Nils Lofgren came to Crazy Horse, returning to the band after 40 years. One never really leaves this band. They are brothers for life. There is also something very special to see a life reunion of sorts. The last time I had worked with Billy and Ralph was in 2012 as we finished up Americana and Psychedelic Pill at Broken Arrow Ranch.

Recording sessions started the second week of April high in the Colorado Rockies. We started gradually by adding Crazy Horse onto existing live performances of a few songs Neil had recorded live during a solo tour just prior to the session. This was a method rarely undertaken as it requires having Neil, Ralph, Billy and Nils perform live to an existing piano/vocal or acoustic guitar/vocal track- not normally a scenario that Crazy Horse would find itself in. But it worked out great. Neil, Billy, Ralph and Nils recorded live, playing along with ‘live Neil’ as he came over the PA in the room and headphones.

This recording process was employed for the first three songs in as many days.

Neil had eleven new songs and that meant the possibility of recording full live band tracks of at least eight new ones beyond these.

Nils had played on and off with Neil since After The Gold Rush, Tonight’s the Night, Trans, and toured with him. Nils is a natural, an original member, replacing Danny Whitten after his untimley death.

This initial recording process, dubbing on solo live tracks, also served well to warm everyone up to the studio and to the thin air at 9,200’ of elevation, which was ready made for a challenge.

Musicians need to hang out and acclimate but they also want to get to playing music and recording sooner than later. No one wants to wait just to get used to the altitude so the Horse was chomping at the bit to record, and record they did. We were cutting live tracks on the fourth day in the studio.

Prior to playing, one of the things Neil worked on was his guitar tone. His sound now is more direct than on previous records with the Horse after 1975. He had by-passed his effects system so it hews more closely in tone to what he recorded on Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere some 50 years ago. Same guitar -same amp.

We had a PA set up for Neil to sing live on the tracks. David Briggs called it “group art” for a reason. Who the hell wants to overdub vocals, staring through the control room glass looking at an engineer? A Pop record can benefit from this vocal recording technique but rarely does a Rock ‘N Roll band. Besides, Sinatra, Elvis and Dylan recorded live vocals with the orchestra and band respectively and it didn’t hurt them, so again, if it works – don’t fix it. We are just louder. There are no rules, just preferences.

Besides, it’s all the risks and pushing oneself as part of the ensemble and the give and take that makes it great or terrible. So, rarely does one find one’s self straddling the middle ground of mediocrity when one records this way. But a method easy to record - it is not. The PA technique is basically to turn it up in the room until it feeds back and then turn it down – slightly. The problem is there are a lot of really good condenser microphones set up and it doesn’t take much to get feedback into everything. You are on the edge.

When we started recording the full band live with Neil, the first song was tracked with him on acoustic guitar and Nils on the piano along with Billy and Ralph, the rhythm section. They nailed the first take. We then got another song cut also with Neil on acoustic guitar and Nils on organ, again the first take. Saturday found more editing and chorus vocals going down. Crazy Horse has usually added vocal choruses after the original cut. That’s a big part of their sound. From that point on out the band instrumentation was classic drums, bass and two electric guitars with Ralph, Billy, Neil and Nils!

By Sunday evening, the band had three more new songs, following their time-honored method. We had now established a rhythm to the recording process. At the end of recording Wednesday we had finished tracking and adding parts to two more. Much editing and mixing was undertaken. Thursday yielded the last two new songs. We would circle back to previous work until the content felt natural in its flow in terms of editing.

Most of these band tracks were first or second takes. If they have to record two more takes it’s often wasted time, but you don’t know it until you come back and listen with fresh ears an hour or so later. One can’t see the mountain without the valley. It is all part of the process of discovery, and you can never know until you listen back. Briggs taught me something a long time ago, “If it’s worth recording, it’s worth listening to”, even when you think you’re right about a previous take, sometimes you just have be patient and make a mental note to re-listen to an earlier or later track and keep it to yourself until the timing is right to have the band re-visit the listening. It’s real important not to interrupt their creative flow if they’re into playing.

By Friday we were circling the wagons and had spent most of the day editing and mixing and recording a lot of chorus vocals for the last song we tracked.. All along we were doing mixes every day in order to capture the moment, because that moment is always the basis for what we end up with down the road.

We had been recording all of eleven days and nights without any time off.

Better to keep the foot on the gas and not lose momentum. To say that everyone was focused would be an understatement.

Saturday after the crew and I packed up the gear, we decamped to Daryl and Neil’s home for a great dinner and playback session lasting well into the evening, finally watching the alpen-glow as ‘Rainbow of Colors’, a new song, resonated amongst us all. Sunday saw us all riding out to different destinations, marking an end to this great chapter together.

The fruits of our labor will be out this fall as the new Neil Young - Crazy Horse album. Listen loud!

John Hanlon