#351 - Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Rust Never Sleeps (1979)

MUSIC HISTORY COMPILED BY ADAM BERNARD:

NEIL YOUNG & CRAZY HORSE BIO

The 75 year old Canadian singer/song-writer was born in Toronto, grew up in Winnipeg, and started touring Canada as a solo artist in the mid-1960s. After a couple of years he moved to Los Angeles and formed Buffalo Springfield. After great success with their self-titled debut, the band broke up almost two years later. He released one solo album in January of 1969 before “borrowing” three members of the band Rocket to release “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere” in May - credited to Neil Young with Crazy Horse (named after the historical figure of the same name). The marriage was short lived, as Young joined Crosby, Stills & Nash (who released their debut in May as well) in August, and performed at Woodstock. Neil would return to solo work, sometimes with Crazy Horse and in varying combinations under other band names (ie The Santa Monica Flyers). There was also a reunion of CSN&Y, but Crazy Horse was reformed in 1975 for the release of Young’s 8th album “Zuma” (which includes Cortez the killer). After reuniting with Stephen Stills in 1976 to record Long May You Run, Neil released Comes A Time in October of 1978. After that, he set out on tour with Crazy Horse, which leads us to today’s album.

Neil Young was inducted twice into the Rock N Roll Hall Of Fame – in 1995 as a solo artist and 1997 as a member of Buffalo Springfield.

‘RUST NEVER SLEEPS’ BACKGROUND

This was released in June of 1979. This is mostly a live album with songs taken from different performances in 1978, then overdubbed in the studio with audience noise removed as much as possible. The album is divided into an acoustic (Neil solo) and electric side (with Crazy Horse). After his final performance at the Boarding House on May 28, Young collaborated with the art punk band Devo on a cacophonous version of "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)" at the Different Fur studio in San Francisco and would later introduce the song to Crazy Horse. During the Different Fur studio session, Devo vocalist Mark Mothersbaugh added the lyrics, "Rust never sleeps," a slogan he remembered from his graphic arts career promoting the automobile rust proofing product Rust-Oleum. Young adopted the line and used it in his Crazy Horse version of the song, as well as for the title of his album. The electric style is described as abrasive, and was influenced by the punk rock zeitgeist of the late 1970s and provided a stark contrast from Neil’s previous release, Comes a Time. The album has also widely been considered a precursor of grunge music and many grunge artists have said they were inspired by Young's distorted guitars on the B side to this album.

Crazy Horse line-up for this album is Frank “Poncho” Sampedro on electric guitar, Billy Talbot on bass, and Ralph Molina on drums (all providing backing vocals)