitten as a major talent and for the band as a strong act apart from Young. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
