Neil Young’s Sugar Mountain Live
Forty years after its recording, “Sugar Mountain”” by Neil Young will finally see the light of day, live Michigan gigs which helped establish the singer as a solo artist.
Young’s solo career launched in earnest with an engagement at The Canterbury House in Ann Arbor, Mich. Having left the Buffalo Springfield six months earlier, Young brought just his guitar along to the University of Michigan facility.The gig was a stealth booking to determine if audiences would accept Young’s music in its most elemental form since he previously was in band.
The night of Nov. 9-10, 1968, he performed his music and told stories between the songs. The performances were recorded those evenings on a TEAC 2 track tape recorder, the tapes kept in storage over the intervening years.
“Sugar Mountain Live At Canterbury House 1968” will be out Nov. 25 by Reprise as part of the continuing Neil Young Archive Performance Series. The 23-track album will include recordings made on both nights. The album includes songs that were written during his Buffalo Springfield tenure as well as newly written material that would appear on future solo albums. One of the spoken word pieces is a tale of Young’s hapless “day job” experience working in a Toronto bookstore.
I’m sure this is better than Living With War…