Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere is ground zero for a collaboration between Neil Young and Crazy Horse that has lasted for over a half-century. The personnel has not always been the same as on this second post-Buffalo Springfield album by the Canadian rock icon, and there have been some protracted intervals when Young has deliberately worked apart from The Horse (see Jimmy McDonough’s incisive biography Shakey for the often painful details.
Nevertheless, in recent years, Neil has returned to the friendly confines of this small group. He has worked in the studio on three long players—Colorado, Barn, and World Record—with a modified configuration of The Horse, including long-time collaborator Nils Lofgren. He has also begun extensive touring again (in place of the latter is Willie Nelson’s son Micah from former accompanists Promise of the Real), this after some selected solo shows in late 2023 in the wake of COVID pandemic lockdowns.
Originally comprised of three members of a group Young had encountered called the Rockets–guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Danny Whitten, bassist/vocalist Billy Talbot, and drummer/vocalist Ralph Molina–the quartet’s finite instrumentation belied the expanse it would navigate on the LP’s longest tracks. “Down By The River” and “Cowgirl in the Sand” quickly become mesmerizing and continue so for the duration of their respective nine-plus and ten-plus minutes.
The sparse instrumental setting and its attendant arrangements belie the density that arises from the performances. Co-produced by Young and David Briggs, the audio quality was sufficient at the time of release. But for a 2009 edition labeled ‘Disc 2’ of ‘Official Release Series’ from the Neil Young Archives, there is a much clearer delineation between instruments, thanks to the technical expertise of John Nowland and Tim Mulligan.
Equally indicative of the four musicians’ chemistry are the markedly shorter tracks. On the punchy title song and “Cinnamon Girl” (with its explosive cold opening), the rhythm section of Molina and Talbot is again the heartbeat of the band. Meanwhile, Whitten’s unpredictable guitar figures provide a bedrock for Neil’s staccato leads: he plays as often in flurries of notes as long strings heavy on sustain and distortion. And there’s an ever-so-slight country twang coming from all those strings.
The editing of longer performances into the aforementioned extended segments results in no small amount of dramatic suspense (as does the keening but fragile tenor of Young’s voice). Mirror images of those ominous cuts appear in the doleful forms of “The Losing End (When You’re On)” and “Running Dry” (Requiem for the Rockets), the latter’s woeful self-pity heightened to an almost excruciating level by Bobby Notkoff’s single violin.
Although it hearkens somewhat to the acoustic solo shows Neil was playing at the time (and would continue to on and off for the duration of his now fifty-plus year career), “Round & Round (It Won’t Be Long)” is a selection wholly unto itself among the total seven on Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. Featuring Young and Whitten on acoustic guitars and vocals, plus additional singing by Robin Lane (of future Chartbusters fame), the performance conjures an aching air all the more penetrating for its intimacy: the stereo spectrum captures the physical placement of the trio.
In addition to radiating a spontaneity hardly unlike its surroundings, that track also captures the singular melancholy that Neil Young had made his stock-in-trade. At the same time, he was a member of the woefully unsung Springfield, which he then reaffirmed as a major component of his signature style with his self-titled debut album (and he tacitly proffered that virtue as one of his contributions to work with Crosby, Stills, and Nash).
Little wonder the successor to this halcyon outing, After The Gold Rush, didn’t conjure up a similar mood. Despite attempts to record a literal sequel to the 1969 Meeting of the Minds, participants for this recording project morphed to include not only members of Crazy Horse and Stephen Stills but also a very young Lofgren playing piano (shortly after Young discovered him and long before Nils joined Springsteen’s E Street Band).
The LP certainly has its stellar moments, largely in the form of Neil’s emotionally complex expressions of personal angst, such as “Don’t Let It Bring You Down” and “Birds.” Yet neither of those performances nor “Tell Me Why” or “I Believe in You,” can boast the glorious collective serendipity that permeates Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere: the atmosphere therein is singular in more ways than one.
Remarkably, Neil Young was later able to conjure up a similarly spontaneous sense of shared inspiration with an altered lineup of Crazy Horse. Among many other projects inside and outside The Horse, Frank ‘Poncho’ Sampedro appears in 1975’s Zuma and Ragged Glory fifteen years later. Still, neither album can render obsolete the template of style created fifty-five years ago.
