Finally! Time Fades Away About to be Re-released

At long last, we can finally retire the Time Fades Away re-release petition!

This news is a fairly major deal here at Thrasher's Wheat as we await the appointed moment on Record Store Day's "Black Friday", November 28th. Warner Bros. Records will -- at long last -- make available Time Fades Away in the upcoming Neil Young Vinyl Box Set.

It's very hard for us to believe, but it's been over 9 years since we launched the Release "Time Fades Away" Petition campaign.

Since February 2005, nearly 150,000 visits have been logged to the TFA page and the petition has gathered over 16,000 verified signatures. (The actual count is closer to 20,000+ but the petition site has had several backup failures where thousands of signatures were lost.) Over 13,000 votes have been cast for favorite song on album.


"It's like stashing Mona Lisa in the basement."
Petition Signature Signer #6628 by Gareth D.
Neil Young: Official Release Series Discs 5-8 Vinyl Box Set is a 4-LP, 180-gram black vinyl in reproduction jackets housed in telescoping box with a limited pressing of 3,500.

The limited-edition box set includes the long out of print albums Time Fades Away, On The Beach, Tonight's The Night,and Zuma, each remastered from the original analog studio recordings at Bernie Grundman Mastering. The artwork is a historically accurate reproduction by Young's long-time art director, Gary Burden. These classics are being reissued on 180-gram audiophile vinyl for the first time and pressed at the world's premiere pressing plant, Pallas MFG Germany.

So why does any of this really matter?

Well, for one thing, news in 2012 indicated that there was a possibility that the original TFA would NEVER be re-released at all. From an interview in Guitar World, Young discusses The Archives Vol.#2 which will include Time Fades Away II. TFA#2 is an alternate version from the tour's second half.

"YOUNG: One thing I'll tell you about the next volume of Archives is that Time Fades Away II is in there. And it's interesting because the whole thing has a different drummer than what was on that album. I switched drummers halfway through the tour- Kenny Buttrey was in there for the first half, and Johnny Barbata came in for the second. It's a completely different thing, with completely different songs. So that's interesting. There's lots of stuff like that that I'm working on right now for the second volume."

Again, why does this matter?

It's been called the "missing link" of the "Ditch Trilogy".

Neil Young's 1973 Time Fades Away is one of the most remarkable live albums ever recorded. Certainly at the time of release, it was almost unprecedented for an artist to release a live concert recording of previously unreleased material. Long out of print on vinyl, still unavailable on CD in the early 21st century and widely bootlegged, the album is considered to be the "Holy Grail" of all Neil Young albums.

In an effort to gain wider distribution of this essential Neil Young recording, fans have started a petition requesting that the album be officially released. Those interested in obtaining a legal copy of Time Fades Away are urged to sign the petition today.

In 2003, it seemed that an official release was near when four of the "Missing 6" Neil Young albums surfaced. (On The Beach, one of the four albums released after a long hiatus, was also the subject of a fan's petition drive which would eventually gather over 5,000 signatures from the Neil Young Internet fan community Rust and Human Highway.)

Time Fades Away was recorded directly from the soundboard to 16-track using the Quad-8 CompuMix, the unreliable first digital mixing soundboard—against the wishes of producer David Briggs, who referred to it as the "Compufuck" but was forced to yield to the desires of Young. This resulted in a murky-sounding release. Because no two-track stereo master tape was ever made as would commonly be done, the album cannot be remastered in a traditional manner. If any new release was to be attempted, a new mix would need to be made from the original multitrack tapes.

(Thanks Peter!)

A comment by Greg M (A Friend Of Yours):

I agree with all the reasons stated for releasing and revering the album, but my guess is that there must be something personal beyond what has ever been revealed about that tour and album that causes Neil to short shrift it. Must be something big given it's the only album left unrepresented on Decade- The Bridge at the very least was worthy of being included.

I always thought it was just too painful because of Danny Whitten's 11th hour death preceding the tour. There is also the money disputes that went on, but I think we're grasping at straws, Neil has his reasons is all. The Detroit leg of the tour was the first concert I ever went to, and it was a great experience, especially the first half acoustic set. When the whole band appeared for the electric second half there was a discernible disconnect between band members, no interaction, very removed. It probably didn't help that they partook during intermission- I'm assuming.

The only song that stands out in my mind is Don't Be Denied, and a very lethargic Alabama with Neil playing the Wing guitar. I also think that it is totally in the spirit of Archives to get an alternative version. In the meantime, we can only speculate so much. Hopefully if we ever see TFA II, Neil will fill us in a little more on the details, but only if it's not excruciatingly personal.

Greg M (A Friend Of Yours)

A comment by andrea1bianco:

I've read in some publications that several songs were recorded at the A & M studios by Henry Lewis and during the TFA rehearsals at The Broken Arrow Ranch. Look Out Joe, later released on TTN, comes from these sessions. Some songs, unreleased yet, could have been recorded. I mean Goodbye Christians On The Shore, Come Along And Say You Will, Letter from 'Nam. Nothing officially confirmed, but speculations of some studio recordings during the TFA timeframe exist.

A Rust comment by Jules:

From Decade liner notes:
"Time Fades Away. No songs from this album are included here. It was recorded on my biggest tour ever, 65 shows in 90 days.
Money hassles among everyone concerned ruined this tour and record for me but I released it anyway so you folks could see what could happen if you lose it for a while.

I was becoming more interested in an audio verite approach than satisfying the public demands for a repetition of Harvest.

So if you haven't done so already, go and sign the petition!

And if you have signed, then please re-tweet, share, forward, etc.

More on the history and background of Release "Time Fades Away" Petition.

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Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's Unreleased LP "Human Highway" | Talk From The Rock Room:

In honor of the resurrection of the server for Human-Highway.org named CORTEZ, we bring you a detailed look at the unreleased Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young album "Human Highway". (We also recently took a look at the album "Human Highway" in our review of Unreleased Records by the World's Greatest Artists by Bruno MacDonald.)

From Talk From The Rock Room: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young - "Human Highway" The Unreleased LP by Stephen Lewis:

In May of 1973 after an extended period of no music making, the group met in Hawaii for some rest, relaxation and to discuss and create a new LP. Unfortunately this LP would never come to fruition as the members moved on to solo projects before anything could be finished. The normal bickering and friction that comes from the meeting of the four powerful personalities reared its head during the LP's creation and things came to a screeching halt. Graham Nash is quoted as saying that the 'unfinished' LP would have been called 'Human Highway' and had ten tracks planned for it. The LP even had the artwork picked out which I have included in this blog, of a picture taken of the principals on their Hawaiian beach at dusk. Many of these songs were performed by the group at various performances, as well as ending up on future solo releases. But as a defined collection of officially released studio recordings, it was not to be.

Over the course of time the unreleased LP has grown in stature and legend. Some tracks have escaped through various releases, and some still remain hidden in the deep recesses of someones musical vault. What I have done in this weeks blog is recreate this 'lost' album based on what tracks are available, statements that have been made, and the information that has been leaked by various sources. On most of the studio versions I have included, Johnny Barbata and Tim Drummond are featured on drums and bass respectively (Little Blind Fish has Russ Kunkle on drums). Without anymore extended rumination, anticipated and speculated upon, I give you my version of the lost CSNY LP 'Human Highway'

In May of 1973 it had been three years since the release of the 'Deja Vu' album and the stars were in alignment for another attempt at a group LP. Neil Young had rocketed to super stardom with the release of his LP 'Harvest', and the other principal members Crosby, Stills, and Nash were in an era where they were all extremely prolific in their creativity and songwriting. After their planned meeting in Hawaii the group convened at Young's 'Broken Arrow' ranch to get their new tracks down on tape. Using sources such as David Zimmer's CSN biography, as well as various band member interviews, and the CSN box set liner notes the band repotedly recorded the following tracks, 'See the Changes', 'Prison Song', 'And So It Goes', 'Human Highway', 'Little Blind Fish' and 'Through My Sails". I have also taken the liberty to include the following songs to the list, based on the reunion concert that took place at a Stephen Stills and Manassas show in October of 1973, 'As I Come Of Age', 'New Mama', and 'Roll Another Number'. These tunes were preformed when Crosby, Nash and Young joined Stills unannounced for his acoustic set and played many of the tracks planned for 'Human Highway'. I believe that these songs were also in the running for the LP, based on their workout at this performance during the records formative stages. The songs I have listed total up to nine tunes for the hypothetical LP, which leaves room for one more song based on Nash's assertion of ten tracks.

This is honestly a guess on my part, but there are available choices of songs to fill that last slot. "Hawaiian Sunrise", an unreleased Young track fits the bill, and is somewhat an obvious choice because of its Hawaiian genesis, and subsequent performances by the group. David Crosby's 'Time After Time" is also a possibility due to its being composed around this time, and because of the lack of Crosby songs on the hypothetical LP. So for the case of representation I will include the Crosby song on my version of 'Human Highway'. The track listing I have created is based on my own feeling of flow and balance, there is obviously no way I can find the true proposed track listing, so it is what it is. Young's song 'Traces', Stills 'First Things First' as well as Nash's 'Another Sleep Song' are also candidates for slots on the album, but alas there are only ten hypothetical spots so these songs will remain on the bench. I believe this album could have the defining moment for the fragile super group, and it was a great joy digging into the possibilities for its creation. For experts on this topic who may ruminate about such things, I have steered away from the post 1974 tour recordings and have focused my constructed LP on tracks recorded in 1973 and early 1974. I am a wealth of rock knowledge (ha ha) but I am no expert, and my vault access is limited. I also realize that some folks may disagree with the 'Little Blind Fish' addition, but I believe regardless of its late 1974 recording date, it was a contender for the LP. I now present to you the 'rock room' version of CSNY 'Human Highway' side A.

Full track breakdown continues at Talk From The Rock Room: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young - "Human Highway" The Unreleased LP by Stephen Lewis.

Also, see Unreleased Records by the World's Greatest Artists by Bruno MacDonald.

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