2011 INTERVIEW: Neil Young Discusses The International Harvesters and "A Treasure" Release

From a nice, expansive interview with Neil Young in 2011, he discusses the International Harvesters band and the archives release, A Treasure.

The video is rather intimate look at the different musicians and Neil's memories of their time together. Neil discusses the late, great Ben Keith on steel and slide guitar and Rufus Thibodeaux on fiddle, along with living legends Spooner Oldham and Hargus “Pig” Robbins on piano, Tim Drummond and Joe Allen on bass, Karl Himmel on drums, Anthony Crawford on guitar, banjo and mandolin among many others. Many of them were already paragons within the country music world and their notoriety has only grown in the years since. “I just love to hear those guys,” Young says. “They’re all country music legends.”

Also, the Comment of the Moment (which inspired this post) is from Jim McKelvey

Yeah, listen to what Neil Young says about playing in the Grey Riders band here and specifically at 8:51 on this video...

"I couldn't go anywhere where he couldn't go farther," Neil Young talking about Hargus.

Really hope that the "archives" project that Neil Young is doing will start to include live shows like Bruce Springsteen is doing. Over this weekend Bruce announced a show from 1999 that got me to thinking wouldn't it be amazing to get some of the '99 solo shows that Neil did. Maybe he could do a matrix mix of the soundboards with some of those amazing Schoeps mic'd audience recordings that surfaced back in the Yahoo Rust era? Seems like the archives website is positioned perfectly to give us 16 to 24 bit live recordings from pretty much his entire career. Now, I think there is something fishy about no live Buffalo Springfield recordings given all the times they played for Bill Graham who was clearly a recording nut and he clearly liked the Springfield, too. That is plain weird but here is an example of what Neil could do based on what Bruce is doing...

http://live.brucespringsteen.net/

The show I want the most, however, is that three day stand at the Canterbury House in "A Squared" pretty much on/within the "very moment" that Neil Young became a star after the debut of CSNY live that included Woodstock, just a month before recording "Country Girl" for Deja Vu and the live debut of some of the "After The Goldrush" songs already penned or covered. Both of his bands, Crazy Horse and CSNY, were getting the recognition that the Springfield didn't get beyond the hit single on their debut tours just months before the Canterbury House recordings. A lot of the introductions to the songs from the 1969 Canterbury House are already up on the Archives under the "video" heading as I've stated before.

Those three days of Canterbury House recordings (please release all three!) I would like to request be followed by releasing complete shows that included Hargus "Pig" Robbins just before the very first Farm Aid. There is a little bit of Hargus on "The Treasure" but not enough since it didn't include the "Old Man" or the stunning "Down By The River" that band did. Now, as I've mentioned before that show at Meadowbrook Music Theater, that included Nicolette Larson opening and later joining the Harvesters/Grey Riders I might add, was the one that I got to talk for a good bit with Neil. We talked about "Neil & Me" and then the next day he arranged an interview with Willie Nelson for three hours the following week. That story with Willie about the first Farm Aid got my co-byline on a front page story in the Detroit Free Press. My parents got to see me go from a paperboy with 90 dailies and 130 Sunday papers to a writer published on the front page and I have Neil Young to thank for that.

From "Shakey" about this particular tour...

"Shakey" excerpt

The song "Campaigner" teken from shows from 1976 would be a nice thing to offer as a download on the Neilyoungarchives pages, too. 1976 was a very good year!

Sugar Mountain - "Campaigner"

Hey Jim, thanks for the drop by. Great clip and reminder on Grey Riders Hargus "Pig" Robbins. Also, warm memories of the late Ben Keith by Neil remembering him so fondly.

Yes, Bruce and Bob have done a lot on their concerts and rarities releases. And do agree that we should really start to see Neil flood NYA once the paywall setup is in place.

Could be part of the setup w/ some stealth gigs like back earlier this year w/ CH & POTR? Maybe announce subscription service, stream some live gigs, and then the HUGE track drop. MOAD (Mother of all DROPS)

More background on A Treasure, Release Details on A Treasure and Tech Notes Preview Video. Also, see more interviews with Neil Young.

Also, see Meta Review: A Treasure - Neil Young & The International Harvesters.


A Treasure
Neil Young & The International Harvesters
LISTEN - A Treasure by Neil Young & The International Harvesters on Amazon.com

---