Zuma
Neil Young and Crazy Horse at Point Dume
When I feel like listening to Neil Young and Crazy Horse, without considering what album I want to listen to, I reach for Zuma. It has a rawness and immediacy that never grows old. To me, it’s the essence of Neil Young and Crazy Horse.
Zuma was recorded in a house that Neil’s producer David Briggs rented in Point Dume, California. The house overlooked the Pacific Ocean and was across the street from Goldie Hawn’s house.
Briggs created quite the scene at the house - drugs, a lot of drugs, and a lot of girls. At night, Briggs was hanging out at a saloon just up the road where he recruited willing participants into the party at the house at Point Dume.
Recorded after Neil’s Ditch Trilogy (Time Fades Away, Tonight’s the Night and On the Beach), Zuma was the first Crazy Horse album recorded after Danny Whitten’s death. Frank Sampedro became The Horse’s new guitarist. Throughout the recording of Zuma, Sampedro got to know the band and Neil. This resulted in a freshness and inspiration in arranging and recording the album.
David Briggs said that Zuma is possibly his favorite Neil Young and Crazy Horse album, simply because it was an extension of their lives at the time.
There are several excellent outtakes from the sessions that Neil released on Archives II. Also on Archives II is a CD’s worth of live cuts from this era’s Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s concerts recorded in Japan and England.
One day while recording at Brigg’s rented house, there was a van parked in the driveway. By this time it was well known that Neil and Crazy Horse were recording at Point Dume, thanks to Briggs spreading the word at the saloon. So, Briggs was always chasing away groupies. This time when Briggs went out to shoo them away, he found Bob Dylan in the van listening to the music. Bob’s house was not far away. Dylan came in and played a bit with Neil and Crazy Horse. In Waging Heavy Peace Deluxe: A Hippie Dream, Young said “On a break, Bob and I took a walk around the neighborhood, talking about the similarity in some of the paths we had each taken. It was the first time we had ever really talked. I liked him.”
Lou Reed said this of Neil’s guitar playing on Zuma’s Danger Bird, “It makes me cry, it is the best I have heard in my life. The guy is a spectacular guitarist, those melodies are so marvelous, so calculated, constructed note to note… he must have killed to get those notes. It puts my hairs on end.” From David Downing’s 1994 book, A Dreamer of Pictures.
My favorite cuts from Zuma are Cortez the Killer and Danger Bird.
