Crazy Horse is an American rock band best known for its association with Neil Young. It has been co-credited on a number of albums throughout Young's career and has released five albums of its own. T... click for more infoCrazy Horse is an American rock band best known for its association with Neil Young. It has been co-credited on a number of albums throughout Young's career and has released five albums of its own. The band's origins date to 1963 and the Los Angeles-based a cappella doo wop group Danny And The Memories, which consisted of main singer Danny Whitten and supporting vocalists Lou Bisbal (soon to be replaced by Bengiamino Rocco), Billy Talbot, and Ralph Molina. The latter two would become the only members of Crazy Horse present in every incarnation of the band.
Making its way to San Francisco and back to Los Angeles again, the group evolved over the course of several years into The Rockets, a psychedelic folk hybrid comprising Whitten on guitar, Talbot on bass, Molina on drums, Bobby Notkoff on violin, and brothers Leon and George Whitsell also on guitars. This lineup recorded the Rockets' only album, a self-titled set released in 1968.
With their album complete, the Rockets reconnected with Neil Young, whom they had met two years earlier during the early days of Buffalo Springfield. In August 1968, three months after Buffalo Springfield dissolved, Young jammed with the Rockets on stage during their show at the Whisky A Go-Go and soon after enlisted Whitten, Talbot, and Molina to back him on his second solo album.
Credited to Neil Young with Crazy Horse, “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere” includes the minor pop hit "Cinnamon Girl" and the extended guitar workouts "Down by the River" and "Cowgirl in the Sand". Crazy Horse toured with Young during the first half of 1969 and, with the addition of Jack Nitzsche on electric piano, in early 1970. The 1970 tour was showcased on the 2006 album “Live at the Fillmore East.”
Shortly after beginning work on his third solo album with Crazy Horse in 1969, Young joined Crosby, Stills & Nash as a full fourth member, recording an album and touring in 1969 and 1970. When Young returned to his solo album, Crazy Horse found its participation more limited. The group as a whole appears on just three of the eleven tracks on “After the Gold Rush,” "When You Dance I Can Really Love" plus "Oh Lonesome Me" and "I Believe In You" from the sessions in 1969 prior to Young's first tour with Crosby, Stills & Nash.
Crazy Horse capitalized on its newfound exposure and recorded its eponymous debut album for Reprise Records in 1971. The band retained Nitzsche as producer and keyboardist, and added second guitarist Nils Lofgren . Whitten's "I Don't Want to Talk About It" would later be covered by a wide range of artists including Geoff Muldaur, The Indigo Girls, and Rod Stewart. Stewart would record the song three times and score a hit with it on the same number of occasions—including a UK #1 in 1977 as a double A-side with "The First Cut Is the Deepest". In 1988 the song would become a top-ten hit in the UK again, this time a #3 for Everything but the Girl.
Crazy Horse released two albums with different lineups (save for the rhythm section of Talbot and Molina) in 1972, “Loose” and “At Crooked Lake.” Young placed Whitten on retainer in the fall of 1972 with a view toward including the guitarist in his touring band, the Stray Gators. Due to Whitten's poor performance in tour rehearsals, however, the band pressured Young to dismiss him. Whitten returned to Los Angeles and died a few days later, his death attributed to a fatal overdose of alcohol and Valium.
After Whitten's death, Talbot and Molina were the only full-fledged members of the band. In mid-1973, Young brought together a band comprising Talbot, Molina, Lofgren, and pedal steel guitarist Ben Keith to record “Tonight's the Night,” the majority of which eventually saw release in 1975. Molina and Whitsell would subsequently contribute guitar and drums and percussion (respectively) to Young's “On the Beach” in 1974.
Shortly after aborted sessions at Chess Studios in late 1974, Young, Talbot, and Molina spontaneously convened at Talbot's Echo Park home in 1975 with rhythm guitarist Frank "Poncho" Sampedro. After a five-year hiatus Neil Young and Crazy Horse was born again, and Young marked the occasion by finishing off the lyrics to "Powderfinger", soon to become one of the new lineup's signature songs.
With Sampedro and producer David Briggs in tow, Young and Crazy Horse quickly recorded “Zuma” later that year. Throughout late 1975 and into 1977, Young recorded feverishly in various solo and group configurations. Crazy Horse appears on all but two songs of 1977's country-inflected “American Stars 'n Bars” while “Comes a Time” features two performances with Crazy Horse: "Lotta Love" and "Motorcycle Mama".
In 1978, Crazy Horse released their fourth album (“Crazy Moon,” which features some lead guitar by Young), and also joined Young on the tour that led to the successful albums “Rust Never Sleeps” and “Live Rust,” both credited to Neil Young and Crazy Horse.
As Young spent much of the eighties working in genres mostly outside the band's idiom, Crazy Horse recorded with him more sporadically, appearing only on “Re•ac•tor,” an unspecified portion of “Trans,” and “Life.”
Young and Crazy Horse reunited in 1990 for the acclaimed album “Ragged Glory” and for a tour in 1991 that generated the live album “Weld.” Over the next twelve years Crazy Horse would steadily collaborate with Young, joining the singer for “Sleeps With Angels,” “Broken Arrow, the live “Year of the Horse,” "Goin' Home" on “Are You Passionate?,” and “Greendale.”
Crazy Horse has remained inactive since touring with Young in support of “Greendale” in the winter of 2004.