Neil Young never sleeps
Need more Neil Young? The onetime Bay Area rock icon stayed busy over the pandemic recording a new album with his band Crazy Horse.
According to reports, Young and members of Crazy Horse — current lineup: guitarist Nils Lofgren, bassist Billy Talbot and drummer Ralph Molina — recorded “Barn” during a series of sessions held in, appropriately enough, a barn on the Colorado ranch the rocker shares with Daryl Hannah. The album was released last week. According to The Washington Post, most of the songs were written during the recording period with bandmates learning the tunes on the fly.
According to the Post, Young wrote one song, “Human Race,” a blistering song about climate change, during the walk from his house to the barn where the band was waiting to begin a recoding session.
“I stopped with a piece of paper, wrote a little bit, stopped with a piece of paper, wrote a little,” says Young, 76. “When I got there, I just said, ‘I got a new song.’ ”
Young also spent part of the pandemic creating and curating content for his limited-time Neil Young Radio channel on SiriusXM. The channel features songs from through the rocker’s 50-year career, plus archived concert recordings, a lengthy interview with acclaimed rock scribe (and SiriusXM host) David Fricke, celebrity guest DJs, a track-by-track “Barn” special and more.
Details: “Barn,” $18.98 CD, $29.98 vinyl, $79.98 deluxe package including a Blu-ray film on the making of the record; neilyoungarchives.com.; Neil Young Radio available through Jan. 5 on the SiriusXM app, available at app stores and www. siriusxm.com.