Around a decade ago, Willie Nelson’s son Micah’s career took an unexpected pivot when Neil Young picked him, his brother Lukas, and Lukas’ band Promise of the Real to be his backing band on a string of records, tours, and even a movie.

Another life-changing opportunity came in the form of an invite to join Crazy Horse – the rock band that has long been associated with Young. However, a series of health issues within the band led to the tour being called off at the halfway point.

“I knew how bummed out Neil was,” Nelson tells Rolling Stone. “He wasn’t feeling like making music. He was really sick. He was trying to get over that, and just get his energy back. And then he was really bummed out about what happened, and how it all went down. And that just kind of drained him a lot, and doused this flame.”

In an attempt to help Young regain his spark, Nelson came up with the idea to form the Chrome Hearts, a new band that, aside from Young and Nelson, features organist Spooner Oldham, along with Promise of the Real’s Corey McCormick and Anthony LoGerfo.

“I was like, ‘Is Neil fading away? This is unacceptable,’” Nelson recalls of that time. “So I’d call him a lot and check in on him and remind him how he’s not old. I was like, ‘Do whatever you got to do, man. Take your time. I get it. Recharge. The tank has got to fill back up, and that can take time, but whenever you want to do the thing again, just call me up and I’m ready to go.’”

He continues, “I said to him, ‘Cory [McCormick] and Anthony [LoGerfo] from the Real, they’re down. I’ve talked to them.’ And my brother [Lukas]… when that band went on their hiatus, he had written a letter to Neil just saying, ‘Hey, just because I’m not playing with these guys anymore, don’t feel weird about taking them out. They’re down to play with you, and they’re ready to go. So whenever you want to do it, don’t even hesitate.’”

According to Nelson, it took Young a minute “of sort of just micro-dosing with this idea of, ‘We don't have to stop. I know you're not done,’” which eventually led to, as he puts it, “the natural organic process of seasons of inspiration.”

As for what makes the Chrome Hearts stand out from all of Young's various bands over the years, Nelson replies that the band allows the veteran artist and guitarist the possibility to “do anything” – meaning whatever era or whatever deep cuts he wants.

“We can learn stuff pretty quick and deliver something,” Nelson asserts. “And especially because we have Spooner, it’s like we can do the [Young's 1992 album] Harvest Moon stuff in a way that really feels like the albums, and we can go delicate and we can get loud and ragged and do everything in between.”

Earlier this year, Young marked his return with his first album with the Chrome Hearts, Talkin to the Trees.

Moreover, the Godfather of Grunge was recently reunited with his Squires Gretsch 6120, 60 years after he sold it – thanks to a little help from Randy Bachman.

Neil Young has been reunited with the Gretsch 6120 electric guitar he played during his Squires days after finding it online – and he brought it out on stage for the first time in 60 years during a recent gig in Ohio.

Young has played a handful of Gretsch 6120s over the years – including the two he favored in Buffalo Springfield – but his very first orange-finished hollowbody is perhaps his most revered. First acquired in Winnipeg in 1963, the Gretsch was Young’s guitar of choice in one of his first bands, The Squires, and stayed with him until it was either sold or pawned in September 1965.

According to Sugar Mountain, Young parted ways with this particular Gretsch 6120 so he could purchase a Gibson 12-string. Now, six decades later, Young finally has his hands on his Squires guitar, and he’s wasted no time in putting it back into action.

During a show last Friday (August 15), Young told the story of how he managed to re-acquire the famed Gretsch, revealing that Randy Bachman – who found his own missing guitar in a similar fashion – is partly to thank.

“Randy Bachman called me up and he said, ‘Remember when we used to have those guitars?’ We played together 50 or 60 years ago in a little town called Winnipeg. We knew each other for a long time.

“He says, ‘I found my guitar, the guitar I used to have when I was with Bachman Turner Overdrive.’ I said, ‘That’s great, Randy.’ He says, ‘I can tell you how I got it. I got a picture of it taken back in the day and I put it on the internet and looked and looked.’”

Bachman's recovery of his own 6120 is, of course, well-documented. The guitarist's reunion with his long-lost Gretsch made headlines back in 2022, after it was returned to him by Japanese rockabilly great Takeshi.

As such, Bachman’s advice proved to be the game-changer. Some time after, Young discovered that a picture of his own guitar had been put online, and after matching the grain between pictures – and, we imagine, some more extensive authentication – was promptly reunited with it.

“Finally, someone has taken my guitar from the Squires and put it online. You could see the grain, it was the same. So, here it is,” Young concludes, before refamiliarising himself with the Squires Gretsch by taking it for a spin on Mr. Soul.

For the tour shows that have followed, Young has continued to take out the 6120 out for Mr. Soul. It was but one of many notable occurrences to have taken place so far on Young’s tour – last week, he also debuted a new song, Silver Eagle.

Young and Bachman's gear connection goes far beyond a shared experience for recovering Gretsch guitars. Earlier this year, Bachman revealed how he and Young used to share guitar amps as up-and-coming guitarists.

Neil Young's live rig is famously as ragged and one-of-a-kind as the man himself, and at its center sits Old Black, a modded-to-high-heaven 1953 Gibson Les Paul goldtop.

The mods in question are a “chrome-on-brass” pickguard and back plates, a bridge-position Firebird pickup, and a toggle switch, installed between the two volume and two tone knobs, that acts as a bypass.

By the time the Firebird pickup in particular came into the picture though, in the mid-'70s, Young had already authored proto-grunge, riff-rock classics like Cinnamon Girl, Down by the River, and Ohio, establishing in the process his deep-in-the-red, growling guitar tone.

Of course, much like Young's discography and creative arc, the story of how the pickup found its way into Old Black – thereby completing the single-cut's transformation – is a twisty one, with fits, starts, and... vanishing stores?

The guitar originally came to Young by way of a trade with former Buffalo Springfield bassist and producer Jim Messina, who forked over the Les Paul and got one of Young’s Gretsch guitars in return.

Asked by Guitar World in 2009 how much of a role it played in the early development of his instantly identifiable guitar sound, Young said, “I don’t know. I really don’t. I mean, that guitar was a different guitar then than it is now. It had a different treble pickup.

“The Firebird pickup went in after the first one got lost, and that happened a few years after we did Everybody Knows [This is Nowhere, Young and Crazy Horse's 1969 album]. The first pickup had a really bad buzz, and I sent the guitar to a shop to be fixed.”

Ok, sure! We've all done the same. What could've possibly happened next?

“When I went to get it, it was gone,” Young told GW. “And by that I mean the store was gone. The whole place just wasn’t there anymore. So that was the end of that.”

Thankfully, though, Young did get the guitar back some time later, and – after first trying a Gretsch pickup in the bridge position – landed on the Firebird pickup, a configuration that's remained ever since.

“Everyone calls [the Firebird pickup] a mini-humbucker, but it’s not,” Young's longtime guitar tech, Larry Cragg, told GW in 2009. “It’s a humbucker, and it’s very microphonic – you can speak into it. It’s really piercing and high and a big part of his sound.”

Randy Bachman has revealed that Neil Young had the guitarist on speed dial during his early Silvertones days, because the Heart of Gold songwriter had eyes on his amplifier.

Before forming The Guess Who, Bachman traded under the Silvertones moniker for a number of years, and during that period their backline caught the fancy of Young – who, at the time, was playing with the Squires, and who labeled the Silvertones the best group in Winnipeg in the early 1960s.

The pair had a well-established friendship, having bonded over Gretsch guitars, Fender combo amps and Hank Marvin, and Young was ready to make the most of their relationship.

“When I joined the Silvertones, the band had a rare thing – an amplifier,” Bachman reveals to Guitar Player. “Jim Kale had a Fender Concert amp. It had two channels, and each channel had two inputs, so we could put a microphone in one for the singer to sing. We had no P.A. system, so we put rhythm guitar, bass, and my guitar into that amp. That was our P.A.

“Whenever we weren’t playing, Neil would call up and say, ‘Are you guys playing a gig next weekend? Can we borrow the amplifier?’”

It wasn’t the only slice of Silvertones gear that Young admired, either. The band had shown a knack for getting close to Hank Marvin’s fabled guitar tone in atypical ways.

“He [Young] wanted to be Hank Marvin,” Bachman develops. “My piano player had a tape recorder, and if you moved the recording head a little bit, you'd get an echo like Hank Marvin. We had no pedals, but suddenly I had an echo.

“Play with the tape a little, and there was the sound of Hank Marvin and the Shadows. Neil loved that sound. That's why we played together on the Hank Marvin and the Shadows tribute album [Twang!, 1996].”

The pair shared the honor of tackling the Shadows' 1962 hit, Spring is Nearly Here, together on a release that also included Ritchie Blackmore, Brian May, Tony Iommi, and Andy Summers. It was the first time they'd played on a record together, despite having been friends and gear nerds for decades.

They've now taken their tandem a step further, with Young delivering a rough and ready guitar solo to close out Bachman-Turner Overdrive's comeback track, 60 Years Ago. The song had been in the tank for a while, but was dragged into the public eye in bizarre circumstances.

“I got a call that they were renaming a bridge in Winnipeg on the Disraeli Freeway and calling it ‘the Bachman-Turner Overpass,” he reveals. “I went, ‘Wow, that’s incredible! I’ve got a song all about Winnipeg. I’ll rock it up with BTO. I’ll get Neil to play on it.”

Elsewhere, a look into Young's unusual live rig reveals why it's a setup like no other, while Lindsay Ell has given an insight into what it's like having Bachman as a guitar tutor.

This interview with Neil Young guitar tech Larry Cragg was originally published in the October 2009 issue of Guitar World.

From his beat-up Les Paul to his battered amps and vintage effect pedals, Neil Young's stage rig is a road-worn tribute to his timeless sounds.

“When it comes to equipment, the idea with Neil is that you don’t change anything,” says guitar tech Larry Cragg. “You don’t even think about it.”

Cragg is himself among the many constants in Young’s gear universe, having worked for the musician since 1973. A respected guitar repairman – he’s been Carlos Santana’s go-to guy for 40 years – who also owns his own vintage instrument rental company, Cragg first met Young while at Prune Music, a guitar shop in Mill Valley, California.

“At first I was just fixing his guitars,” says Cragg. “But a few years in, he was on the road in Japan when I got a call from his people saying, ‘Get on an airplane!’ And I’ve done every tour since.”

Young brought his standard rig out on the road for his 2009 tour, a mostly electric guitar-dominated jaunt. True to Cragg’s word, his setup has remained largely the same over the years. But if Young is consistent in the equipment he uses to create his sound, the various pieces of gear also tend to be as idiosyncratic and susceptible to change as the man himself.

At the center of it all is the volatile 1953 Gibson Les Paul goldtop Young calls Old Black. A brutal and battered beast, the guitar is responsible for the legendary gritty tones heard on countless Young classics, including Cinnamon Girl, Down By the River, and Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black).

The Les Paul, which features a Bigsby tremolo and a P90 pickup in the neck position, received the black paint job that inspired its nickname prior to being acquired by Young.

Since then, it’s undergone several further modifications, including the addition of a “chrome-on-brass” pickguard and back plates, a bridge-position Firebird pickup, and a toggle switch, installed between the two volume and two tone knobs, that acts as a bypass. “You flip that,” says Cragg, “and the Firebird goes straight to the amp.”

Cragg installed the Firebird pickup back in 1973. “Originally there was a P90 in there,” he explains. “But in the early Seventies the guitar was lost, and when Neil recovered it a few years later the bridge pickup was gone. He put a Gretsch DeArmond in there for a while, but when I came onboard I replaced that with the Firebird, which has been there ever since.

“Everyone calls it a mini-humbucker, but it’s not. It’s a humbucker, and it’s very microphonic – you can speak into it. It’s really piercing and high and a big part of his sound.”

Old Black remains Young’s primary electric for both studio and live work, but he has also of late been making ample use of his 1961 Gretsch White Falcon onstage. Cragg says, “That’s the real deal. Neil’s had it forever. It’s kind of green-looking and really stunning. There’s probably only 10 or 11 of those around.”

The guitar, a stereo, single-cutaway model, figured prominently in Young’s work with Buffalo Springfield and CSNY, as well as on solo songs like Words (Between the Lines of Age).

Other electric guitars used by Young on his recent tour include a 1956 Les Paul Junior of Cragg’s that he calls a “really rude, in-your-face killer,” and a second ’53 goldtop that the tech assembled as a stand-in for Old Black.

Cragg says, “I put that together around the time of [1990’s] Ragged Glory, and Neil used it on about half that album. It’s not black, but it’s got the metal pickguard and covers, the Firebird pickup, everything. It feels different, but it still kicks butt. It’s a little more powerful and a little less piercing than the original.”

For his touring acoustics, Young has been relying on a trio of Martins, all equipped with Cragg’s stereo FRAP (Flat Audio Response Pickup) transducers: the 1968 D-45 used to record much of 1972’s Harvest; “Hank,” an early Forties D-28 formerly owned by Hank Williams; and a second D-28 that Cragg tunes to what Young calls “A# modal” [low to high: A# F A# D# G A#].

“That one’s a ’62,” Cragg says of the detuned guitar. “It’s also been shot. There’s a mark on the bottom where the bullet went in.”

Cragg uses D’Angelico 80/20 Brass strings (.012–.054) on Young’s acoustics, and Dean Markley Super V’s (.010–.046) on his electrics. Picks are nylon Herco Gold Flex 50s. “Neil used those when I first started working for him, and he still does today.”

At the core of Young’s amplifier setup is a piece of gear as essential to his sound as Old Black: the 1959 tweed Fender Deluxe he’s used since the late Sixties.

A small, 15-watt unit, with just two volume knobs and a shared tone control, this amp, says Cragg, “makes all the sound. Onstage, as loud as everything gets, that’s what you hear. And it’s totally stock except for two 6L6’s in place of the original tubes. That boosts the output from 15 to 19 watts, and it kills.”

An added consequence of this rebiasing is that the amp runs extremely hot; Cragg has high-powered fans trained on the back of the Deluxe to “keep it from blowing up.”

Young derives his distortion entirely from the Deluxe’s output-tube saturation. He coaxes various gain stages from the amp using a device called the Whizzer, a custom-made switching system he and his late amp tech, Sal Trentino, developed around the time of the Rust Never Sleeps tour in 1978.

A high-tech concept housed in a rudimentary box, the Whizzer boasts four preset buttons, each corresponding to one volume/tone configuration on the Deluxe. Young accesses the presets through footswitches on his pedalboard, which, in turn, command the Whizzer to mechanically twist the Deluxe’s tone and volume controls to the programmed positions.

All four of the Whizzer’s presets dial in distorted tones on the Deluxe.

“The first one,” says Cragg, “is still clean enough that Neil can get really nice dynamics, depending on the way he picks. The second setting is the one he uses on songs like Hey Hey, My My, and the third one is really distorted.”

The final setting, which moves the Deluxe’s main volume and tone knobs to 12 and the second volume control to roughly 9.9, produces a sound that, says Cragg, “is basically a woooaaarrr type of thing.”

Cragg pads down the output from the Deluxe and feeds it into a Magnatone 280 with stereo vibrato combo amp, and a Mesa/Boogie Bass 400 head with the highs EQ’d out. The latter amplifier is run through a massive Magnatone speaker cabinet that sports “eight horns, four 10-inch speakers, four 15-inch speakers, and two 15-inch passive radiators.”

The stage rig is rounded out by a 25-watt tweed Fender Tremolux of Cragg’s that the tech rebiased to run at 40 watts, as well as a “high-powered, four-6L6” tweed Fender Twin.

Cragg uses a combination of Sennheiser 409 and Shure SM57 microphones on the amps. Young’s reverb unit, a stock, brown-tolex-covered Fender model, is stationed behind the wall of amplifiers. “We have three plates for that,” says Cragg. “We only use one at a time, but they all sound different.”

Young controls everything from an oversized, red wood pedalboard at the front of the stage.

The slanted portion features five buttons: one for each of the four Whizzer presets, as well as a reverb kill. Across the top panel are switches for, variously, a Mu-Tron octave divider; an old, AC-powered MXR analog delay; a Boss Flanger in a “blue, cast-metal box”; and an Echoplex. All are housed inside the board. There is also an effect-loop bypass and mute/tune option, as well as a switch that Cragg refers to as the “ugly button.”

“That’s a very strange thing, and Neil only hits it when he wants to go to the next level,” he says. “It activates a unit that’s just totally freaked out.” Cragg laughs. “It’s adjusted how it definitely should not be adjusted. But Neil seems to like that.”

• This interview was originally published in the October 2009 issue of Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

Bachman-Turner Overdrive return to action today with 60 Years Ago, their first new song release since the 1996 compilation Trial By Fire: Greatest & Latest.

The You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet rockers have dropped the single ahead of a tour of Canada & the USA that kicks off April 1.

The Canadian band are joined by Neil Young, who adds a characteristically raucous guitar solo that Randy Bachman describes as "incredible."

Original members Randy Bachman and Fred Turner are joined by Bachman's son, guitarist Tal Bachman, and daughter-in-law, drummer KoKo Bachman. The lineup is completed by Lance Lapointe on bass and Brent Knudsen on guitar.

"We sound better than ever. We’re playing all the hits, as well as diving deep into the album cuts, and the response from fans has been incredible. We can’t wait to tour Canada in April and May and show off this powerhouse lineup. The BTO sound is BACK!!” says Randy.

Bachman wrote the song in honor of the Manitoba scene that birthed the band.

“This song is our tribute to Winnipeg, the place where we grew up as teenagers in the '60s, a time when the city's music scene was exploding," states Randy. "It was the Liverpool of North America, a melting pot of incredible talents.

"Everyone I've talked to who spent time in Winnipeg and witnessed that musical explosion is excited to hear this song, and I hope you all enjoy it as much as we enjoyed creating it.”

Neil Young's guitar solo kicks in at 1:52, with a driving sequence of double stops. In fact, Young barely hits a single note by itself throughout the lead break, with most of the notes played against the ringing open first string.

Young opens with a pummelling 8th note rhythm, and finishes with funky, syncopated triplets.

The band's Canadian dates will see them supported by fellow Canuck rockers Headpins and April Wine. US dates will feature The Marshall Tucker Band, and support from Jefferson Starship.

Neil Young traded solos with John Mayer in a jam with Stephen Stills last year, while Mike Campbell collaborator Jason Sinay revealed what it's like to spot Young in the audience.

Bachman, meanwhile, has recently reflected on getting back his long-estranged '57 Gretsch.

Jason Sinay has had his fair share of encounters with music legends. The LA-based guitarist has wielded his guitar side by side with Bob Weir, Lucinda Williams, and Joe Bonamassa, to name a select few – and even had a two-decade tenure in Mike Campbell's Dirty Knobs – before deciding to go solo.

However, in true Hollywood fashion, Sinay recounts how he managed to rub shoulders and even jam with the Godfather of Grunge, whose repertoire he grew up on...

The guitarist had landed a highly-coveted gig in the house band of a Monday night jam run by noted session guitarist Waddy Wachtel – attended by a who's who of the industry. As Sinay puts it in an upcoming Guitar World interview, “You never knew who was going to come through.”

As for how he ended up playing with the Heart of Gold singer-songwriter, he recounts, “He wasn’t planning on playing that night. I was doing a show in LA, and we were rocking. We had a good crowd, and I looked out into the audience and saw Neil Young sitting in the middle – I froze. It’s all on video. It’s really funny. You can see where I play the wrong note, and sort of freeze.

“So, on break, I went backstage, and Waddy was like, ‘Neil Young’s here…’ and I’m like, ‘I don’t know what’s going on…’ Next thing I know, Neil comes backstage, he’s talking to me, and I’m just standing there like an idiot, totally starstruck.”

But Sinay soon had to shake the feeling, as Young invited him to play Down by the River from his 1969 album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere.

“It’s one of my favorite songs, and I was like, ‘I’d love to play Down by the River,’ and he was like, ‘Well, let’s do it, then.’ He went onstage and just schooled us. Part of it was just the way he set up the groove.

As to what made this jam memorable (aside from the obvious), Sinay is quick to point out, “He didn’t start singing until we were really in the pocket. Everyone was so excited to play with him that we were rushing, and he just held it down. We ended up playing a good hour-and-a-half set with him.”

And among the many stars who frequented the jam session, the guitarist also recalls how a Rolling Stone turned up unannounced, ready to perform a few Stones classics.

Guitar World's full interview with Jason Sinay will be published in the coming weeks.

More than 60 one-of-a-kind items, including guitars signed by Paul McCartney, Slash, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, Sheryl Crow, and Olivia Rodrigo, will be auctioned on February 2 via Julien's Auctions, with all proceeds benefiting the leading music industry charity MusiCares.

“Year after year, our partnership with Julien's Auctions helps MusiCares provide vital support to the music community. The generosity of artists and fans fuels our mission to care for those who make music possible,” comments Laura Segura, Executive Director of MusiCares.

Amongst the memorabilia, highlights include a 2023 Martin DX-2E X Series Special acoustic signed by a host of music stars, including McCartney, Crow, the Eagles, Jon Bon Jovi, and Brandi Carlile, estimated to sell for between $3,000 and $5,000, and a 2024 Fender American Vintage II 1951 Telecaster in butterscotch finish, donated and autographed by Bruce Springsteen, with bids already exceeding its $4,000 estimate.

Other noteworthy guitars include a 1995 Gibson Les Paul Studio in Wine Red finish signed by Neil Young (estimated at $2,000-$4,000), a 2024 Gibson Slash Les Paul Standard in November Burst finish autographed by Slash ($2,000-$4,000), and a 2009 Squier Avril Lavigne Telecaster signed by Olivia Rodrigo ($1,000-$2,000).

The auction will take place live at The Recording Academy in Santa Monica, California, and online through Julien's official website. For more information about this auction, visit Julien's.

In addition to its ongoing work providing critical health and welfare services to the music community, MusiCares has also launched a new initiative to provide immediate assistance to musicians and music industry professionals affected by the Los Angeles wildfires.

By now, John Mayer is an undisputed veteran who has shared the stage with some of history's greatest guitarists, including Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, and B.B. King. Another pair of legends he can now add to his list? Neil Young and Stephen Stills – who performed a 13-song set chock-full of classics at the Harvest Moon Festival in Lake Hughes, California, last weekend.

The historic set, which saw the former CSNY bandmates reunite, concluded with an encore and a surprise appearance by Mayer. Wielding what looks like his signature PRS SE Silver Sky in piano black, the Slow Dancing in a Burning Room guitarist remained on the sidelines, giving the spotlight fully (and rightfully) to Young and Stills, before delivering a searing, Mayer-flavored solo.

The daytime benefit concert, which raised funds for the Painted Turtle Camp and the Bridge School, saw the two legends kick off their set with Long May You Run, from their 1976 collaborative album of the same name.

They then moved on to Human Highway, a song initially intended for a CSNY record and as a follow-up to 1970’s Déjà Vu, which Young eventually included on 1978’s Comes a Time.

The duo also took on a rare rendition of Hung Upside Down from 1967’s Buffalo Springfield Again, a song they hadn’t played together since that year.

“The worst four words you can hear in a live performance are ‘here’s a new song,’” Stills joked as he addressed the crowd. “But this is actually a new version of an old song that took two centuries to write. It’s called Hung Upside Down.”

Their appearance at the Harvest Moon Festival marked the longest set the two had played together since the 2011 Buffalo Springfield reunion tour – although they briefly reunited last year at an autism awareness benefit in Los Angeles.

As for Rockin’ in the Free World, the song has taken on a life of its own over the decades, and bridged generations. It was recently performed by Paul McCartney, super-producer Andrew Watt, and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith at an impromptu show in the Hamptons.

Andrew Watt has built a stellar roster of collaborators, with British legend Paul McCartney firmly on that list. On August 20, the Beatles bassist joined Watt and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith on stage at the 250-capacity Stephen Talkhouse in the Hamptons, for a raucous rendition of The Beatles’ I Saw Her Standing There and Neil Young’s Rockin’ in the Free World.

McCartney joined the show mid-set, to the audience's surprise and delight. He immediately commanded the stage and led the band, which, in addition to Watt on guitar and Smith on drums, also included Saturday Night Live band member and seasoned session guitarist G.E. Smith, along with a horn section. Watt's girlfriend, singer-songwriter and model Charlotte Lawrence, also joined McCartney on vocals during Rockin' in the Free World.

Prior to this impromptu performance, McCartney had guested on the Watt-produced Rolling Stones album Hackney Diamonds, playing bass on the track Bite My Head Off.

In a New York Times profile, the producer also revealed that he had written an as-yet-unreleased song with McCartney, which came about over a cup of tea.

“He’s very resourceful,” McCartney said. “I said, ‘I’d like to show you something on guitar, but I haven’t got my guitar with me. And he said, ‘I’ve got a guitar.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, but I’m left-handed.’ He said, ‘Well, I’ve got a left-handed guitar.’”

After a jamming session, McCartney returned to the studio with lyrics and a vocal line. “Suddenly, we had a song. From a cup of tea to a song. Doesn’t it sound easy?”

Watt recently worked on Iggy Pop's 19th studio album, Every Loser, Pearl Jam's Dark Matter, Lana Del Rey and Quavo’s Tough, Quavo and Lenny Kravitz’s Fly, Post Malone’s latest album AUSTIN, The Kid LAROI’s single Forever and Again, and BTS' Jungkook’s Seven.

This past week, he was revealed as the producer behind the fast-rising, country-tinged Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars duet, Die with a Smile.

It's no secret that Pearl Jam and Neil Young have mutual love and respect for each other's work. 

Young has previously referred to Pearl Jam as “old souls – they've been around. Musically there's youthful energy, but without the sound of inexperience” in a 1995 Guitar World interview. In 1992, Pearl Jam included Rockin' in the Free World in their setlist and also supported Young on his 1993 North American tour. 

The culmination of their relationship, however, was the moment Young recruited the band to record on his 1995 album, Mirror Ball. In a new interview on the Broken Record Podcast, Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament recall the "nerve-wracking” but equally “joyful” recording sessions. 

“He called me last summer,” says Ament. “He just goes, ‘Man, your guys’ playing on this is so great. And I think I moved so fast from record to record, I don't really get a chance to listen back.’

“‘But I'm really listening to how you guys chose to play, and I appreciate you so much. I hope we get to do it again.’ And of course, you're like, ‘Oh, can we please do that again, because we'll give you more space and will be so much better than we were in 1995.’”

Gossard also recalls how fast Young worked during those sessions, and how they all worked hard trying to keep up with him. “He plays the song once for us. We learn the chords and he's like, ‘Okay, we're gonna record it,’ and then you record it,” he reflects. “We're just trying to remember the chords.”

Despite largely utilizing three-chord songs, the magic of Young's songwriting influenced both Gossard and Ament, and increased their admiration for the Godfather of Grunge. 

As Gossard remarks, “It's just like playing three chords. There's nothing more satisfying than having transcendence in three chords, where it's not all the years of studying music, and it's not any sort of science or anything that is rigor. It's just literally joyful play, with three notes.”

Of course, with the pressures of working to Young's pace, the sessions weren't completely stressless: Ament mentions how the anxiety and pressure of playing with one of his idols also got the better of him. 

“It was four days of recording the Neil songs. I had the flu for two days. So it might have just been like pushing down the pressure and the anxiety. You're in the studio with one of your favorite, if not your favorite artist ever, and not wanting to let him down and let the whole session down.”

“None of us are studio musicians. I mean, there's people that can come in and chart things out in two seconds, like play by ear,” Gossard explains. “You're kind of trying to find the basic chords and then quickly find something that helps those chords, and it was nerve-wracking for me.”

Despite the stress, both Gossard and Ament agree the experience was one of their favorite things they have ever done. As Ament puts it, “It felt like a dream.”

In 1975, Lou Reed crafted what can be best described as a very avant-garde double album. Metal Machine Music, his fifth studio album, featured no songs and structured compositions. Instead, Reed opted for modulated feedback, white noise, and noise music guitar effects. Reed's reasoning? “I was trying to do the ultimate guitar solo.”

“I didn't want to be locked into a particular drum beat, or pattern or a particular key or beat that was the idea. Just guitars, guitars, guitars,” said Reed in a 2013 interview with The Quietus. 

The actual recording process involved Reed, his guitars, amps, a couple of microphones, and a tape machine. He experimented with different settings and guitar placements, which he then mixed into four 16-ish minute tracks.

“I used to live with my amps. It's a good title for something. I had a loft in the garment district and would record at 5am in the morning when no one was around. I would set the guitars up to feedback and then the two waves of sound would hit each other causing a new sound and then another and then another... 

“Across these, I played various melodies and manipulated the speed they were recorded at. I thought of it as energy music and a continuation of my work with The Velvet Underground.”

While it's widely speculated Reed created this album to get out of his record contract with RCA Records, Reed revealed in a 2007 Pitchfork interview: “The myth is sort of better than the truth. The myth is that I made it to get out of a recording contract.

“OK, but the truth is that I wouldn’t do that because I wouldn’t want you to buy a record that I didn’t really like, that I was just trying to do a legal thing with. I wouldn’t do something like that. The truth is that I really, really, really loved it.”

The record label took the record off the market after three weeks. However, over time, the unlikely record became a source of inspiration for many left-field artists. 

Sonic Youth claimed to have been inspired by the album. Neil Young put out Arc in 1991, which consisted of 35 minutes of edited feedback, while Sonic Youth also put out their own "cover" of Reed's album under the title Silver Session (For Jason Knuth) in 1998. 

Glenn Branca went as far as to say, “I think Metal Machine Music is one of the great classics of late-20th century music. Certainly, if Lou Reed had decided to pursue a career as a serious composer, he would probably be one of the best composers in the world today.”

Loud Reed's ultimate guitar solo also got the live treatment in March 2002. It was performed in Berlin, alongside the 10-member German avant-garde classical ensemble Zeitkratzer, in an arrangement by the contemporary composer Ulrich Kreiger. 

In a news conference celebrating this moment, Reed said: “I find it very, very thrilling. I've always loved Metal Machine Music," Reed said during a news conference in Berlin. “I think, after 27 years, it's time to let some other people into it.”

The Power of the Heart, a tribute album dedicated to Lou Reed, was recently released on Record Store Day (April 20). The names featured in the album include Joan Jett, Rickie Lee Jones, Angel Olsen, The Afghan Whigs and Keith Richards.

Unlike many previous Lou Reed tribute albums, which focused mainly on Reed's work with The Velvet Underground, The Power of the Heart pays homage to Reed's solo career.

St. Vincent's discography is full of moments where her distinct guitar playing shines. However, on some tracks from new album All Born Screaming, the artist goes back to basics and adopts a less is more approach to guitar solos.

“I take a kind of solo in the chorus that reminds me of listening to Butthole Surfers in Dallas in 1997,” she says when talking about her track Flea in a new interview with Total Guitar.

“I was going for a sound where it’s like… wrong? Like, ‘Is this person virtuosic, or do they totally suck?’ That’s kind of where I live. Like, one of the great guitar solos, Neil Young’s Down By The River is, what, one note? So it’s just in the hands of the beholder, I think.” She laughs: “That’s not an expression!”

This doesn't mean that the album is short of solos, however. In So Many Planets, St Vincent rips a solo that the artist describes as her “love letter to second-wave ska and 2 Tone Records.

“I thought I was totally aping The Specials’ Man At C&A, and then I went back and listened to it and realised, ‘Oh, no I wasn’t.’ Usually when you reference things, you’re only really referencing your memory of the feeling that you had when you last heard something, you’re not literally referencing it.”

In a 2014 interview with Salon, St Vincent talked about her approach to crafting each song's guitar parts: “In the same way that I think that I really make pop music, I don't think of it as pushing the guitar lexicon. I'm thinking, 'How do I make something that's interesting to my ears?'

“And I have some restless ears, and I now have a fractured attention span because I'm like living in the modern world. I have a more fractured attention span than ever, so I'm, like, how do I make this sound interesting to myself. I have to trust that if this sounds cool to me, it might sound cool to somebody else.”

Joe Satriani has been asked what defines shred – and his answer probably isn’t what you think it would be. 

Anything from the repertoire of Steve Vai (who Satch has just collaborated with on a new single) would have been an obvious answer, but Satriani isn’t that predictable. Instead, he’s surprisingly cited Neil Young’s Cinnamon Girl as a song that “embodies the attitude of shred”. 

“Part of the performance has to challenge the norm,” he told YouTube channel Master of Shred. “I remember hearing Neil Young play the solo for Cinnamon Girl. It's one note but it's a shred because of that attitude that goes into it.  

“He probably thought you'd be expecting something that sounds like Jimmy Page and he goes, 'No, I'm gonna play this one note... and you're gonna love it,' and that embodies the spirit of shred. 

“It's certainly not what Charles Caswell [of Berried Alive] and Jason Richardson are doing,” he adds, “but I think that if they don't put that [attitude] into their shredding it's just demonstrative, and that's a sin of performance.  

“The audience knows if you're just demonstrating something that's rehearsed, or are you connecting with them by saying, 'Check this out, I'm gonna do something that's gonna blow your mind and yeah, it's a bit edgy.'” 

The guitarist is fresh from touring with the original G3 lineup and is in the middle of a co-headline tour with Steve Vai. Yet, while many associate shred excellence with lightning-fast playing, Satriani has offered an alternative perspective. 

“It's not the quantity that defines the shred,” he says. “Context is important; what are the chords behind the solo, what are the bass notes, what's the groove [and] how is that all fitting in and being this foundation for the solo? If you don't take this into account, you're just demonstrating.

“Tom Morello in Rage Against the Machine in that context is total shredding. He could have played [like] Neil Young or Slash, but he said, 'No, I'm gonna play this and you're gonna like it.'” 

Following his tour with Steve Vai, Satriani will be teaming up with Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony, and Jason Bonham to play some Van Halen songs together as part of the Best of All Worlds tour this summer. 

In a previously released portion of his Master of Shred interview, Satriani also revealed he’s building a new guitar amp specifically designed to capture Eddie Van Halen’s guitar tone. 

It’s no surprise that Micah Nelson grew up as a free thinker, given his dad is country renegade Willie Nelson. What’s more, he’s close friends with the ultimate anti-hero of guitar, Neil Young – and now, he’s a member of his iconic band, Crazy Horse.

What led the youngest of the Nelson clan to set aside his utterly abstract yet still guitar-driven project, Particle Kid, and take on the legendary parts of Danny Witten, Nils Lofgren, and Frank ‘Poncho’ Sampedro?

“In January of 2023, Neil called and asked if I’d like to join Crazy Horse,” Nelson tells Guitar World. “I was born in the Year of the Horse, so of course I said ‘yes!’ After I agreed, the first thing I thought was, ‘I’m gonna need a new amp.’ I wasn't sure what Neil wanted – I didn't know if he wanted me to be Nils, Poncho or Danny.”

The answer was simple: Young advised Nelson to “be true to the music”. Which makes sense, as the proverbial godfather of grunge has spent well over 50 years doing just that. “My approach has always been to complement whatever the music needs,” Nelson says. “But Neil has always challenged me to push myself beyond the norm in many situations, which became a big thing.”

One look at Willie Nelson’s battered Martin N-20 acoustic, Trigger, explains all you need to know about the rustic wisdom the elder musician has imparted to his children. Asked how he’s injected that soothsaying into his career, Micah says: “I’m sure I could write a song that sounds like Willie Nelson or Neil Young.

“I could deliberately be like, ‘I’m gonna rip off Neil Young right now,’ just like he ripped off Bob Dylan, and like my dad ripped off Django. I could do that all day, and there’s nothing wrong with that.’”

But he doesn’t believe that’s what would be going on. “We’re just borrowing timeless things and being passed down,” he argues. “So I’ll keep digging into similar patterns, and I’ll keep exploring myself. That's just part of being fractal. It’s all a part of me. My roots and lineage will remain, but where I take that remains to be seen.”

After you joined Crazy Horse, what sort of directive did Neil give you? 

“He told me to stick to the records, which is great because it’s like being true to my heartbeat. Most of Crazy Horse has a groove and a feeling that’s so familiar. I’ve been filling the part of Danny, who was such a unique player. He and Neil invented grunge music.

“And on many of those early songs, many people think it’s Neil soloing, but it’s Danny. At first I thought I’d be covering more of Nils’s stuff, but that ultimately wasn’t the case.”

And that's because Nils ended up on tour with Neil, I assume. How did that shake out?

“Nils suddenly freed up to play with us because Bruce Springsteen – his regular gig – got sick. I ended up switching back and forth from guitar to piano. But it was fun because when we did the stuff from Tonight’s the Night, I was like, ‘Okay, cool. I can be Danny now.’ 

“I also had to focus on the Ben Keith stuff. That had me saying, ‘Great, now I have to do more homework and learn how to be another fucking irreplaceable genius!’”

What’s your rig like while on tour with Neil?

“Ted Kornblum, who runs Magnatone amps, has been very supportive of me. I’m a big fan of their Twilighter Stereo amps, and I use those a lot. I’ve used them in Particle Kid and I love the sound. I decided to use that amp.

“I was worried it was going to be too much – but Neil’s little Fender Deluxe is loud as fuck. That thing is tiny but mighty, and we have outstanding balance.”

And how about guitars?

“Poncho gave me a slide which worked great with my Fender Jazzmaster. I have the J Mascis signature model and I love it. There are songs like Everybody Knows This is Nowhere where I use my Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins. It has great P-90 pickups that are custom-fitted for that guitar, and those also sound great on another of my favorite Neil songs, Running Dry (Requiem for the Rockets).”

I've also seen you out there with a Tele and a Melody Maker.

“Oh, yeah. I also have my Telecaster, which I use as a backup if I break any strings. It’s a relic version based on a ’54 Fender made by Nash with Lawler pickups. It’s a great-sounding guitar, and I sometimes like to put that in drop D tuning on songs like Cinnamon Girl.

“That aside, there’s Gandalf, which is my gray Gibson Melody Maker. It’s so light that it feels like a piece of driftwood. But the sound is fantastic, and it has this Bigsby knockoff that I installed myself. It’s been all over the world with me.”

Your dad must have taught you a lot; what have you learned from Neil?

“There are universal, timeless elements to certain types of music, you know? Neil’s is certainly noisier and thrasher than my dad’s. He’s so melodic; he has such a melodic sense.

“If you listen to Neil, there’s stuff that’s just fucking raging and so distorted. But despite that, the melodies are so beautiful. Neil and my dad both showed me that melodies are important and that being able to sing along to them is essential.

“I’ve always been drawn to melody and melodic sense. Neil’s phrasing is so excellent, but it’s weird – it's fucking bizarre and abstract. I see him as an expressionistic painter with the guitar. Even when he’s doing just a little, he’s still saying so much.

“If you have a great song, you can strip away all the sound effects, focus on the melody, and still make something utterly engaging. That’s the foundation of the guitar; it's the blood and muscle of the thing.”

And how do you view your dad’s playing? 

“A lot of emotion lives within my dad’s playing. At a certain point, I saw that and found that I wanted to explore that. It might sound simple, but the emotion lives within the space he creates. Early on, I constantly experimented with sounds in my songwriting and got excited. And to a certain extent I still am.

“But I also realized that with space, if you have melody, it’s easier to connect. My dad was born in the ‘30s and came up in the ‘40s and ‘50s. He was deeply into Django Reinhardt and Roy Rogers, guys like that.”

Do you see a lot of your dad’s style within your own?

“I grew up in the ‘90s – I loved Sonic Youth and weird movies by David Lynch and Tim Burton. We come from different cultural backgrounds, so the way I go about interpreting those same root elements is different. 

“But I listened to all the stuff my dad did, and I borrowed from that, too. Neither of us are the first to do it like that – but like my dad, I’ve interpreted it in my way, seen it through my lens of life, and put a twist on it.”

Having said that, where do you plan to take your guitar playing in the future?

“It’s hard to transcend; it’s hard to have emotion come through, and it’s hard to hear your soul. But that’s what I’m trying to get to: the source of my soul. Any time I love an artist, I will listen to all they do and learn what they love. That’s how I understand where they come from.”

Does that help you understand where you come from and where you’re going?

“Absolutely. I could take apart every one of my songs and be like, ‘Here’s a little Radiohead,’ and, ‘There’s a bit of Animal Collective.’ But I can also pick them apart and say, ‘There’s some Bob Dylan.’ 

“All the influences are there, and that’s the fun of what makes things what they are. Man, it’s just fun to explore. That type of thing is endless and will never stop, no matter what I’ve done or what I’m doing.”

On Thanksgiving Day (November 23), electric guitar hero Neil Young posted a video titled Stand for Peace, which features him playing The Star-Spangled Banner solo.

Wielding his iconic, much-modded and road-worn 1953 Gibson Les Paul – known as Old Black – Young delivers a very Young-ian rendition of the US national anthem that will also bring to mind Jimi Hendrix's gloriously freewheeling Woodstock rendition of the same tune.

By Young-ian, we mean that the tone of this interpretation is absolutely brutal – getting progressively more so as it goes on. By the time Young reaches the song's conclusion, the drive and nastiness is such that you'd think that the circuitry of his guitar amps is actively cooking. 

As Young's longtime tech, Larry Cragg, told Guitar World in a 2009 interview, that scenario is not at all farfetched. 

The core of Young's guitar amp setup is a 1959 tweed Fender Deluxe. Originally a 15-watt unit, it was hot-rodded with two 6L6s in place of its original tubes. That boosts the output from 15 to 19 watts, and makes the Deluxe run so hot that Cragg typically has high-powered fans running behind the amp at all times to “keep it from blowing up.”

Though it's decidedly lacking in close-ups of Young himself, the video does feature a tasty shot of the guitarist's pedalboard, which is almost as famous as Old Black.

Over-sized, made of red wood, and just as worn-through as much of Young's other gear, the pedalboard has – among other unique features – something called an “ugly button.”

“That’s a very strange thing, and Neil only hits it when he wants to go to the next level,” Cragg told Guitar World in 2009. “It activates a unit that’s just totally freaked out. It’s adjusted how it definitely should not be adjusted. But Neil seems to like that.”

Old Black, too, is a unique beast that – aside from a number of other tweaks – features a Firebird pickup at the bridge.

“Originally there was a P-90 in there,” Cragg said in 2009. “But in the early Seventies the guitar was lost, and when Neil recovered it a few years later the bridge pickup was gone. He put a Gretsch DeArmond in there for a while, but when I came onboard I replaced that with the Firebird, which has been there ever since. 

“Everyone calls it a mini humbucker, but it’s not. It’s a humbucker, and it’s very microphonic – you can speak into it. It’s really piercing and high and a big part of his sound.”

An electric guitar given to musician Jack Nitzsche by Neil Young to play during the 1971 Harvest sessions is going up for auction this month, via Bonhams.

The sale takes place March 21-31 and includes a late-'50s Kay Sizzler featuring a grey speckle finish, maple fingerboard and a single pickup, alongside two control knobs and a distinctive angular scratchplate. Also included in the lot is a 1936 Epiphone Electar Zephyr amplifier purchased at the same time. However, the story behind the two items is perhaps the best part.

Nitzsche was a producer, writer and musician, who was part of LA's fabled Wrecking Crew. He first worked with Young in Buffalo Springfield and then co-produced Young’s eponymous 1968 debut and contributed to its follow-up, the enormously successful After The Gold Rush. Having done so, he probably thought that Young knew his strengths by the time they came to record Harvest in 1971.

Young had hired a group of country session pros that he dubbed The Stray Gators for the record and brought in Nitzche to play piano. The electric sessions for the album took place that September in a barn at Young’s ranch. It was in this period, during a group outing to a guitar shop, that Young picked up the Kay.

The incident is noted by Young’s biographer Jimmy McDonough in his exhaustive 2002 book, Shakey:

“Poking around an instrument shop, Young caught Nitzsche eyeing a vintage 1936 Epiphone amp and an old Kay guitar,” writes McDonough.

“Young bought them for Jack on the spot and, after overhearing Nitzsche fumble around with an ancient blues lick he’d copped from a Howlin’ Wolf record, Neil soon appeared with [album track] Are You Ready for the Country?”

At the time Nitzsche noted the gift in his diary, but made no other mention of it. Amusingly, it seems Young had a bigger scheme in mind.

Five days later, during the recording of Are You Ready For The Country?, Nitzsche was put on the spot and asked to play slide guitar, using the Kay. 

This would have come as a surprise to him for two reasons: 1) expert pedal steel player Ben Keith was already at the sessions and 2) Nitzsche had zero experience playing slide. Neither of these things seems to have bothered Young.

“Much to Nitzsche's embarrassment,” notes McDonough, “he was soon sitting amid bales of hay accompanying Young on a Kay guitar he barely knew how to play.” 

Photographer Joel Bernstein captured the moment and the image was then chosen to adorn the album's back cover. The story represents an amusing little snapshot of Neil Young’s creative dynamism and proof of the adage that ’certain guitars just have songs in them’.

Nitzche was highly experienced and a known force by the time he came to work with Neil Young on Harvest. However, Young still found a way to make the seasoned pro perform like it was his first time – and in a way that sounded meaningful on tape. Nitzsche, meanwhile, may not have been ready for the country, but listening to the results, he certainly styles it out.

Nitzsche’s Kay Sizzler and Epiphone Electar Zephyr amplifier are on sale March 21-31, 2023. Head to Bonham's for more information on the auction.

Neil Young and Crazy Horse have announced a new studio album, World Record.

Recorded live and mixed to analog tape at Malibu’s Shangri-La recording studio, the new LP will arrive via Reprise Records on November 18. Both Young and Rick Rubin share production credits.

Love Earth, the album’s first single, is a heartwarming downtempo number, crafted with melodic piano chords, some subtle slide guitar playing and a few electric guitar leads, to boot. Check it out below.

Speaking on his virtual daily newspaper, the Times Contrarian, Young says of World Record: “Real magic lasts and we think we have it.”

In terms of formats available, World Record will be released on vinyl as a three-sided double album with an etching on side four, and in both cassette and double CD versions. A limited-edition version of the album pressed on clear vinyl will also be available via Young’s webstore.

All purchases made via Young’s webstore will come with free hi-res digital audio downloads, and the album will also be available on most major DSPs.

Notably, Love Earth isn’t on Spotify, and it’s almost certain the rest of World Record won’t appear on the streaming platform either, following the removal of Young’s catalog from it earlier this year after a dispute over Covid misinformation.

Take a look at World Record's track list below. 

1. Love Earth
2. Overhead
3. I Walk With You (Earth Ringtone)
4. This Old Planet (Changing Days)
5. The World (Is In Trouble Now)
6. Break The Chain
7. The Long Day Before
8. Walkin’ On The Road (To The Future)
9. The Wonder Won’t Wait
10. Chevrolet
11. This Old Planet Reprise

Earlier this year, Neil Young and Crazy Horse released Toast, an album recorded in 2001 that was reportedly too dark to put out at the time.

Neil Young has finally released his (latest) lost album with Crazy Horse, Toast, more than 20 years after it was recorded – and you can hear its opening track, Quit, below.

The songwriter is famed for his prolific output and his need to chop and change between various projects and bands, which is partly why it’s taken Toast so long to see the light of day. But Toast was an album that Young once wrote “was so sad that I couldn’t put it out. I just skipped it and went on to do another album in its place. I couldn’t handle it at that time.”

The collection was recorded in San Francisco’s studios of the same name in 2001. Young was reportedly dealing with a rocky patch in his relationship with his second wife Pegi, whom he’d been with since 1974. The couple would eventually patch things up, before finally divorcing in 2014.

The studio was located in a run-down area of the city (prior to its 00s/10s uber-gentrification) and Young, uncharacteristically, arrived with little in the way of material.  

As such, he reportedly took to writing in the middle of the studio floor, while the Crazy Horse members were left to occupy themselves amid the skeletal surroundings between sporadic recording sessions.

“Eventually I gave up and abandoned the album,” Young has said. “I was not happy with it, or maybe I was just generally unhappy. I don’t know. It was a very desolate album, very sad and unanswered.”

The good news about this sad collection, is that back in the arms of Crazy Horse following 2019’s Colorado and 2021’s Barn, Young has deemed the time right to release it. 

The songwriter has always done an especially fine line in the plaintive, but Toast is a collection of expertly-hewn exercises in self-doubt, bitterness and mid-tempo moodiness that somehow all feels very 2022. We especially enjoy the fine, near-blues-y lead work that runs throughout. 

Toast is out today, so if you like the sound of Quit, head over to Neil Young Archives  to purchase or find links to stream the full album.

Neil Young has announced the release of Noise and Flowers, a live album recorded during a nine-date 2019 tour with Promise of the Real. 

The dates captured on Noise And Flowers represent a particularly poignant set of gigs for Young, as the tour commenced less than two weeks after the passing of Elliot Roberts, his friend, manager and confidante of 50 years.

“Never one to think about himself, he put everyone else first,” Young wrote in June 2019, when Roberts died. “That’s what he did for me for over 50 years of friendship love and laughter, managing my life, protecting our art in the business of music. That’s what he did… Elliot Roberts was the greatest manager of all time.”

The tour became a tribute to Roberts, with Young reportedly taping a picture of his friend to his road case so that he could see him as he performed. 

Given their long-standing relationship, the setlist was appropriately wide-ranging and drew on everything from Helpless and Rockin’ in the Free World, through to underrated '70s-era songs like On the Beach and '90s material, including Throw Your Hatred Down and From Hank to Hendrix. The latter has been selected as the live album’s first single, which you can hear above.

“Playing in his memory [made it] one of the most special tours ever,” says Young in the Noise and Flowers notes. “We hit the road and took his great spirit with us into every song. This music belongs to no one. It’s in the air. Every note was played for music’s great friend, Elliot.”

Young’s performances on Noise and Flowers were backed by Promise of the Real – featuring Willie Nelson’s sons Micah and Lukas Nelson – who have been Young’s backing band since 2015. The record is being released as part of Young’s ongoing Archives Performance Series, marking the 21st addition to the catalog.

Noise And Flowers is released August 5, on CD, vinyl and as a Blu-Ray concert film. It is available to pre-order at Neil Young.

Neil Young’s never-before-released album Toast, which was recorded and shelved over two decades ago, will finally see the light of day later this year.

Recorded with the help of Young’s Crazy Horse collaborators, Toast was recorded in San Francisco’s Toast Studios way back in 2001, but was never released. In his online virtual newspaper The Times Contrarian, Young commented that Toast “was so sad I couldn’t put it out”.

However, after more than 20 years, Toast will be getting an official release on July 8 via Reprise Records.

To usher in the news, Young has dropped Standing in the Light of Love – a track that he described as being “sort of like a Deep Purple hit”, and for good reason.

You can check out the track – with all its swashbuckling six-string action and noticeable Smoke on the Water-esque flavor – in the video below.

Standing in the Light of Love will be joined on the Toast tracklist by three never-before-released songs, as well as the original version of Goin’ Home, which was re-recorded with the help of Booker T. & The MG's for inclusion on Young’s 2022 effort, Are You Passionate?

Speaking about Toast, Young commented, “The music of Toast is about a relationship. There is a time in many relationships that go bad, a time long before the breakup, where it dawns on one of the people, maybe both, that it's over. This was that time.

“The sound is murky and dark, but not in a bad way,” he continued. “Fat. From the first note, you can feel the sadness that permeates the recording.

“It must be said that here Crazy Horse shows a depth never seen or heard before. The greatest group I have ever met. This is a pinnacle. Where they let me go, where they took me, was unbelievable.”

The tracklist for Toast can be found below.

1. Quit
2. Standing In the Light of Love
3. Goin’ Home
4. Timberline
5. Gateway of Love
6. How Ya Doin’?
7. Boom Boom Boom

• Toast is available to preorder now via Reprise Records ahead of its July 8 release. 

Neil Young is one of those electric guitar players whose tone is instantly identifiable. Dark, aggressive, and always in or near the red, it's a sound that helped launch grunge, and inspired countless guitarists who came after him.

In this clip from Young's recent Apple Music 1 interview – premiered today exclusively at Guitar World – the rock icon discusses the inner workings of that one-of-a-kind guitar sound, and how some trusty friends – guitar tech Larry Cragg and former amp tech Sal Trentino – helped him dial it in.

The clip is part of a rare Young video interview with host Zane Lowe – the rest of which is due to air later today – ahead of the release of Young's new album, Barn. 

“It’s the sound,” says Young. “It’s what's happening. When I play my sound, it's just me with an instrument that was set up by Larry Cragg, who's a genius. Through amplifiers that were set up by Larry Cragg, and Sal Trentino, who is another genius who is not with us anymore, but truly a genius. He was a tube guru.” 

While Young is known for his off-the-cuff playing style, he displays a surprisingly forensic approach to crafting his tones with the pair of techs, at one point discussing the lengths they’d go to in order to locate the right tubes for his beloved Fender Tweed Deluxe.

“Between Larry and Sal, we would get the Deluxe out and we have a pile of tubes that are contenders for the Deluxe,” says Young. “There'd be like 600 tubes. And we just go through them, try a couple of 6L6s, try another couple. Be like, ‘Okay, these are pretty good’ [and we’ll] categorize all the tubes… Pretty soon you've got three sets of tubes that sound like God, out of 80 tubes. 

“So Larry and Sal were great at that. And when I did Barn, Larry was back with me. There's so much involved and so many people to make the sound. That the sound is really the life of all the music and all the people that I've known.”

Young’s new album with Crazy Horse, Barn, is due for release this Friday, December 10. 

Head to Apple Music 1 from 1 p.m EST/ 10 a.m PST today (December 8) to check out Lowe’s full interview with Neil Young.

The days might be getting shorter, but our weekly list of unmissable guitar-driven new releases sure isn’t. 

This week, we’ve got some whammy bar magic from none other than Limp Bizkit's Wes Borland, a nostalgic rocker from Neil Young & Crazy Horse, an anarchic genre-fusing bop from Nova Twins, another helping of tough dual-guitar magic from Smith/Kotzen, and a whole lot more.

So take a look, 2021 sure isn't done producing awesome new music yet.

Nova Twins – Antagonist

Hotly tipped by Tom Morello and featured artists in Fender’s recent Player Plus launch, Nova Twins are rapidly becoming one of the UK’s most exciting riff-rock exports.

Tracks like Antagonist are precisely why: not content with packing one of the biggest riffs of the year, it fuses punk aggression with nu-metal hooks and deft electronic touches for a molotov cocktail aimed at any modern guitar music that plays things a little too safe.

The duo’s pedalboards remain a closely guarded secret, so we may never know what exactly is producing the anarchic dirt that’s coating Amy Love’s serrated riffs here, but there’s more to Antagonist than pure grit. The attitude and energy are palpable, amplified to arena levels by a huge production. All of which seems appropriate given the duo’s recent signing to Marshall Records, surely the loudest record label on the planet. (MAB)

Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Heading West

Neil Young’s documented those who set out for a better life in distant lands in his songs before, from more than one perspective too. 

The reverence Young showed for the six gun-carrying Western Hero (from 1994’s Sleeps with Angels) stands alongside the earnest documentation of the atrocities of the Spanish conquistadors on Cortez the Killer, which – even if it’s not without its flaws – remains one of Young’s most towering achievements. 

The stakes aren’t anywhere near as high in Heading West, which tells the tale of Young’s own teenage journey West, to Winnipeg, Canada from Ontario after his parents’ divorce. Despite the fact that it’s well-trodden territory, or maybe because of it, the song – the second single from his upcoming album, Barn – will be as comforting and warm to Young fans as a warm cup of coffee on a clear, crisp fall Sunday morning.

For all of his many collaborations, there’s no greater home for Young’s gnarled, overdriven riffing than the ramshackle but always faithful accompaniment of Crazy Horse’s long-tenured rhythm section – bassist Billy Talbot and drummer Ralph Molina.

There are no extended lead guitar excursions here, no feedback-soaked left turns – heck, there isn’t even a solo to be found at all. Setting his loose, limber and deep-in-the-red rhythm work against Nils Lofgren’s saloon piano though, Young paints a picture that both bears the weight of decades of history, but is still completely timeless. It’s a skill that few other songwriters possess. (JM)

Smith/Kotzen – Better Days 

It’s only been eight months since Iron Maiden’s Adrian Smith and The Winery Dogs’ Richie Kotzen joined forces for their scorching self-titled debut studio album, though the pair are already back with new music following the surprise announcement they’ll be releasing a four-track EP later this month.

Better Days – the effort’s title track – bursts out the gate with some infectious riffing, and soon gives way to a boatload of awe-inspiring fretboard navigation. Kotzen is on top form with his rapid-fire fingerpicking-driven runs, as is Smith, who offers up a monstrously melodic interlude around the halfway mark.

The pierce de resistance is undeniably the back-and-forth exchange that occurs between the two in the latter half of the track, with the guitarists going toe-to-toe with each other by way of some breathless licks and scale runs.

If Better Days has whetted your appetite, do not fear: the rest of the EP is only three weeks away. (MO)

Limp Bizkit – Out Of Style

It’s been 10 long years, but Limp Bizkit are back, and they’re back swinging. Out of Style – the opener of the nu-metal juggernaut’s new and totally inaccurately titled new album Still Sucks – contains possibly one of the greatest guitar riffs ever laid down on record by body paint-happy six-string slinger Wes Borland.

Upon frontman Fred Durst’s instruction to “hit it!”, the guitarist calls upon his tried and tested whammy bar skills for one of the most inventive electric guitar riffs we’ve heard in quite some time.

But reminding us that they’re also underrated masters of dynamics, the verse sections see drummer John Otto and bassist Sam Rivers drop out of the mix temporarily, making way for a series of crystalline-sounding clean guitar licks to set the stage for the chaotic riff’s reprise a few seconds later. What a return for one of nu-metal’s biggest names. (SR)

Porcupine Tree – Harridan

Given Steven Wilson’s assertion that “rock music – particularly the guitar – hasn’t really managed to reinvent itself” at the start of the year, the last thing we expected was new Porcupine Tree material to close out 2021.

Floydian in its progressive scope, Harridan is the first new material from the band in 12 years, and it sounds as if they haven’t skipped a beat.

While Wilson’s clean electric and acoustic rhythms take a more textural role for the song’s first half, he drops a colossal, almost boneheaded pentatonic riff partway through, contrasted with heavily effected electrics.

There are some beautiful phased lines, and an emotive acoustic outro to see out the eight-minute run time, which leaves no sonic tone left unturned. All told, it’s a breathtaking comeback. (MAB)

Hana Vu – Gutter

LA-based singer/songwriter/guitarist Hana Vu is set to release Public Storage – her latest album, and first for Ghostly International Records – tomorrow, November 5.

The album’s final single is Gutter, a serrated, magical piece of guitar-pop that glides blissfully thanks to the force of multiple orchestras – an orchestra of guitars and, well, a regular old orchestra.

The riffs and bend-heavy leads toward the song’s end are brawny, chiseled and refined, and stand in perfect contrast to the dissonant buzz of guitar feedback that hums omnipresently for the song’s full duration.

A lot of folks, including us, are already starting to assemble their best-of-2021 lists. Something tells us we’ll need to leave some room for Public Storage after we hear it tomorrow. (JM)

Ad Infinitum – Inferno

Symphonic metallers Ad Infinitum last week released their second full-length album, Chapter II – Legacy, and its third track, Inferno, plays host to some immense guitar work from Adrian Thessenvitz. From the delicate acoustic guitar arpeggios of the intro to the djenty electric guitar riffs to the slide-driven solos, Thessenvitz here establishes himself as a guitarist to watch in the symphonic metal scene.

He explains: “That's what I love about Ad Infinitum's second album in general: We combined all our strengths, the sounds we like and our favorite genres. And this song is, from a guitarist's point of view, the most versatile and most interesting tune.” (SR)

 Kris Barras Band – My Parade 

Kris Barras and his band recently announced their fourth studio album, Death Valley Paradise, and shared their first new music since 2019’s Light It Up in the form of My Parade – a four-minute thrill ride that is equal parts sway-inducing guitar work and infectious oversized vocal hooks.

It’s a no-frills, rock ‘n’ roll-fueled “call-to-arms” for which Barras has employed an entirely new rhythm section featuring drummer Billy Hammett and bassist Kelpie Mackenzie, who have helped contribute to the band’s “heavier and more angsty” sonic direction. 

With all the infectious aggression and authoritative playing you’d expect from a former cage fighter, Barras serves up a tantalizing teaser of the upcoming album, which he assembled after the pandemic pushed him to the point of “anything goes”. 

There are some storming powerchords, swampy licks, wailing bends and just about everything you’d want from a motivational get-up-and-go anthem. A worthy addition to any pre-weekend playlist. (MO)

Venom Prison – Judges of the Underworld

Rapidly ascending UK quintet Venom Prison have just released Judges of the Underworld, the cacophonous debut single from their forthcoming fourth studio album, Erebos.

A metalcore masterclass, the track sees guitarists Ash Gray and Ben Thomas serve up a clutch of rapid-fire alternate picked riffs and squealing pinch harmonics, which underpin the frenetic drum work of Joe Bills and guttural vocals of frontwoman Larissa Stupar.

There's also a killer dueling guitar moment at the 2:47 mark, which introduces a refreshing sense of melody to what's an otherwise crushing mosh pit spinner. Whether you're a fan of astonishingly heavy breakdowns or guitar solos, this track has something for you. (SR)

A mere day after Neil Young announced he was once again teaming up with his trusty backing band Crazy Horse for a new album, Barn, the rock ‘n’ roll veteran has now shared the record’s lead single, Song Of The Seasons.

The track is the first to be lifted from the upcoming follow-up to Young’s 2019 effort, Colorado, and is also set to be Barn’s album opener.

Young, with the help of his Crazy Horse compadres – bass guitar player Billy Talbot, drummer Ralph Molina and guitarist Nils Lofgren – delivers the folk rock goodness he's legendary for on the song, which you can check out below.

An emotive introduction, conjured up by way of some sweet harmonica melodies, Young’s delicate six-string strums and Lofgren’s subtle accordion flourishes, kicks off proceedings, with the band’s stripped-back instrumentation swelling and swarming as the track gallops to its finale.

Of the track, Young commented (via the Neil Young Archives), “This is the first track of Barn, our new album with Crazy Horse. It’s the oldest song on the record, written about this time last year.”

Discussing the album’s conception in an earlier post published in June, Young wrote, “These are new times, with new songs and feelings after what our world has been through and continues to face.

“This music we are making for our souls. It’s like fresh water on a desert. Life is going on.”

Neil Young and the Crazy Horse crew will be joined on the credit list by Niko Bolas – Young’s production partner in The Volume Dealers – who helped record the album, according to a statement, “under a full moon, in a restored off-grid 19th century barn high up in the Rockies.”

As well as the 10-track album, Young will also release a Daryl Hannah-directed film of the same name, which will “capture this legendary band in their element – in the world, their easy humor, their brotherhood, their humanity."

Barn will be available in a variety of digital and physical formats, with those who purchase deluxe box sets also receiving six behind-the-scenes photographs of the band.

Neil Young has teamed up with his trusty backing band Crazy Horse for a new album, Barn. 

The follow-up to Young's last album with Crazy Horse, 2019's Colorado, Barn was recorded – according to a statement from Young on the Neil Young Archives website – “high in the Rockies” via the Le Mobile Recording Studio.

No single from the LP – which is set for a December 10 release via Reprise – has been released to the public yet, but subscribers to the Neil Young Archives can stream Barn's opening cut, Song of the Seasons, now. 

Crazy Horse is now comprised of Nils Lofgren – who replaced Frank "Poncho" Sampedro after Sampredo's 2014 retirement – on guitar, and the rhythm section of bassist Billy Talbot and drummer Ralph Molina, who have been with the band since their founding as The Rockets in 1968.

"These are new times, with new songs and feelings after what our world has been through and continues to face," Young wrote in a Neil Young Archives post discussing the album's creation in June.

"This music we are making for our souls. It's like a fresh water on a desert. Life is going on."

You can take a look at Barn's track list below. 

Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Barn:

1. Song of the Seasons
2. Heading West
3. Change Ain’t Never Gonna
4. Canerican
5. Shape of You
6. They Might Be Lost
7. Human Race
8. Tumblin’ Thru the Years
9. Welcome Back
10. Don’t Forget Love

Neil Young has announced the upcoming release of Young Shakespeare – a live solo album and concert film from 1971 that shares early recordings of hit songs that had yet to be released, as well as containing rare live footage.

Dating back to January 22 1971 when Young sat down to perform an intimate bare-bones concert at The Shakespeare Theater in Connecticut, Young Shakespeare arrived just two months after the release of After the Gold Rush, and sees Neil Young stripped down to the basic essentials – an acoustic guitar, piano and harmonica.

Initially recorded for German TV, footage of the performance has not been made publicly available until now, following a lengthy process involving the restorations of old analog tapes.

The repurposed material will be available on March 26, with the project promising to give a rare insight into Young at the start of his prolific musical and performing career.

Highlights of the new album include live recordings of Old Man, The Needle and the Damage Done, A Man Needs a Maid and Heart of Gold which were, at the time, over a year away from being officially released on Young's Harvest record.

The live performance, which comprises some of the earliest known footage of Young performing to exist, also sees the singer-songwriter perform acoustic renditions of two After the Gold Rush songs, as well as a number of other fan favorites, including Ohio, Cowgirl in the San, Helpless and Sugar Mountain.

Speaking of Young Shakespeare, Young wrote, "it is a more calm performance, without the celebratory atmosphere of Massey Hall, captured live in 16mm.

"Young Shakespeare is a very special event," Young went on to say. "To my fans, I say this is the best ever... one of the most pure-sounding acoustic performances we have in the Archive."

Young Shakespeare is available for pre-order now and will be released on March 26. The album will be available on vinyl and CD from music retailers everywhere, while the standalone concert DVD will be available exclusively through The Greedy Hand Store at the Neil Young Archives.

With the vast majority of the world still in uncertain waters due to the coronavirus, it's incredibly comforting - in our digital age - to be able to hear new music, and know that at least some aspects of the world we used to know are still operating as they once did. 

Guitarists across the industry are still taking the forced downtime induced by the pandemic to revisit and flesh out old material and create new art for us fans to enjoy.

To that end, this week saw as eclectic a bunch of killer new guitar songs as ever. From a coronavirus-busting anthem from Alice Cooper, to a perfect slice of gothic hard-rock from Mrs. Piss, to an archival gem from Neil Young, there's bound to be something here that fits your particular taste.

So plug in, turn up the volume and enjoy the week's finest, most innovative guitar performances.

Mrs. Piss - Knelt

For anyone who missed Chelsea Wolfe’s heavier, sludgier side after Birth of Violence's return to earthier acoustic territory, this new collaboration with drummer Jess Gowrie is just the tonic.

Doomy chugs, ethereal vocals and massive distortion sounds are the order of the day, summoning the menacing timbres that fueled Wolfe’s Abyss and Hiss Spun records. A full-length LP, Self-Surgery, lands on May 29. We can’t wait. (MAB)

Alice Cooper - Don’t Give Up

The king of shock-rock might not be the first person you turn to for reassurance in the time of a pandemic, but Mr Cooper may just have delivered the feelgood message we need right now.

Don’t Give Up was produced remotely, with band members filming their parts while isolating at home. The single sounds huge, with Nita Strauss and co delivering waves of chunky powerchords and a classic-era Alice riff. It also serves as a reminder that Cooper really does have a lovely motivational speaking voice. (MAB)

Alison Mosshart - It Ain't Water

A veteran of The Kills and the Dead Weather, Allison Mosshart has lent brooding, captivating vocals to more than enough amazing tunes to warrant her own time in the spotlight. Even though her latest single, It Ain't Water, is only her second solo song ever, Mosshart's breadth of musical experience gives it the power of a piece of music that knows exactly what it wants to be.

Replete with the haunting vibes and spare, acoustic instrumentation of Johnny Cash's late-career, Rick Rubin-produced albums, this track is a masterclass in making a towering song with relatively few ingredients. Driven by stunning instrumentation courtesy of jack-of-all-trades Alain Johannes, it's a song that stays with you long after its final notes gently play themselves out. (JM)

Avatar - Silence in the Age of Apes

Swedish heavy metallers Avatar are known for the lavish circus-esque stage outfits, but perhaps even more so for their pinpoint fretwork.

Today, two years after their last album Avatar Country, and in the lead-up to their new album Hunter Gatherer, Avatar reveal Silence in the Age of Apes. It’s a furious four-and-a-half minute blaze of machine-gun-style kick drumming, powerful chant vocals and guitar work to marvel aplenty courtesy of resident axemen Jonas "Kungen" Jarlsby and Tim Öhrström. (SR)

Noveller - Effektology

Effektology seems a particularly apt name for the latest track from one of the leading pedal soundscapists in guitar today.

Returning to her instrumental solo material after high-profile gigs with Iggy Pop, Sarah Lipstate employs dense, lush pitch-shifting to conjure otherworldly textures reminiscent of Brian Eno at the height of his ambient powers, but there’s a real sense of movement and progression here that keeps Effektology rooted in popular song. Spellbinding stuff. (MAB)

Biffy Clyro - Tiny Indoor Fireworks

The acclaimed Scottish trio treat us to another single from their upcoming ninth studio album A Celebration of Endings. The six-string techniques used on this track are tried and tested, but for that very reason they work wonderfully.

Tiny Indoor Fireworks is musically fairly simple, but undeniably feel-good, and serves as a welcome dose of optimism during these troublesome times. (SR)

Katie Von Schleicher - Brutality

On the latest track to be taken from forthcoming full-length Consummation, the NYC singer-songwriter delivers tremulous guitar passages over a brooding synth bassline.

The dark tone mirrors the themes espoused by her upcoming album, based on an alternate interpretation of the abuse subtext in Hitchcock’s Vertigo. That’s some highbrow subject matter, but the ways in which Von Schleicher combines square-wave synths and myriad guitar textures are just as smart. (MAB)

Neil Young - Try

Though the coronavirus has seen musicians of all stripes go through their archives and dust off some unreleased gems, it's still hard to believe that even these strange present times will finally - after 45 years - see the release of Neil Young's near-mythical shelved 1975 album, Homegrown. 

Try, the first taste of the record, is anchored by yearning, cooing pedal steel cries, lovely backing vocals from Emmylou Harris, Levon Helms' ever-flawless drumming and Young's own pristine, evocative strumming and moving, plainspoken lyrics. As immaculate a three-minute piece of country-folk perfection as anything on his blockbuster 1972 album, Harvest, Try has us counting down the days until this archival treasure is released in full. (JM)

Gabriel Cyr - Dark Times

From the Guitarist of the Year 2018 winner Gabriel Cyr comes a new EP, Spectrum Exploration I. If you’re wondering what led Cyr to be endowed with such a prestigious title, the record’s first track - the aptly titled Dark Times - will answer any such questions.

The instrumental track sees the guitarist effortlessly traverse the fretboard, showcasing his fluency of theory as he confidently plays around with different scales and phrasing techniques. (SR)

Everything Everything - Arch Enemy

Everyone’s favorite UK-based wonky-pop exports are back with a new album - Re-Animator - and a renewed sonic approach that pushes harmonies and melodies to the forefront, ahead of synths and programming.

Arch Enemy proves there’s plenty of mileage in the formula, with its intricate guitar fills and runs receiving a host of inventive deliveries, and even affording a tasty alternate-picking section at the track’s close. It’s a superb exercise in how to make unconventional guitar tones work perfectly in a mix. (MAB)

Back in May of 2018, Nils Lofgren played a run of five California shows with Neil Young & Crazy Horse, his first gigs with the band in decades. As for how they went? Well, he can easily sum it up.

“It was rocky and ragged and fun and beautiful,” Lofgren tells Guitar World. Which, given the legendary outfit’s reputation, sounds very much like a characteristically spectacular Crazy Horse experience.

But there’s one descriptor the 68-year-old Lofgren - who, in addition to a varied career as a solo artist and leading his own groups, has served as a longtime member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band and played on and off with Young for decades - left out of his summation of the shows: They were also unexpected.

In fact, Lofgren, who appeared with other Crazy Horse members on seminal Young albums like 1970’s After the Gold Rush and 1975’s Tonight’s the Night, got the call to return to Crazy Horse rather out of the blue. 

Young was reconvening the band - drummer Ralph Molina and bassist Billy Talbot - for three shows in Fresno and two in Bakersfield, California, and longtime guitarist Frank 'Poncho' Sampedro was unable to make it. Would Lofgren be available?

He was, and those five shows next led him to Winnipeg, where they did two more, and then, in 2019, to the top of a bluff just outside the town of Telluride, in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, where Young, Lofgren, Talbot and Molina gathered their instruments, some new and old recording gear, a few oxygen tanks and lots of water, to record Colorado, the first Neil Young & Crazy Horse album since 2012’s Psychedelic Pill, and the first with Lofgren onboard since Tonight’s the Night.

As for how the album sounds? Well, it’s rocky and ragged and fun and beautiful, replete with noisy guitar blasts (Shut It Down, Help Me Lose My Mind, Rainbow of Colors), rambling rockers (Olden Days, Think of Me) and tender ballads (Green is Blue, I Do).

And it goes without saying that a Neil Young & Crazy Horse album wouldn’t be much of a Neil Young & Crazy Horse album at all without at least one epic guitar jam. 

This time around, that jam comes in the form of the majestic 13-minute-plus She Showed Me Love, which encapsulates everything that is great about Neil and the Horse -ragged, distortion-soaked guitar interplay, deliberate, thudding rhythms, disarmingly dulcet backing vocals and, of course, guitar solos - lots and lots of guitar solos.

“We were all committed to getting something special done, and we had a beautiful environment to go after it in,” Lofgren says of the Colorado sessions.

What’s more, in addition to having the audio document of the sessions in that beautiful environment, they also captured it all on film. That studio and behind-the-scenes footage was released as Mountaintop, a visual companion to Colorado.

“I knew that everything was being videoed, but I didn't realize that would be part of the release,” Lofgren says. “But Neil was so excited about the making of the record and he wanted to let people see all the trials and tribulations and frustrations it took to get to the takes we have. He wanted to show it ‘warts and all,’ as he put it.”

Lofgren recently sat down with Guitar World to give his own warts-and-all look at the making of Colorado, from the gear he used during the sessions to the challenges - and also the magic - of working quickly and spontaneously in the studio.

In addition, he detailed how he came to find himself back with the band, the similarities and differences in playing with Young and Springsteen, and what it is that is so special about Crazy Horse, his “oldest musical family.”

Can you walk us through your path back to playing with Neil and Crazy Horse?

"It was some time last year, around the Roxy Theatre release [the 2018 archival album Roxy: Tonight’s the Night Live, which captured Young onstage in September 1973 for shows that celebrated the Hollywood club’s opening].

"Neil released a double vinyl album commemorating that opening night at the Roxy, which is another ragged, beautiful show from the Tonight's the Night period, which to me was a dark and cathartic record and tour. 

We called it the 'wake album' because all our friends were dying [original Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten and roadie Bruce Berry had both died of drug overdoses not long before the songs were written]. And upon the release of the record, Neil had booked five shows. And at the very last minute, Poncho had something going on at home and just couldn't make the flights.

"I had done the last two Bridge School Benefits with Neil, and I stayed in touch with everyone. Rather than cancel the shows, Neil called and said, 'Do you think you could just jump in with no rehearsal and wing it with us?' And we did. And of course it was great to play with Billy and Ralphie and Neil again."

How did that lead to the recording of a new Crazy Horse album?

"Those shows led to two shows this year in Winnipeg, and that kind of set the stage for the album. Neil started writing, and unexpectedly he called and said, 'Look, I keep writing these songs. I think they’d be good for Crazy Horse. Let me send you some demos.'

"I was about to jump into rehearsals for my own tour, but Neil asked, 'Do you think you could get to Telluride for a couple weeks prior to jumping into your rehearsals?' And so that was kind of genesis of me getting back and playing more seriously with him and the guys.

"And it was very cool because we had a chance to reflect and kind of get used to the demos Neil had been sending - he’d send one song, he’d send two songs, then he'd send another one, then another two. He kept writing and feeling good about it and inspired.

"So it was really a great experience, despite all the issues of integrating all the analog technology that Neil brought - old boards and consoles and equipment - to interface with the higher-end digital stuff. That was challenging. But while all that was happening, the four of us showed up knowing we had the songs and we had the singer."

Neil has long been known as someone who doesn’t like to work over the material too much prior to recording, and who aims to capture live performances and spontaneity in the studio. You mention that you spent some time with the demos in order to familiarize yourself with the songs, but when you got to Telluride how much actual rehearsal and preproduction went on prior to tracking?

"There wasn't really a lot of that. In the past, whether it was After the Gold Rush or Tonight's the Night, the Trans album and tour or MTV Unplugged, the general theme was always, and Neil would remind us, 'Look, learn the changes, but please don't work out parts. Just kind of listen to the songs and get familiar with them. But let's leave it ‘til we get together to do all that other stuff.' Which we did.

"So we didn't belabor anything. There was no, 'We're going to rehearse today and record tomorrow.' As soon as we got the technical glitches out of the way and we were able to roll tape, we started tracking - even though we were learning the songs at the same time."

Most musicians would consider that an unusual way to work.

"But it’s not unusual to any of us. I remember way back with Tonight's the Night, Neil and [producer] David Briggs said, 'Look, this is an anti-production record. We don't even want you learning the songs too well.'

"We'd get there around dinnertime, shoot pool, sip some tequila, share a joint, talk about all our friends we'd lost and commiserate. Then around midnight we'd go in and Neil would talk us through three or four songs and we’d get on our instruments and literally start playing. And once Neil gets the vocal, you are done. No one's allowed to change a note. It was that kind of same vibe this time, only we were all a bit happier."

How does that sort of looseness translate when you’re recording longer format songs? For example, She Showed Me Love from Colorado - is the framework completely open-ended when you’re tracking something like that? Do you have a sense of how long the song is going to go on while you’re recording it?

"There was zero sense of it. Zero discussion of it. She Showed Me Love, it was late at night, everyone was fried, but we thought, 'Let's get set up.' And by the time we were set up, we figured, 'Let’s get the song ready, then we’ll come in fresh tomorrow and do it.' So we started playing it to get it ready.

"We all had our amps to where we could hear each other. We had a PA system for Neil to sing through in the room. We didn’t use headphones. We wanted to hear each other. So there was a lot of leakage. But Neil was singing well despite the late hour and the jam just happened.

"We kept watching Neil, and he kept going from rhythm to lead. We hit this groove and nobody wanted to stop. So I just kind of hung on a thematic rhythm because I didn't want to break it up. And all of a sudden I felt like, 'Yeah, this is Crazy Horse. We're down in this pocket. I don't want to mess with it.' And 13 minutes later we were still playing.

"Then the next day we came in and, you know, sometimes you come in, you listen and you go, 'Okay, that's good, let's pick up where we left off.' But there was something special there. It was kind of like we were discovering each other while we discovered the song. And Neil said, 'I think we're done. Let's go on to the next song.'"

What was your main guitar and amp setup in the studio?

"On the Trans tour in ‘82 or ‘83 I had this old ‘52 Les Paul Gold Top, and Neil asked me if I’d mind if he had Larry Cragg, who's a brilliant guitar tech, put a Bigsby on it to kind of mimic Old Black [Young’s heavily modified ’53 Les Paul Gold Top]. And we did. And that wound up being the guitar I used the most this time. Once in a while I pulled out a [Gretsch] Black Falcon - I might have used that on Green is Blue. But mostly it was the Les Paul throughout.

"Then for amps I was playing through a Fuchs, a combo with one 12-inch speaker. Years ago, when the E Street Band did the Wrecking Ball tour, at some point in that tour I'd been messing with 12s because my old [Fender] Super Reverb 10s just weren't handling all the low-end and effects and things that I would push. 

"So I started using 12s and I played with some different amps, but I just didn't quite get the warmth I liked from the old Fender 10s. My guitar techs got together about seven or eight great designer amps for me to try out, and out of all of them the Fuchs was the best.

"So on the record it's a very pure sound of, in my case, a very old guitar and a fairly new amp. And that was really what I used during the Crazy Horse live shows, too - just a small Fuchs 1x12 combo. And there's an overdrive setting, but it's not meant to be distorted. It just kind of saturates the amp. I wound up not messing with much at all except the volume and the treble dial.

"And Neil and I both have pedals, but at some point early on he said, 'Let's try skipping all the effects and going right into the amps with a guitar and just having it as raw and direct as we can. Do you mind doing that?' And I said, 'Of course not.'"

As a guitarist, what do you feel are the differences between playing with Neil and Crazy Horse and Bruce and the E Street Band?

"There's a lot more similarities than differences. Other than the sound of their guitars and their voices, they're both really into a more immediate, emotional, raw type of playing. Of course, Neil maybe takes it out on the raw edge a bit more, but neither one of them like things to be very precisely rehearsed.

"Although they’re great at the other thing too, like with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young or some of Bruce's really produced and precise recordings. But generally they both like to keep it a bit loose, especially when you’re playing live.

"But one of the big differences would be that with Neil, you're a quarter of the whole sound. You're not a part of this bigger band with three guitar players, two keyboard players and horns. The rhythm sections, you couldn't ask for two better rhythm sections than Billy and Ralphie or Garry [Tallent] and Max [Weinberg], and I have a lot of experience playing with both of them.

"But after playing with the E Street Band and then doing Crazy Horse, all of a sudden now there's nobody else there except me and Neil, and I kinda had to re-acclimate to that. I'm not trying to stay out of the way of a big group anymore. I'm actually trying to be a quarter of it and contribute.

"And that was a gear shift that Neil helped me with. He said, 'Be loud, play loud. I'll let you know if it's too much, but you gotta be a lot louder and kind of step into it all because there's no one else except you and me.' And I said, 'Oh, shit. Yeah. Right.'"

You've obviously been a part of so many great projects and bands over the years. What do you love most about playing with Crazy Horse?

"Well, other than my band, Grin, and the work I've done on my own, it's my oldest musical family. I walked in on Crazy Horse on their first tour 50 years ago, and Neil asked me to hang around for two days and four shows. My band Grin was going to L.A. three weeks later and he said, 'Look me up when you get there.' That started a 50-year-plus friendship with all of them that I really value.

"And with Crazy Horse there's a kind of an immediacy to it. It’s like a family you get back to and you don't belabor it, really. You just pick up where you left off."

As some of you GW print readers might be aware, we’ve been celebrating the 40th anniversary of a host of noteworthy guitar albums from 1979 — an interesting and transitional (not to mention habitually overlooked) year in rock. Today we celebrate four truly classic live albums from that year (and we’ve thrown in a few honorable mentions for good measure). For more 1979 stories, be sure to check out the August, September and October 2019 issues of Guitar World!

Judas Priest, Unleashed in the East
Released: September 17, 1979
Standout Track: “Victim of Changes”  

Priest’s first live album. It turns out that most of the vocals were overdubbed later in the studio (according to vocalist Rob Halford) due to problems with the live recording process. Priest had always had a strong following, even before they suddenly found the knack of turning out crossover hit singles on 1980’s British Steel. 

Guitarists KK Downing and Glenn Tipton have long been underrated, possibly because at the time Priest were peaking commercially, the new era of shred was just starting to emerge in the likes of Eddie Van Halen, whose radical reworking of the expected norms of rock guitar made everyone sound like yesterday’s news. 

This album’s live renditions of Priest favorites (including “Running Wild,” “Exciter” and “Sinner”) were taken at a faster tempo and boast an added bite and edge that shades the studio versions. This is easily one of the best in the Priest catalog. In fact, when Tipton and Downing discussed the album with Guitar Player in 1983, Downing told Mike Varney that if he were to recommend one album at that time to best represent Priest in general and his solos in particular, it would be Unleashed.

Cheap Trick, At Budokan
Released: February 1979 (U.S), October 8, 1978 (Japan)
Standout Track: “I Want You to Want Me”

Recorded live (and originally released) in 1978, At Budokan was intended for release only in Japan. However, import sales were so strong that it got a formal Stateside release in early ’79 — and actually became the band’s best-selling album. It spawned two monster hits, “I Want You to Want Me” and a cover of Fats Domino’s “Ain’t That a Shame.” 

Budokan seemed to strike a chord with the public in much the same as Frampton Comes Alive! did for Peter Frampton in ’76, expanding their audience and becoming their defining album for many fans. Highlights abound, but “Surrender” and “Come On, Come On” are as strong as the hits. 

Several decades ago, Rick Nielsen told Guitar Player why he thought the album was so successful: “Our first three records weren’t getting a ton of airplay in the States, but in Japan we had three Number 1 hit singles. We were gigging constantly. When Budokan came out, people thought, ‘Oh, I saw them open for Kiss, I saw them with Queen, or I saw them with AC/DC. I remember that song in concert.’ The tunes just sounded different than the studio versions — more mistakes and more [of a] live feel. I think for the people that had seen us in ’77, ’78 and ’79 but hadn’t really heard us on the radio — it reminded them of us.”

Queen, Live Killers
Released: June 22, 1979
Standout Track: “Brighton Rock”

A live double album produced by the band. Highlights include a hard-hitting, extended blast through “Keep Yourself Alive” (always one of their hardest-rocking tracks anyway), “Sheer Heart Attack” and Brian May’s tour de force, “Brighton Rock.” Also worth a mention is the album-opening, revved-up blast through “We Will Rock You,” which knocks the socks off the more familiar-paced version. 

Listening to the record again recently, it’s hard to understand why it received so much negative press other than the usual vagaries of fashionability in the post-punk fall-out years. This is the only one of Queen’s many live albums to focus so heavily on their early period — and for that reason alone, it’s the go-to album for any fan of the band’s “classic rock” years, before they started to diversify into other, perhaps more commercial, genres. 

Several years ago, Brian May discussed his “Brighton Rock” solo: “I started messing around with the Echoplex, the delay that was available at the time. I turned up the regeneration until it was giving me multiple repeats. I discovered you could do a lot with this — you could set up rhythms and play against them, or you could play a line and then play a harmony to it. Eventually, I had two home-adapted Echoplexes. I discovered that if you put each echo through its own amp, you wouldn’t have any nasty interference between the two signals. Each amp would be like a full-blown, sustaining, overdriven guitar that didn’t have anything to do with the other one.”

Neil Young, Rust Never Sleeps
Released: June 22, 1979
Standout Track: “My My Hey Hey (Into the Black)”

Recorded live in 1978, this album was ranked highly on just about everybody’s best-of-the-year list. The album features mainly live tracks, acoustic on side one and electric on the other (This was back when you had to flip a record over to hear the whole thing). There also are a couple of studio tracks, “Sail Away” and “Pocahontas.” 

Opening and closing the album with two very different versions of “My My Hey Hey,” Young explicitly spells out his manifesto: “Rock and roll is here to stay.” Sonically the electric material, which features Crazy Horse lending their weight to Young’s primal grinding vibe, points the way for much of the later grunge movement. 

Young has always been a fearless soloist, revelling in the power and the glory of a cranked Les Paul, and this album is an ideal introduction to the two sides of his work. The essence of the Young sound, featuring his battered Les Paul into a 1959 tweed Fender Deluxe, fed into a Magnatone 280 vibrato combo and a Baldwin Exterminator. 

The stage rig is rounded out by a 25-watt tweed Fender Tremolux rebiased to run at 40 watts, as well as a high-powered, four-6L6  tweed Fender Twin. Effects-wise, at this time Young was using a Mu-Tron octave divider, an MXR analog delay, a Boss BF-1 Flanger and an Echoplex. Phew!

THREE LIVE HONORABLE MENTIONS FROM 1979

Muddy Waters, Muddy “Mississippi” Waters Live
A live outing for the critically acclaimed hookup of Muddy Waters and Johnny Winter.

Pat Travers Band, Live! Go for What You Know  
The Canadian blues-rocker’s best all-round album, featuring the highlight and a half called “Boom Boom (Out Go the Lights).” As Guitar World’s Chris Gill wrote last year, “There were a lot of great guitar bands in the late Seventies, but one of the greatest to see in concert was the Pat Travers Band.”

UFO, Strangers in the Night
This double live album, culled from performances from six 1978 U.S. dates, spawned the minor hit singles “Doctor Doctor” and “Shoot Shoot.” This was the last UFO album to feature “mad axeman” Michael Schenker — who left at the end of the tour — until 1993. Actually, we’ll be covering this album more deeply in a little while. Stay tuned for the full story, which includes a mini interview with Schenker!

Neil Young has announced the release of an expanded version of Ragged Glory, after producer John Hanlon discovered additional recordings from the sessions in 1990.

The new reissue, which Young recorded with Crazy Horse, will be “twice the size” of the original 1990 album, according to a message on the Neil Young Archives site. The statement continues:

“Listening to these tracks is a real head scratcher. They are equal to anything on the existing record, maybe better. Possibly, the thought at the time was to have a single album and not include the songs from the last half of the unique ‘set oriented’ recording sessions.”

The expanded Ragged Glory, which the statement says will include “another 38 minutes of Crazy Horse classics, mostly undiscovered and unheard before,” will be announced as a standalone LP in vinyl, CD and high resolution digital, with a likely 2019 release date.

For more information, head over to NeilYoungArchives.com.

Pearl Jam recently posted a pro-shot video of the band’s performance of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World” at the NOS Alive Festival in Oeiras, Portugal in July.

For the set closing number the band was joined by Jack White, who also appeared at the festival that day. You can check out the clip above.

In March, Pearl Jam shared a new song, "Can't Deny Me." According to their website, the track is from their as-yet-untitled upcoming album and was produced by Pearl Jam with Brendan O'Brien.

“Can’t Deny Me” is available for download at pearljam.com.

Neil Young has announced the release of Songs for Judy, a live archival album culled from recordings in November, 1976. The 23-track album includes Young classics like “The Needle and the Damage Done,” “Heart of Gold” and “After the Gold Rush,” as well as deeper cuts like “No One Seems to Know,” in its first official release, and “Here We Are in the Years.”

In advance of Songs for Judy, Young has shared a track from the album, a performance of “Campaigner” recorded at Boston Music Hall on November 22, 1976.

Young explained the genesis of Songs for Judy in a post on his official website:

“Joel Bernstein ‘boy photographer’ music lover, collector and archivist, and Cameron Crowe, writer and music lover were responsible for the record album Songs for Judy,” he wrote. “JB was on my solo tour in 1976, tuning my acoustic guitars. He also was recording cassettes of the shows from our P.A. board mixes. Basically, what the people heard. Joel and Cameron chose these songs and did a great job.

“The album is quite unique and I think the period was very well captured in the sound and performances. It was a moment in time, and it’s easy to tell why it’s called Songs for Judy.”

Songs for Judy will be released November 30 and can be pre-ordered here. You can view the cover art below.

The 33rd annual Farm Aid concert was held Saturday at the Xfinity Center in Hartford, Connecticut on Saturday, September 22. Alongside Farm Aid co-founders Neil Young, Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp, performers at this year’s event included Dave Matthews, Chris Stapleton, Sturgill Simpson, Kacey Musgraves, Margo Price, Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats and more.

Above, check out Young and Promise of the Real performing a searing rendition of Young’s classic 1979 jam, “Powerfinger.”

Earlier in the day Young, Nelson, Mellencamp and Matthews gave a press conference where they discussed, among other topics, their continued commitment to family-owned farms. ““The corporate farms suck!” Young said. “They are poisoning you … and you can stop this if you stand up.”

For more information on Farm Aid, including how to donate to the organization, go to FarmAid.org.

The video below offers a rare treat: a superstar cast of guitarists—including Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Tom Petty and Roger McGuinn—rehearsing Dylan’s “My Back Pages” in October 1992.

The run-through—which includes solos by both Clapton and Young—was in anticipation of Dylan’s 30th Anniversary Concert, held on October 16, 1992, in New York City’s Madison Square Garden. The star-studded event also featured Johnny Cash, Lou Reed, the Band, Stevie Wonder, Willie Nelson and Pearl Jam.

The band shown in the video below includes guitarist G.E. Smith (who was musical director for the show), Booker T and the M.G.s—guitarist Steve Cropper, bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn, and organist Booker T. Jones—and drummer Jim Keltner.

The video begins with Smith running down the order of lead singers on the song, and the full rehearsal then begins. McGuinn takes the first verse, followed by Petty, Young, Clapton (who plays the first solo), Dylan (who, ironically, seems to have lost his place in the song) and Harrison. Neil Young plays the outro solo.

The audio quality isn’t great, and the vocals are hard to hear, but fortunately the guitars come through loud and clear. It’s also fun to watch the performers milling around and chatting in the minutes after the rehearsal, so we recommend that you keep watching once the music stops.

“My Back Pages” first appeared on Dylan’s 1964 album Another Side of Bob Dylan. It was subsequently covered by numerous performers, including McGuinn’s group, the Byrds, which had a hit with it in 1967.

Dylan’s 30th Anniversary Concert was notable for who played at it as well as for who did not. Sinead O’Connor was on hand to perform Dylan’s gospel classic “I Believe in You.” Earlier that month she’d appeared on Saturday Night Live, where she infamously tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II to protest sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. When she appeared onstage for Dylan’s concert, she was roundly booed and left the stage without performing. Rehearsal footage of her singing the song was tracked down and included in the video Bob Dylan—The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration, Deluxe Edition, which was released in 2014.

As for the all-star group performance of “My Back Pages,” it was presented as the concert finale but suffered from technical issues. “Let’s just say that some of the harmonies on that are overdubs,” a source told Rolling Stone in 2014. We’ve included video of that performance below the rehearsal.

Neil Young has announced the release of Roxy — Tonight's the Night Live, a live album recorded at the famed Los Angeles venue between September 20 and 22, 1973. The album documents the first live performances of the songs that would later end up on Young's seminal 1975 album, Tonight's the Night.

Backed by his band, The Santa Monica Flyers, Young played “the album, top to bottom, without the added songs, two sets a night, for a few days,” according to Rolling Stone. The performances were the first at the Roxy, and came almost immediately after the group had recorded Tonight's the Night in the studio.

Roxy — Tonight's the Night Live is being released in a limited 2-LP pressing as a Record Store Day exclusive. Standard, vinyl, digital and CD editions will be available starting April 24. It is the first of a series of promised archival releases from the Neil Young Archives, a high-quality streaming site containing the entirety of Young's massive discography.

For more on Young and his archives, step right this way.

Roxy – Tonight's the Night Live Tracklist:

• "Tonight's The Night"
• "Mellow My Mind"
• "World On A String"
• "Speakin' Out"
• "Albuquerque"
• "New Mama"
• "Roll Another Number (For The Road)"
• "Tired Eyes"
• "Tonight's The Night"
• "Walk On"

Neil Young recently celebrated the release of his new album with Promise of the Real, The Visitor, with an intimate acoustic concert at Omemee, Ontario's Coronation Hall.

Luckily for us, Young streamed the whole set—which featured a tantalizing mix of hits such as "Heart of Gold" and rarities like "Don't Be Denied"—live on his Facebook page.

Aside from a celebration of The Visitor, the performance also served as a fundraiser for The Bridge School and an event highlighting the opening of the Neil Young Archives, a high-quality archive of Young's entire discography. In a Facebook post, Young wrote that he developed the archives "to provide fans and music historians with unprecedented access to all of my music and to my entire archives in one convenient location."

For more on all things Neil Young, you can stop by his website.

Neil Young & Promise of the Real have announced their second album together, The Visitor.

The album—set for a December 1 release—comes just three months after Young released Hitchhiker, a long-lost acoustic album he recorded in 1976, and less than a year after his last new studio release, Peace Trail.

With the album's announcement came the release of its first track, the politically charged "Always Great."

You can hear the new song below.

Speaking to Guitar World back in September about backing Young with Promise of the Real, Lukas Nelson said "Playing with Neil is like being in a master class with one of your favorite musicians.”

“It’s a transcendent feeling that’s almost indescribable.”

To preorder The Visitor, head right this way.

Neil Young has announced two Original Release Series, four-disc box sets, which collect remastered editions of every album Young released—including the rare, much sought-after 1973 live album, Time Fades Away—from 1973 to 1979.

The first box set—Original Release Series 5-8—features Time Fades Away, On the Beach, Tonight's the Night, and Zuma, and is limited to 3,000 sets that are available now.

The second box set—Original Release Series8.5-12—features Long May You Run (a 1976 album Young recorded with Stephen Stills and the Stills-Young Band,) American Stars 'N' Bars, Comes a Time, Rust Never Sleeps, and Live Rust, and is also limited to 3,000 sets that are available now.

Each title has been remastered from the original analog master studio recordings at Bernie Grundman Mastering, with John Hanlon of Neil Young's production team, and has been approved by Young himself.

You can acquire the box sets for yourself here and here.For more on Neil Young, stop by his website.

Over the course of his now half-century long career, the always-prolific Neil Young has amassed a series of projects that have never ended up seeing the light of the day.

Today, however, Young announced that Hitchiker—a legendary 1976 album that he recorded alone with his producer, David Briggs, and an acoustic guitar in a single day—will be released September 8.

In typical Young fashion, the majority of the mostly new songs recorded on Hitchhiker ended up surfacing on various projects years (and in some cases even decades) later. "Human Highway" appeared on 1978's Comes a Time, and three of the album's cuts ("Powderfinger," "Ride My Llama" and "Pocahontas") appeared on 1979's Rust Never Sleeps, one of Young's most enduring records.

The title track, which you can hear below, wasn't released by Young until he recorded it for 2010's Le Noise.

The new album also features the previously unreleased tracks "Hawaii" and "Give Me Strength," which Young has played live on occasion. The original recordings were produced by Briggs, Young's longtime producer, and were touched up by John Hanlon.

You can preorder Hitchhiker here. For more on Neil Young, stop by his website.

Hitchhiker Tracklist

• 1. "Pocahontas"
• 2. "Powderfinger"
• 3. "Captain Kennedy"
• 4. "Hawaii"
• 5. "Give Me Strength"
• 6. "Ride My Llama"
• 7. "Hitchhiker"
• 8. "Campaigner"
• 9. "Human Highway"
• 10. "The Old Country Waltz"

Neil Young and Promise of the Real—Lukas Nelson's band—recently recorded a new Young composition, "Children of Destiny." Today, Young issued a music video to accompany the tune, and you can check it out below.

The song kicks off with "Stand up for what you believe / resist the powers that be / preserve the land and save the seas for the children of destiny."

The clip, which is packed with American flags, smiling faces and beautiful natural scenery, is a Shakey Pictures/DHNY production. "Children of Destiny" was recorded and mixed at Capitol Studios in Hollywood and produced by the Volume Dealers (Young and Niko Bolas).

Besides Young and Promise of the Real, the recording features a 56-piece orchestra. You can watch Young and the orchestra in action in the bottom video, which was posted to YouTube on July 4.

Neil Young will release a new studio album—which he originally recorded in 1976. The disc, dubbed Hitchhiker, is set for an August 4 release via Reprise Records and will be available on vinyl, CD and digitally.

The 10-track acoustic album was recorded live in the studio August 11, 1976, at Indigo Studios in Malibu, California. It contains some of Young’s best-loved songs plus two previously unreleased tracks.

The original session was produced by Young’s longtime studio collaborator David Brings with new post production by John Hanlon, who has worked with Young since 1990 and produced his most recent works, including Peace Trail, Earth, The Monsanto Years, etc.

As these songs were recorded in a single session, the resultant performances are breathtaking and passionate. The simplicity of a single voice and guitar captured here are as pure and powerful as the creator intended with only Young and Briggs in the room at the time of recording.

Many of the songs would not appear on vinyl until years later. The title track, for example, did not officially appear until 2010’s Le Noise and naturally sounds worlds apart from the original. The version herein of “Captain Kennedy” has certain raw spontaneity compared to the slightly gentler version that would eventually surface on Hawks & Doves in 1980.

Perhaps the most noticeable jewels in the crown of Hitchhiker are the two previously unreleased tracks that have remained in the vaults since 1976: “Hawaii” a soaring ballad and unlike anything else Young had recorded at the time. Side one closes out with “Give Me Strength,” which would be occasionally performed live in the mid-Seventies but now available here for the first time and may well be considered one of Young’s best long lost gems.

Hitchhiker Track Listing:
1. Pocahontas
2. Powderfinger
3. Captain Kennedy
4. Hawaii
5. Give Me Strength
6. Ride My Llama
7. Hitchhiker
8. Campaigner
9. Human Highway
10. The Old Country Waltz

For more information, visit neilyoung.com. Be sure to check out the 2010 Le Noise version of "Hitchhiker":

Today, GuitarWorld.com presents the exclusive premiere of Brian Ray's new version of Neil Young's "Cinnamon Girl"—with a touch of Buffalo Springfield's "Mr. Soul" thrown in.

The track is part of a Ray's new "Here for You" digital single that Steven Van Zandt's Wicked Cool Records will release on February 24.

Ray has been a guitarist in Paul McCartney's band since 2002, and he had quite a career before that; he was Etta James' musical director for several years and co-writer of the Smokey Robinson hit "One Heartbeat."

Oddly enough, Ray has a truly personal connection to "Cinnamon Girl" and Neil Young, and it makes for a great rock-and-roll story.

"['Cinnamon Girl'] has always been one of my favorite songs, with a great melody and a chunky guitar lick that is very strong, evocative and always makes me smile," Ray says. "When I was about 11 or 13, I was hanging around a lot with my elder sister Jean and her husband, Jim, of the folk-rock duet Jim and Jean. They were kind enough to let me tag along to their shows at the nightclubs of Los Angeles, like the Ashgrove, the Troubadour and the Icehouse in Pasadena.

"One night, while at the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach, the opening band for Jim and Jean was a band called the Kaleidoscope. The guitar player in that band was a young genius I saw for the first time that night, named David Lindley. I was getting inspired as a young boy by just about every performer I saw hitting the stage at that time. Backstage at that show, as Jim and Jean were warming up and getting ready to perform, a guy walked in that I recognized immediately. It was Neil Young of the incredibly hot Buffalo Springfield, who were riding a wave of radio success and critical acclaim at the time. Neil Young was very distinguished, calm and cool and he brought out his Martin guitar and was kind of playing along as Jim and Jean were warming up. Neil was giving them ideas for possible guitar parts and arrangement ideas that were coming to him at that moment. I was intoxicated by all of the sparks flying and musical creativity going on.

"A year or so later I was told that a visitor was coming over to our house to visit Jim and Jean, who were staying with us. I walked outside on the street in anticipation, when a little Austin Mini Cooper pulls up. It was an all-white Mini with blacked-out windows. At that time the only cars that had blacked-out windows were limousines, and you didn't see very many of them around back then! So imagine my surprise when the door opens up and a tall thin man with long jet black hair, big black lamb-chop sideburns, wearing black shades and an all-white three-piece suit steps out of this tiny car. It was Neil again. It was at that moment that I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. He looks over at me and says, 'Hi, Brian. Where's your sister?'

"I was going to a boarding school in the seventh grade at that time in Ojai, California, and I remember bringing Buffalo Springfield's album to our big class dance and dancing my heart out to the song 'Mr. Soul.' Sometime later I remember hearing his song 'Cinnamon Girl' for the very first time, and I was just knocked out by it. The song seemed to have everything; it was gritty and tough but it had grace and beauty in the melody and the lyric along with an almost haunting relentless energy to it. Later on I learned that the song was written by Neil Young for my sister, Jean Ray, because, unbeknownst to me at the time, they were seeing each other, even though each of them were involved with other people. That song and the story behind its inspiration have always made me curious about playing it, so I started to play the song every once in a while at my own solo live shows and with my band, the Bayonets.

"I was recently approached by Steven Van Zandt and Wicked Cool Records/Orchard about doing a singles deal. This is one of the first songs that occurred to me; I thought it would be cool to hear on his great Sirius XM radio channel, The Underground Garage. So that's my little story behind my new single.

"Oh yeah. While I was recording the basic track for 'Cinnamon Girl' with just me and a great drummer named Matt Laug, I came to the end of the song where Neil goes into his sort of solo ad lib guitar tantrum on his single version, I just started playing a revved-up, crazy version of his great Buffalo Springfield song, 'Mr. Soul,' in that moment as sort of a laugh. Matt joined in immediately and I decided it sounded cool and I left it in.

"I hope you dig it!"

For more about Ray, visit brianray.com.

When Led Zeppelin were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, they got on stage with fellow Rock Hall inductee Neil Young and performed a new arrangement of "When the Levee Breaks," a classic Led Zeppelin IV track.

You can relive the, um, magic by watching the top video below.

Because Jimmy Page's Les Paul and Young's Les Paul weren't quite enough, vocalist Robert Plant grabs a Les Paul of his own at the 2:00 mark. You can watch him truly go to town on his Gibson at 4:36 as Page looks on.

Page and Plant were in full-on Page & Plant mode at this time; in fact, they'd just released a successful live album called No Quarter, which was packed with Led Zep tunes. However, they didn't ask the other surviving Led Zep member, John Paul Jones, to take part in the project.

That's why Jones—during the band's now-legendary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame acceptance speech, which you can watch in the bottom video—says, "Thank you, my friends, for finally remembering my phone number" (jump to 6:31).

That's Michael Lee on drums.

Peace Trail, Neil Young's new album, will be coming down the pipeline December 9 via Reprise Records.

The album—a primarily acoustic affair—reflects an intimate, sparse approach that truly draws the listener into the heart of the songs. Each track is rich with Young’s lyrical expression of his impassioned humanitarian concerns, which remain as timely as ever.

To hear exactly what we're talking about, you can check out the album's first single, "Indian Givers," via the new music video below. The tune lends moral support to the battle at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, where Native Americans and environmentalists are fighting construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline in an effort to protect river water.

Peace Trail was recorded at Rick Rubin’s Shangri-la Studios and features Young on vocals and guitar, Jim Keltner on drums and Paul Bushnell on bass. It was produced by Young and John Hanlon and mixed by Hanlon.

You can see the album's complete track list below.

For more about Young and Peace Trail, visit neilyoung.com.

Peace Trail Track List:
1. Peace Trail
2. Can’t Stop Workin’
3. Indian Givers
4. Show Me
5. Texas Rangers
6. Terrorist Suicide Hang Gliders
7. John Oaks
8. My Pledge
9. Glass Accident
10. My New Robot

Saturday night, Metallica made their first full-band Bridge School Benefit appearance since 2007.

The heavy metal legends' Bridge School Benefit sets—which take place at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California—are usually filled with surprises, and this year was no different. At one point, they welcomed Neil Young onto the stage to jam on "Mr. Soul," a Young-penned single released by the Buffalo Springfield in mid-1967.

You can watch the performance in the top video. Starting at 1:43, Young and Kirk Hammett trade acoustic guitar solos during the song's extended instrumental break.

Metallica also played a rarely heard Load track—"Hero of the Day"—plus "Whiskey in a Jar," "Seek & Destroy," "Bleeding Me" and "Hardwired," which made its acoustic debut. They also played the Clash's "Clampdown" (from London Calling) for the first time ever (middle video).

The band's new album, Hardwired...to Self-Destruct, is due November 18. It's their first studio album since 2008's Death Magnetic. The eight-year gap is the longest ever between Metallica studio albums.

You can watch Metallica'a entire Bridge School Benefit performance in the bottom video.

Paul McCartney and Neil Young joined together for a medley of Beatles songs and performed a tribute to John Lennon at the Desert Trip festival in Indio, California, on October 8.

Following Young’s opening set, McCartney invited him onstage for performances of “A Day in the Life” and the 1968 White Album oddity “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road,” during which Young cut loose with a blazing guitar solo.

McCartney and Young also performed “Give Peace a Chance,” Lennon’s debut 1969 recording with the Plastic Ono Band, tagging its singalong chorus onto the end of “A Day in the Life.”

McCartney and Young have performed together numerous times over the years, including at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, in 2004, to benefit Adopt-A-Minefield, which raises awareness of land mines, and at the 2004 Bridge School benefit. Young also inducted McCartney into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999 and performed a rousing cover of the Beatles’ “I Saw Her Standing There” when McCartney was honored as the MusiCares Person of the Year in 2012. That event marked the reunion of Young and Crazy Horse for the first time in eight years.

Although Stephen Stills never became a Monkee, despite auditioning for the band and their kickass TV show (and then telling his buddy Peter Tork to join the band instead), he did wind up playing on a handful of Monkees sessions.

His guitar can even be heard on one of the band's most smokin' tunes, Tork's "Long Title: Do I Have to Do This All Over Again?” from the Head soundtrack album (1968).

But a lot of people don't know that Neil Young—Stills' Buffalo Springfield and CSNY bandmate—appears on more Monkees' tracks than Stills. You can hear his fretwork on "As We Go Along" and two outtakes, "Smile" and "That's What It's Like Loving You."

That said, the best of the bunch is "You and I," a little-known tune that appeared on the band's early 1969 album, Instant Replay. "You and I" is a killer song that got a bum deal. It wasn't released as a single, and because the Monkees' chart-topping days were pretty much behind them by 1969 (hey, it's true), Instant Replay didn't crack the top 10—or the top 30, for that matter.

Still, the Davy Jones-penned (with Bill Chadwick) track is super catchy, and Young's guitar playing is bold, powerful and overflowing with character and personality. His guitar is very clearly "in your face," sharing the spotlight with Jones' potent vocal. "You and I" is a clear-cut example of a massive hit that never was—but should've been.

By the way, Young's Monkees recording sessions took place just a few days after he left the Buffalo Springfield. You can never know too many useless facts, people.

Check out "You and I" (featuring Young) in the top clip and "Long Title: Do I Have to Do This All Over Again?” (featuring Stills, plus some super-slippery bass by Lance Wakely) in the middle clip.

Since we're on the topic, the Monkees released a fine new studio album—Good Times!—earlier this year. The album, which represents their best work since 1969's Instant Replay or The Monkees Present(no offense to 1970's Changes), is a clever mix of new and old (but mostly previously unreleased) recordings and compositions.

The guys—Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork and Michael Nesmith—finished up some vintage leftover tracks, wrote several new tunes and solicited material from a host of talented writers, including Paul Weller. They even completed a vintage Jones-fronted number, "Love to Love," to make sure their deceased bandmate was part of the project. Jones died in 2012.

Check out the album's initial single, "She Makes Me Laugh" (written by Weezer's Rivers Cuomo), below. It features the seemingly ageless Micky Dolenz on vocals. The guy is 71!

Online Managing Editor Damian Fanelli has played guitar for a Monkee or two. Follow him on Facebook,Twitter and/or Instagram.

Over the decades, John Lennon's songs have been covered by thousands of artists. Just think of all the people—from unknown Lithuanian bar bands to Lada Gaga—who have had a crack at "Imagine."

Today, the 75th anniversary of his birth on October 9, 1940, I'm paying tribute to Lennon by rounding up five of what I feel are the best performances of his solo songs by other artists.

You'll notice Paul Weller on this list; Weller, the former frontman of UK hitmakers the Jam, is a huge Lennon disciple who has covered several of his songs, usually as B-sides. And then there's Pearl Jam's live version of "Gimme Some Truth;" its only flaw is that it lacks anything even close to George Harrison's goosebump-inducing slide-guitar solo on the original 1971 Lennon version.

Video-wise, my favorite of the bunch is "How?" by Ozzy Osbourne, in which Ozzy hits the streets of New York City—old-school Lennon-style—en route to pay his respects to the man himself.

Enjoy these five covers—and power to the people!

OZZY OSBOURNE
How? (Originally from Imagine, 1971)

PEARL JAM
Gimme Some Truth (Originally from Imagine, 1971)

RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS
I Found Out (Originally from John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, 1970)

PAUL WELLER
Instant Karma (Originally released as a single in early 1970)

NEIL YOUNG
Imagine (Originally from Imagine, 1971)

Damian Fanelli is the online managing editor at Guitar World. He eats food.

Besides reliable gear, sensible footwear and a guaranteed ride to gigs, members of good backing bands must have:

• Humility. After all, they're not the stars. The frontman (or woman) is.

• Natural talent and/or undeniable skill. A frontman doesn't need to wonder if his guitarist will actually nail the tricky guitar solo this time. That stuff needs to be automatic.

• Personality. No, they're not the stars, but backing-band members can't be bland sticks in the mud, either. They need to bring something unique to the table, each part of the band combining to create a superior "whole."

The best backing bands, of course, have all these qualities —plus lots of success. Some of them of have played on countless hits. Some have played a role in music history. Others just have so much talent that they automatically move to the next level.

This story is about 10 such backing bands.

Note that we kept our choices to backing bands with actual "names." These are groups we call "ampersand bands," since their name, in most of these cases, follows an ampersand or an "and" in the act's full name, such as John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers or Johnny and The Moondogs (neither of whom are included on this list).

So even though Bill Black and Scotty Moore kicked vintage ass as Elvis Presley's backing duo, the duo never had a name. And the talented gents who backed Roger Waters or Paul McCartney at the 12-12-12 Concert for Sandy Relief? No name. You get the idea.

We also tried to focus on bands that kept a core group of members intact over the years. For example, we'd consider Elvis Costello's Attractions (always the same three guys) over Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention (This Wikipedia page says it all).

On that note, here they are, Guitar World's 10 best backing bands of all time. Enjoy!

10. The Band

Although the Band are best known for their own dark, rustic late-Sixties masterpieces Music from Big Pink and The Band, they hit the world stage in the mid-Sixties as Bob Dylan's backing band.

Actually, their backing-band pedigree started in 1958, when they hooked up with rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins and called themselves the Hawks. After short-lived stints as Levon & the Hawks and the Canadian Squires, the gang was hired by Dylan in 1965, just as he was ditching his acoustic/folk persona in favor of Strats and heavier rock.

Dylan and the Band (still known as the Hawks for a while)—Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson and Richard Manuel—toured the U.S. in 1965 and the world in 1966, enduring the heckling and disapproval of folk-music purists every step of the way.

The Band were on stage with Dylan in Manchester, England, on May 17, 1966, when an audience member shouted "Judas!" Dylan replied, "I don't believe you. You're a liar!" He then turned to the Band and said, "Play it fucking loud!" before launching into "Like a Rolling Stone." Or so people say ...

The Band followed Dylan to Woodstock, New York, where they recorded The Basement Tapes. It was a relationship that wound up lasting—albeit loosely—for several years, in the form of various touring and recording projects.

In terms of sheer talent, the Band were a dream team. Every member of the group was a multi-instrumentalist. They could provide soaring harmony vocals, oddball lead guitar, mesmerizing keyboards and everything from fiddle to trombone to sax to mandolin.

Maybe the Band were at the right place at the right time, but there's no denying they occupy a special place in rock history.

• 09. The Roots

Acclaimed by many to be hip-hop’s first “real band,” the Roots are one of the genre's longest-standing acts.

Formed by Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter and Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson in Philadelphia back in 1987, the Roots' double-digit studio albums alone have been enough to propel them to household-name status, including a Grammy nod for 2011's Undun.

But when they're not breaking down genre barriers, the Roots also have earned a reputation as one of the best backing acts going. In 2005, they appeared in Dave Chappelle's Block Party, a documentary film that saw them team up with everyone from Erykah Badu to Big Daddy Kane.

Since 2009, the band has served as the house band for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, curating the program's music (sometimes controversially) and backing multiple guests through the years. Tune in any given night and you'll likely catch one of guitarist "Captain" Kirk Douglas' fine selection of Gibsons, including a beautiful CS-356.

08. The Blue Caps

Of the major "named" backing bands of rock’s first generation—Buddy Holly’s Crickets, Bill Haley’s Comets, Johnny Burnette’s Rock n’ Roll Trio and Gene Vincent’s Blue Caps (We'll even include Johnny Cash's Tennessee Three)—the Blue Caps had a monopoly on super-serious chops. Among their lineup was—to quote Jeff Beck—the “demon-like” Cliff Gallup.

Gallup, whose playing and sound are perhaps best described as "ahead of their time," was a true pioneer who had a massive influence on the first wave of British Invasion players, particularly Beck, who incorporated Gallup’s lightning-fast triplet pull-offs into his own playing. Gallup's quick "slap-echo" delay, as heard on Bluejean Bop and Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps, is still considered the gold standard sound for rockabilly guitarists.

The Blue Caps also included Willie Williams on rhythm guitar, Jack Neal on upright bass and Dickie Harrell on drums, a crew that could drive fans into a frenzy with relentless rockabilly beats as heard in “Jump Back, Honey, Jump Back,” “B-I-Bickey-Bi, Bo-Bo-Go” and “Hold Me, Hug Me, Rock Me.”

Gallup, who left the band in 1956, was replaced by Russell Williford, followed by Johnny Meeks. He died in 1988. Meeks died earlier this year.

07. The Funk Brothers

Unlike the rest of the bands on this list, the Funk Brothers weren't an "official" backing band; their nickname didn't follow an "and" or an ampersand in a band name, and they didn't make their living on the road backing a single artist.

The Funk Brothers were a crew of Detroit-based session musicians who played on most Motown recordings from 1959 to 1972.

As claimed in the opening titles to Paul Justman's 2002 documentary Standing in the Shadows of Motown, the Funk Brothers have "played on more No. 1 hits than the Beatles, Elvis Presley, the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys—combined." And while you might want to head for your iPhone's calculator and dive into Google land to verify that, there's no denying they played on an impressive collection of Motown hits, including "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone," "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," "My Girl," "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," "Baby Love," "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours," "The Tears of a Clown" and "(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave."

They can be heard on singles and/or albums by Marvin Gaye, the Miracles, the Temptations (Check out the video below), the Supremes, Martha & the Vandellas, the Marvelettes, the Contours, the Jackson 5, the Four Tops, the Spinners, the Originals and other acts.

Although the Funk Brothers weren't quite as fluid an ensemble as Wings or the Mothers of Invention, many musicians have been members of the brotherhood. Core members included guitarists Robert White, Eddie Willis and Joe Messina, Joe Hunter (bandleader), Earl Van Dyke (piano), James Jamerson (bass); Benny "Papa Zita" Benjamin (drums), Richard "Pistol" Allen (drums), Paul Riser (trombone), Jack Ashford (tambourine, percussion, vibraphone, marimba), Jack Brokensha (vibraphone, marimba) and Eddie "Bongo" Brown (percussion).

Other notable members include guitarist Dennis Coffey and bassist Bob Babbitt.

06. Double Trouble

In the early '80s, Texan Stevie Ray Vaughan breathed new life into a faded genre called the blues, created a distinctive modern Texas sound that is still mimicked today and introduced Jimi Hendrix, Albert King and Lightnin' Hopkins to a new generation of guitar players.

But he didn't do it alone.

Behind him every step of the way were Double Trouble—bassist Tommy Shannon, drummer Chris Layton and (as of 1985), keyboardist Reese Wynans. It can be argued (Note the COMMENTS section below, folks!) that Vaughan only really sounded like Vaughan when he was backed by Double Trouble. His sound changed when he made cameo appearances on other artists' albums and on the Vaughan Brothers' 1990 LP, Family Style.

Layton and Shannon—who, as Johnny Winter's former bassist, brought his own Texas blues pedigree into the mix—formed the perfect rhythm section for Vaughan, filling the gaps and adding dynamics during 15-minute versions of "Little Wing/Third Stone from the Sun" and sounding like a blues-shuffle instructional tape on "Empty Arms."

They understood their role in catchy guitar-based instrumentals like "Scuttle Buttin'," "Rude Mood," "Boilermaker" and "Stang's Swang" and knew how to alter their playing styles to fit each mood and blues sub-genre.

Wynans' arrival in 1985 gave the band a bigger, beefier sound, as heard on Soul to Soul and In Step.

Since Vaughan's death in 1990, Double Trouble have backed a host of artists, including Jimmie Vaughan, Buddy Guy and, more recently, Albert Cummings.

05. The Wailers

Formed in the early Sixties when Peter Tosh taught a young Robert Nesta Marley how to play guitar, the Wailers—in one incarnation or another—would back reggae’s most legendary figure throughout his entire career.

There are two distinct periods in the strata of Wailers history. The group’s original incarnation featured Tosh on guitar, with the Wailers existing as essentially a three-piece (with Bunny Livingston on percussion) between 1966 and 1974.

Citing unfair treatment within the group, Livingston and Tosh exited the band in ‘74, leaving Marley to regroup, establishing a new version of the Wailers that would serve as his backing band for the remainder of his career. The new Wailers lineup would hit the road in 1975 with Al Anderson handling guitar duties. Anderson would only stick around through '76, however, opting to join Peter Tosh's Word, Sound and Power and opening the door for Junior Marvin to enter the scene.

Marvin would breathe new life into the Wailers, as evidenced by the massive success of 1977's Exodus. But if you asked Marvin, he'd give all the credit to Roger Mayer, the man who Jimi Hendrix trusted to help craft his groundbreaking guitar sounds.

“You listen to the Wailers from 1977 onward and you listen to the Wailers pre-1977, and you will hear the difference,” Marvin says. “Part of that is down to Roger Mayer.”

But beyond a reinvigorated lineup and the technical know-how of Mayer, it was undoubtedly Marley’s strict work ethic that, regardless of lineup, made the Wailers one of the tightest backing bands in history.

“Bob was on top of everything, perfectly woven with everything,” Marvin said. “You felt like nothing would go wrong. Bob would rehearse us so much. At the end of rehearsal, you could play that thing in your sleep.”

These days, you can catch multiple versions of the Wailers on tour. The Wailers Band, led by “Family Man” Barrett, and the Original Wailers, featuring Al Anderson and Junior Marvin, are both doing their parts to keep the music and spirit of Bob Marley alive.

04. Booker T. & the M.G.'s

Among the first backing bands to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Booker T. and the M.G.s might very well be the most imitated house band in history, playing on hundreds of recordings for Stax Records, fortifying the sound of Southern soul in the process. During the 1960s, they would lend their talents to countless hits, including Sam & Dave's "Soul Man" and Otis Redding's "(Sittin' On) the Dock of the Bay," even backing Redding at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival.

While primarily known as a backing band, Booker T. & the M.G.’s also received some acclaim on their own, particularly with the 1962 instrumental “Green Onions,” which was added to the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry list of "culturally, historically, or aesthetically important" American sound recordings earlier this year.

In 1965, original bassist Lewie Steinberg would part ways with the band, paving the way for another Stax house band member, Donald “Duck” Dunn, to join the fray, solidifying a storied musical partnership.

“Steve and I are like an old married couple,” Dunn would later say of his relationship with Cropper. “I can look at him and know what he’s going to order for dinner.”

A further nod to their in-demand status, Dunn and Cropper would later join a pair of young Hollywood actors looking to cut an album of slick blues and R&B. They called themselves “the Blues Brothers.”

03. The Heartbreakers

Some names in popular culture are just inseparable: Starsky and Hutch; Laverne and Shirley; and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

Formed from the remnants of the Southern rock band Mudcrutch, the pairing of Petty's wry lyrics and penchant for melodies gelled seamlessly with the rock steady rhythm section of drummer Stan Lynch and bassist Ron Blair.

And even when Petty—much to the dismay of many, including his bandmates—went solo in the late ‘Eighties, guitarist Mike Campbell was never far away, playing guitar on every track of the critically acclaimed Full Moon Fever.

Outside of the Heartbreakers, Mike Campbell is a much-sought-after studio musician, adding his tasteful licks to recordings from the likes of Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan, among others.

02. The E Street Band

Two high-profile Bruce Springsteen solo albums—Nebraska and We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions—might be fine pieces of work, but there's nothing quite like the sound of Springsteen when he's backed by the musicians who've had his back since 1972, the E Street Band.

The E Street Band is proof that a great band is more than the sum of its parts. Current band members, including Steven Van Zandt, Max Weinberg, Nils Lofgren and Garry Tallent, might have their own successful side projects (including a never-ending series of mob-related cable TV shows), but they all know who's "Boss." When they are called to action, they are truly a force to be reckoned with. In this way, they are perhaps the perfect backing band; they live to serve their leader, but they do it while adding touches of their individual personalities and strengths.

Springsteen's early albums are clearly defined by the sound of the E Street Band, especially the trademark sax playing of the late Clarence Clemons. They often transformed what could have been simple compositions into grand, sprawling, dramatic works, such as "Born to Run" (Check out the live video below), "Lost in the Flood" and "Backstreets."

And while the band might not be so concerned with forging new sounds these days, as a live unit, they kick ass when it comes to generating excitement and reproducing their classic sound.

01. Crazy Horse

From 1969’s Everybody Knows This is Nowhere all that way up through the excellent Psychedelic Pill from 2012, the partnership between Neil Young and Crazy Horse stands as one of the most prolific in rock lore.

While the band has gone through its share of incarnations through the years, the drum-tight rhythm section of Billy Talbot and Ralph Molina has been intact since the Sixties, and guitarist Frank “Poncho” Sampedro has been a steady fixture since 1975’s Zuma.

In the realm of backing bands, Crazy Horse are far from the tightest act around, drifting lazily but deliberately between tempos with the occasional burst of cacophonous noise thrown in for good measure. But Young has never tapped them for metronome-like precision; he always comes back to them because, in the purest musical sense, they complete each other.

“I don’t think of my guitar solos as guitar solos,” said Young in a classic Guitar World interview, “because when we play, we’re like a big band jamming and taking long rides together.”

And so Crazy Horse stand atop the heap of backing bands for an unparalleled ability to elevate their frontman to new heights, never hesitating to take a leap out of the pocket when the music calls for it. Assuming their signature stance, huddled tightly around Molina's drum set, you get the undeniable impression that they're in another world entirely, journeying through strange landscapes with no particular destination in mind.

Neil Young said it himself: “I can’t do this with anyone else.”

Prior to Foo Fighters' 20th-anniversary show, which took place July 4 in Washington, D.C., Dave Grohl organized a Rally & Ride motorcycle event, which took place earlier that day at DC Brau Brewing.

The 9:30 a.m. party featured breakfast, coffee and a surprise show by Grohl, who fronted a group made up of former Pearl Jam drummer Dave Krusen, Blind Melon guitarist Christopher Thorn, singer-songwriter Jonny Kaplan and Foo Fighters keyboardist Rami Jaffee.

Grohl, whose broken leg was supported by folding chairs, and the band performed Neil Young's "Cinnamon Girl" and the Rolling Stones' "Bitch." And he wore a Ross Halfin T-shirt the whole time.

Check it out below and tell us what you think in the comments or on Facebook.