In the sixties, all the faders were pushed up, everything was to the max and we could hear all of it.

We started off with mono, ended up with sixteen tracks. And by time the decade ended there was so much going on and you were aware of all of it. Of course there was a generation gap, our parents were the last generation that got old. Boomers today wear jeans and run marathons and are teenagers until they pass, unlike their forefathers who were shell-shocked by the Depression and two wars and were risk averse. The sixties were all about testing limits, intellectually and emotionally. Sure, drugs were part of the equation, but they were billed as a way to expand your mind. We were in it together, developing together, and we knew it all.

In the seventies we licked our wounds.

In the eighties we had a monoculture, dictated by MTV. There was more going on, but you didn’t hear about it. And then in the nineties it all started to fracture, where today nothing is truly popular, nothing is known by everybody, everybody’s got different facts and resides in a different bubble, but not in the sixties.

The fifties…the underground was truly underground. But it surfaced in the sixties, the Beat poets, never mind Bob Dylan and the folk scene and then the Beatles. We wanted more, we wanted it all. America was the land of possibilities, and our generation spearheaded it. We’d brooked no crisis until the advent of the Vietnam War. Of course your view was different if you were a minority, but this was also the decade where others were exposed to the plight of the minorities. And sure, there were some who didn’t like it, and Nixon rounded them all up and emerged in victory, but we stood up to them, these were turbulent times.

But the transitions!

Like your hair… Crew cut and then after the Beatles, long.

Hats flew by the wayside with Kennedy’s inauguration.

Ties faded, bell bottoms arrived, along with paisley…your clothes contained a statement…you were either with us or against us. And you’d be surprised how many found it difficult to change, they grew their hair out in the seventies, bought Stones albums in the eighties, they were frightened, they needed their feet firmly planted, whereas everybody else was hopping from stone to stone, not believing it was even possible to slip and fall into the water.

But although the tide started to turn on the coast in the early sixties, the pace was slower elsewhere. At first we believed in our country, were excited by the space program, by the possibilities. And then the Beatles swept us off our feet and they didn’t play by the rules. Lennon said the taboo, that the band was bigger than Jesus, and they were, the back to God movement didn’t really start until the seventies.

But it was not like the internet, there was no brittle break, no great leap forward, but an evolution. You were here, and then you found yourself there. And it was surprising what you would not leave behind, like sports.

Which were also different in the sixties. The games may have been the same, but that was all. The stadiums were not branded by sponsors. There weren’t that many teams. The NFL grew into a monolith over the decade, its pinnacle being Super Bowl III, with Namath’s victory, but the truth is, baseball ruled. And it still rules for many boomers.

Oh, they’ll tell you it’s about strategy and the opportunity to come from behind but the truth is the sport is out of whack with today’s world. It’s kind of like trying to sell a gas-guzzler to a Tesla customer. It’ll work, but it’s not what people want.

But in the sixties, baseball was all people wanted.

Not that the entire country was on the same page. The south was dominated by college football, lacking Major League Baseball. And by the end of the decade, the hip were anti-football because of the injuries. But baseball players were some of the biggest stars in the land, bigger than the musicians, as well-known as the president. Mickey Mantle was a hero to the generation. And the Yankees were nearly unbeatable.

In the era before free agency, you rooted for the team closest to you. There were no sports bars to go see an out of region game, no DirectTV, you had the local team and that was it. And sure, I watched the Rangers on Saturday night, but their hold on the country was minimal. The Knicks sucked, but ultimately became a juggernaut, but that was more the seventies. Basketball really didn’t reach its heyday until the eighties, with Magic and Bird. And yes, the AFL sprouted and merged with the established league, but sports were dominated by baseball. Mickey Mantle made a hundred grand! That’s who we all wanted to be, a baseball player.

But only in California did they seem to have established sports programs. It was all amateur, AAU mentality, on the east coast. There were no sports academies. And sure, the sport was still mostly white, but the Yankees had Elston Howard. You went directly from high school to the minor leagues. If you were lucky, you’d be in the majors within a couple of years. And your name would be on a card, we all had ’em, we flipped ’em, we carried them loose in plastic bags, we did not worry about physical attrition, they were not like rare sports cars, they were meant to be driven every day.

And then the Yankees fell off their perch, the trophy was passed around.

Meanwhile, New York had a new team, the Mets.

The Giants had left. The Dodgers too. The league had to give back. And what we got was a ragtag outfit managed by the Old Perfesser, Casey Stengel, playing in the antiquated Polo Grounds with games called by Ralph Kiner. They were in the major league, but they were playing minor league ball. Oh, we had our heroes, but they were antiheroes, like the not even twenty year old Ed Kranepool, no one could believe in the Mets, and then you could.

It started with Shea Stadium. Out in Flushing Meadows. Which debuted with the World’s Fair. It was round and industrial, but it was brand new. And even though it was hard to figure out the metal panels on the exterior, the truth was the Yankees had history on their side, but the Mets were a look into the future.

And then they got Tom Seaver.

Someone good on the Mets! Someone world class on the Mets! One player changed the perception of the entire team.

And sure, Yogi Berra had a personality, and many players had nicknames, but this was before long hair in sports and arrests and…the craziest the sport got was Jimmy Piersall, or maybe Bo Belinksy. Seaver strode to the mound, did his job and earned our respect. He lifted the entire team, the fan base, you couldn’t make fun of the Mets anymore, now they were playing baseball, but still, they were not good.

Until 1969.

YA GOTTA BELIEVE!

Well, actually that catchphrase came with the ’73 run, but the point is we did start to believe in the Mets. They put a smile on our face, made us all optimistic, if the Mets could do it, why couldn’t we? They became a religion.

It was not like today. With all this hoopla about curses, etc. The Red Sox had Carl Yastrzemski, it’s just that the rest of the team wasn’t quite as good. As for the Cubs? They played without lights and it looked like it, they sucked. Sure, a contract was indentured servitude, but we got to know our teams. It was a collective, it all fit together. And you were there for the ride up and the ride down except…

Many were not there for the ride down of the Yankees. They were fair weather fans. I hate the Yankee fans that came along in the Steinbrenner era, they were following success, whereas a true fan is there even if you lose every season. And the Mets had fans, primarily because they played in the National League and they were underdogs.

The National League only met the American League in the World Series. Which took place in the beginning of October. But now, in ’69, the year of the Miracle Mets, there was a playoff series, today called the NLCS, but that acronym was not used back then, no way. And the Mets played the Braves and…

I went.

I had no connection, it’s just that my father lived for the mail. He had to have a post office box, delivery at the house came too late. He knew if you dropped a letter in downtown Bridgeport on Sunday afternoon, it would arrive at its destination on Monday. And he knew that the fastest way to get through was Express Mail, for five bucks.

Knowing all this, I employed my dad’s tricks to get tickets for the playoffs, all three games, but there ended up only being one.

As for the World Series? I left it to Judd, my compatriot, we didn’t get tickets.

It was October 6th. The games started in the afternoon. You’d miss them if you were at school. But that wasn’t as bad as today, where everything’s played at night for money and youngsters can’t stay up that late. We’d have our transistors in school, we’d know the score, and if we were lucky we could ride our bikes home in time to catch an inning or two on TV before the game was over. But to be there?

There’s a feeling you get when you walk into a baseball stadium. There’s the scale, larger than life, the green field, the exclusion of the outside world, and that noise, when the ball meets the bat, with that crack.

You’d buy a program and keep score. There was beer and hot dogs, maybe pretzels, nothing more. It was about the game.

The game.

The game doesn’t mean much anymore. Any game. Today everybody’s an individual representing their own brand, their own team, everybody wants to be a star, even though almost no one can be. And they keep changing the game, you gather your friends on MySpace and suddenly it all switches to Facebook, and then Instagram, everybody’s chasing an elusive Holy Grail that not only do you not get, but wouldn’t fulfill you if you did.

But Tom Seaver…

He didn’t pitch that afternoon. It was Nolan Ryan, before he was “Nolan Ryan.” And when the game was over, the fans took to the field and ripped it up. Literally. That’s just how happy we were. Security was inefficient, it was not prepared, it was spontaneous. They beefed up the guard for the World Series, but it still didn’t matter. The system was not in control, the fans, were.

Eventually the Mets traded Seaver. It’s always the same, Maggie’s Farm, the owner needs to show you who’s boss, they can’t play but they want to demonstrate their power. But the athletes…THEY CAN PLAY!

And unlike in basketball, you did not need to be tall.

And unlike in football, you did not need to be big.

And hell, you didn’t even have to be in great shape!

Hustle helped, but the truth is you needed to have the skills. And if you did, our jaws dropped, we were in awe.

Not that the mighty Casey did not strike out. The cleanup man would come to the plate in the bottom of the ninth and strike out, or pop up. Succeeding was hard, and like Tom Hanks ultimately said in that movie, there’s no crying in baseball.

And at the center of it all was Tom Seaver. Not only was he good, he was better! As good as anybody on any other team. He inspired the rest of the players to succeed, he inspired fans to believe. It was a wondrous time.

But those days are through. I could delineate why, but the most obvious example would be to see if those you encounter know even the biggest baseball stars. They almost definitely do not. There’s just too much going on. And the players are mini-corporations unto themselves. I’m not saying that they’re not entitled to the money, better them than the owners, but it’s less about character and more about cash. And Tom Seaver cared about money, but he was anything but a flawed character, he was dignified, nobody’s chump, but a real man doing a real job, someone you could respect.

And Tom never soiled that reputation, never ever.

I can tell you my love for you will still be strong
After the boys of summer have gone

The boys of summer have gone. There are players on the field, but they’re as similar to what came before as an iPhone is to a transistor radio. They’re playing the same game, you can hear music on both, but…

Technology was a color TV set. Video calling was a World’s Fair demonstration of the future. Our futures were contained within ourselves, our hopes and dreams, not in technology. Young boys always need someone to look up to. And men want to be reminded of that youthful spirit. We loved Tom Seaver. Not in a sexual way, but for what he represented. He came to do a job and he delivered. He lifted the rest of the team up, he did not let them drag him down. But that was the sixties. Despite all the turmoil we believed in a more equitable world and Tom Seaver.

Yes, we believed in Tom Seaver.

Chuck Morris is a Denver legend who started in the club business and then went on to work for Barry Fey, Live Nation and AEG Presents. He also managed the Dirt Band and Big Head Todd & the Monsters. In addition to his emeritus status at AEG, Chuck is the Chairman of the newly-created Music Business Department at Colorado State University. Chuck is a fount of energy and wisdom, here he opines about today’s concert landscape, his history and the details of the new CSU program.

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Humble Pie

I know it’s old, but it’s new to me.

I left the house, to go to the periodontist. He charged an arm and a leg for the implant, over three years ago, but he doesn’t bill for the follow-ups, he’s more on it than I am, he wants me to rubber tip for forty five minutes a day, I wouldn’t commit to that, who would?

And the weather is strange in SoCal, it’s definitely fall. The light especially, but also the temperature, suddenly it’s in the seventies, when we haven’t seen that number for over a month, at least not during the day, however it’s supposed to be over a hundred this weekend, oftentimes Labor Day is a last hurrah, I remember one day in the eighties sleeping with the front door open, that’s just how hot it was, having all my stuff stolen was less of a consequence than expiring from heatstroke. In the coming weeks we’ll have the Santa Anas, but then it is cool at night, however warm it gets during the day, but it feels like we’re falling into winter, and that’s how it feels to me, we rise into summer, through spring, but we fall into winter.

And in Beverly Hills everybody is wearing a mask. And in the parking garage I took the stairs instead of the elevator, I’ve been totally home, I don’t want to risk it, I don’t feel that lucky, but when you go out how paranoid do you have to be? I’ve got no clue, I know people who are nearly living normal lives, and they’re Covid-19 free, if only there were leadership, direction, if we were all on the same page, tackling the problem together. But I’m not gonna swerve into politics, it’s just not worth it, today when Trump is telling everybody to vote twice…if you think he’s leaving voluntarily, you’re wrong. Did you read yesterday’s Axios article?

“Exclusive: Dem group warns of apparent Trump Election Day landslide,”

but dig deeper and you’ll find he may win on November 3rd, but when all the mail-in votes are counted he probably won’t, and he’s gonna declare fraud:  And, once again, you’ve got to read Umair Haque on Medium. He’s flummoxed that the Democrats won’t use the dreaded f-word, and I don’t mean the one that connotes sex, but the one that reminds you of Mussolini, i.e. “fascism”:  Trump and the Republicans brand the Democrats all day long, but the Dems are afraid to do it in reverse, who are they afraid of, the 30% who will be up-in-arms who will vote for Trump anyway? There, I got that out of the way, but I must say the “mini-stroke” controversy is cracking me up, funny to see Trump on the defensive, no one said he had mini-strokes, and now he keeps contradicting himself, I’m only laughing because like I said it’s all irrelevant, the horse race, the next two months, the game begins when the results start to come in.

So I came home to some e-mail. I was debating writing about a couple of TV shows, but I wasn’t in the mood. And then I got an e-mail from Richard Griffiths that inspired me to write about “After the Gold Rush,” and then I started compiling next week’s Sirius XM playlist, and that’s when I pulled up “One Eyed Trouser Snake Rumba” by Humble Pie.

I thought it was from the Clem Clempson era, with that title, when the band scraped the bottom of the barrel, played to such a lowest common denominator as to become a joke, irrelevant.

But it was not.

But that’s not what I’m listening to right now, rather it’s the Frampton cut from the same LP, the eponymous “Humble Pie,” from 1970, the first on A&M, after Immediate imploded, after Dee Anthony became the manager, he might have not done well by Frampton financially, but one always has to ask with these acts, would they have broken through without these managers, especially when you needed a conduit to the label and you fought it out on the road and radio for years before you hopefully broke through.

So, this is the white album. If you’re old and spent time combing the bins you’ve probably seen it. But there’s a good chance you haven’t heard it. And after I was stunned by “One Eyed Trouser Snake Rumba,” I played the whole thing. And I’d like to tell you it demands your attention, but the rest of the LP is not as good as these two tracks, not that it’s bad. But listening is such a different experience, because you get it, you understand the music immediately, you don’t need a decoder, it’s right in the pocket, which is astounding because this album was a stiff, at least in America. If only today’s Active Rock acts could cut something as compelling, it’s like a lost formula, and yes, this LP is about the basics, not the tricks, you think at times you can’t be reached by music and then you hear something like this, the listening experience reminds me of nothing so much as “Molten Gold,” the Free anthology which will blow your mind, the band was so underrated.

Now I purchased the follow-up album, “Rock On,” because I was going to see the band at the Fillmore, opening for my beloved Lee Michaels, this was the weekend they were recording the live album, “Rockin’ the Fillmore,” not that we knew this, not that Frampton knew it was going to be such a smash, finally breaking the band through, otherwise he wouldn’t have decided to quit.

And in the summer of ’72, Frampton released his first solo LP, and if you’d listened to “Rockin’ the Fillmore,” you were not prepared for it, “Wind of Change” was anything but bombastic, not that it was wimpy. I loved the opener “Fig Tree Bay,” which no one ever talks about, but the apotheosis, of Frampton’s career as far as I’m concerned, my favorite, that I cannot burn out on, is the second side opener, “All I Wanna Be (Is Your Side),” which survives because an abbreviated acoustic version made it to “Frampton Comes Alive!,” but the original is much more, it’s an opus, an almost seven minute journey that is both quiet and rocking, like “Earth and Water Song.” “Wind of Change” came out of left field from where I sat, but now hearing “Earth and Water Song,” I can see the roots.

“Earth and Water Song” is not as good as “All I Wanna Be (Is By Your Side),” but this six minute track has a mood absent from today’s scene, a deeper meaning, a heaviness that used to be de rigueur. Play it twice and you can’t take it off, I must be about eight or nine times into it by this point. And it’s enhanced by the quality, Amazon Ultra HD via my Genelecs. Great sound just makes you feel good, makes you believe the artist is literally in the speakers, there is no scrim, no noise, no distortion blocking the way.

Check “Earth and Water Song” out, but “One Eyed Trouser Snake Rumba” is completely different, yet even better. You’ve got Frampton’s guitar sound, one only an electric can give, that combo of axe and amp with a slight effect…I know this sound, it’s rock DNA, and Steve Marriott’s vocal. And a hook, a riff. And this is almost a completely unknown cut. It sounds like the boogie of the era, but this is on a level above Foghat, who I’ve come to love, but this is Steve Marriott, one of the greatest rock vocalists of all time, and Frampton’s guitar, is that an ES-335 or a Les Paul or..?

It’s so basic, so old, yet it’s a revelation. How did the band make an album like this? It’s not like there’s a single. They obviously just went into the studio and laid down what they did, got a representation of their sound so they could go on tour. But “One Eyed Trouser Snake” is more than that, the kind of cut that has you dancing around in your underwear, one that you cannot sit still for during its playback, it just makes you feel good.

And “trouser snake” is a British expression. Not that others cannot understand it, but it’s never used on this side of the pond. And sure, the lyrics are not sophisticated, kind of base, but they’re superfluous, this cut is purely about the sound. How did we lose this? Where did we go wrong? Did metal become so obscure, did the soft rockers become so bogus, did credible acts like Rod Stewart cut standards to stay alive to the point where basic rock and roll evaporated in the avalanche of hip-hop and pop? Would kids really not get this? “One Eyed Trouser Snake Rumba” cannot be ignored, you might insist it be taken off, otherwise you’re on board, nearly immediately. It’s fifty years old, but it still sounds fresh, maybe because it’s just the basics, no frills, no filing off of the rough edges, you can hear the humanity of the playing.

I won’t say I thought I’d heard everything, but something like that, I didn’t think there were that many gems buried, that I was still unaware of. And the truth is most of those records, however big, from the seventies will be forgotten. But “Molten Gold” will be remembered, it’s a blueprint, as great as Paul Rodgers is, and he is, it evidences Paul Kossoff’s talent, Peter Green has been lionized, but Kossoff has not yet gotten his due, even though he wrote one of the most iconic riffs in rock music history with “All Right Now,” but have you listened to “The Stealer”?

This is archaeology. This is life. There will be no renaissance. This is just for you. Not social media. Play these tracks, they just might reach you, they might just give you joy, and isn’t that what we’re all looking for?

It came out the week I started college.

Those were different days, we didn’t even have telephones in our dorm rooms, never mind the internet. As a matter of fact, your dorm room was the last place you wanted to be, this was back when all the action was outside as opposed to inside, and we were doing our best to integrate ourselves with our new compatriots.

Then again, that was back when college was something completely different, back before it was seen as a glorified trade school, back before parents hovered over their children, we were in a far distant state and it was our own responsibility to measure up, with no guidance, no instruction, you had to hit the ground running.

I went to college with more records than anybody in the dorm. They were my lifeline, and I needed more. But there was no E.J. Korvette, the closest one was two states away, as for indie shops…they gained traction as the seventies wore on, most people bought their albums at the big box store, at a discount. But in Middlebury, Vermont there was only one outlet, the Vermont Book Shop, which charged too much, but I had to own “After the Gold Rush.” Ultimately everybody else in the dorm did too. Before they switched to the Dead in ’72 and overplayed “Brothers and Sisters” in the fall of ’73…I still can’t listen to “Ramblin’ Man,” however I cannot get enough of “Come and Go Blues.”

So, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young were the biggest band in the land. Which was kinda weird, since “Deja Vu” was nowhere near as good as the initial LP. But it was the “Woodstock” movie which cemented their status, you heard the band, both albums, everywhere you went. One can argue that Woodstock and the resultant three album set is what really clued everybody in America to the music revolution, the album revolution, the rock revolution, it no longer had to have a single to matter, earlier in the summer Traffic released its comeback opus “John Barleycorn,” and despite having no AM radio play whatsoever, the LP was all over rock radio, my favorite track was always “Empty Pages,” which came out before the album, with “Every Mother’s Son” on the flip side, suddenly Traffic was no longer a cult item.

So, with the penetration of CSNY into the public consciousness everybody was hungry for more, music and information. The Buffalo Springfield greatest hits album “Retrospective” sold like hot cakes, not that I ever noticed hot cakes selling that well, and everybody knew “Rock & Roll Woman,” listeners hungered for more of that Stephen Stills magic, he was the linchpin in the new band, the most famous member, and when his solo album came out just before Thanksgiving it was an instant smash, carried along by the hit “Love the One You’re With.” There was not as much furor, not as much pent-up demand for “After the Gold Rush,” as for Graham Nash…he sang some singles, but he was perceived as a lightweight, which was disproved with “Songs for Beginners,” but that didn’t come out until the summer of ’71, and as for David Crosby…I still cannot get enough of “Long Time Gone” but he was always seen as a supporting player, and despite its legendary status today, “I I Could Only Remember My Name” was a flop when it came out at the tail end of the winter of ’71.

So, the first member of CSNY to release a solo album after the band became the biggest in the land was…Neil Young. Who had released his initial solo LP in January of 1969 to crickets, he was not a household name, and the only thing those paying attention knew about it was the controversy, Young being pissed about the sound and insisting the LP be remixed, which it was, and you knew it was the right version if his name was emblazoned in white atop the cover, but like I said, most people didn’t buy it, at this late date most people are still unaware of it, but its peaks are as good as Neil Young gets.

There was the opening instrumental “The Emperor of Wyoming.” A trademark people were unaware was him just like many didn’t know Frank Zappa cut “Peaches en Regalia,” even though they knew both tunes from radio airplay. But it’s the second track, “The Loner,” which announces Neil Young is here to stay.

Know when you see him
Nothing can free him
Step aside, open wide
It’s the loner

Back when loners were truly such, when they could not connect online, when they were outcasts, truly singular figures.

Equally great, but different, was “I’ve Been Waiting For You.” The intro slayed you, with the distorted guitar and the vocal AHHHs.

I’ve been looking for a woman to save my life
Not to beg or borrow
A woman with the feeling of losing once or twice
Who knows how it could be tomorrow

LOSING?

Talk about a generation gap. Today everybody is a winner, no matter the truth, just check out Instagram. You don’t want to reveal your warts, your problems, unless it’s a mea culpa, unless it’s its own shtick, in the desire of sympathy.

I’ve been waiting for you
And you’ve been coming to me
For such a long time now
Such a long time now

Rock fans were nerds. The dedicated ones, who owned all the LPs and read all the magazines, they dreamed of getting laid, having a relationship, and it was only the music that kept them sane while they waited for this to arrive. They were never the captain of the football team. This was back when you were looking for another outcast, to understand you.

And, of course, the initial solo LP ended with “The Last Trip to Tulsa,” and either you know it or you don’t, either you don’t understand it or…are lying.

But “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere” was something different. Even though it came out mere months after the debut, it contained “Cinnamon Girl,” which was not the ubiquitous golden oldie it is today, but was ready for spinning a year after it came out as part of the CSNY mania. This was the LP that new fans owned. And when they did, they were exposed to the nine minute plus “Down by the River” and the even longer “Cowgirl in the Sand.” These three cuts were the heart of the album, but really it was about “Down by the River,” assuming you owned it. And everybody did not, but many more than the initial LP, and they got stoned and listened to the extended tracks.

Down by the river
I shot may baby
Down by the river
Dead…
Ooh, shot her dead

It was the extended riffing, the solos that cemented Neil Young’s legacy, this is what you go to see him for today. As for acoustic numbers safe for the populace…after “Harvest” Neil went on an arena tour and played all new music, ultimately released as the live album “Time Fades Away,” putting his new soft rock fans on notice, he was not gonna deliver what they wanted, he was not playing it safe, he was not safe.

So “After the Gold Rush”…

All the people who purchased “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere needed it immediately. And slowly, but not that slowly, the soft sound akin to what was included in “Deja Vu” spread to the point where casual fans picked up the LP, it was the beginning of the Neil Young juggernaut, cemented by “Harvest” released nearly eighteen months later, in February of ’72.

And “Tell Me Why,” “After the Gold Rush”‘s opening cut, was a jaunty country number that you could accept if you’d purchased “Deja Vu.” As for hearing it for the first time, in the wilds of Vermont, it was an intro, to the title track…

There was a fanfare blowin’ to the sun
That was floating on the breeze
Look at mother nature on the run in the 1970s
Look at mother nature on the run in the 1970s

The seventies were new. A change from the sixties, nearly as significant as the millennium thirty years later. What would this new decade hold? More death and destruction or..? We were licking our wounds, this was less than four months since “Ohio,” it seemed Neil Young had reflected, was pondering what was going on, what would come.

But there were more significant lines:

I was lyin’ in a burned out basement

Thinkin’ about what a friend had said
I was hopin’ it was a lie

And then there were the “silver spaceships” and “mother nature’s silver seed.” This was heavy. This was not a ditty. And the lyrics permeated boomer psyches, we all know them. And stunningly, “After the Gold Rush” became a standard, because the forgotten Prelude had a hit with it in ’74, and then Linda Ronstadt, Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris covered it on their “Trio” album and the song is one of the weirdest ever to become a standard.

“Only Love Can Break Your Heart”… That country feel. But palatable to the rockers. There were no clunkers on “After the Gold Rush,” but really it’s what came next that mattered, “Southern Man”…

Southern man better keep your head
Don’t forget what your good book said
Southern change gonna come at last
Now your crosses are burning fast
Southern man

You could not drive south of the Mason-Dixon Line with long hair, you were asking for it. Nixon had won on the Southern Strategy, the seeds of separation were sown, and this was the cut that became ubiquitous on FM rock radio which was spreading its wings everywhere. “Southern Man” was a compressed “Down By the River,” only five and a half minutes long it allowed Neil to stretch out yet there was no issue of boredom, and you didn’t need to be stoned to get it, most people consider “Southern Man” to be the heart of the album, and it would be hard to argue with that, but it’s not my favorite.

“Old man lying by the side of the road
With the lorries rolling by”

Edgier than the title track, “Don’t Let It Bring You Down” was buried on the second side, it was not obvious, it was heavy, something you could get right away but could never get enough of.

Don’t let it bring you down
It’s only castles burning
Find someone who’s turning
And you will come around

Once again, there’s that concept of being behind the 8-ball, holding the losing end of the stick, someone at a distance, not in the mainstream, the music wasn’t for everybody, just like-minded people, and there were a lot of us, it couldn’t be more different from today. You had to endure, but you knew you were not alone.

Each side of the LP ended with a short ditty. I loved “Till the Morning Comes.” Prior to the era of CDs, I used to lift the tonearm to play this incessantly. A meaningful throwaway. Which I played with my roommate, me on the guitar and he on the trombone, probably the only moment we bonded. And the closer on the second side was “Cripple Creek Ferry,” which one could not listen to without thinking of the Band song, our music was part of a continuum.

“Oh Lonesome Me” opened side two. There’s all this talk of Gram Parsons, how he was the innovator, the man who merged country and rock, with the Byrds and the Burritos, and that’s probably true, but none of that work had anywhere near the ubiquity of “After the Gold Rush,” one can argue quite strongly that it was Neil Young who truly brought the country feel to the rock masses.

And just before the end of the second side, there’s “I Believe in You,” a slow walk on the prairie, with a very sweet chorus, which made the song, but it’s Linda Ronstadt’s 1973 cover that endures, what burned the track into people’s brains.

And in the middle of the second side was “Birds,” almost a palate cleanser between two heavy numbers, two of Neil’s best, the aforementioned “Don’t Let it Bring You Down” and…

When You Dance, I Can Really Love.

This was a throwback to what had come before, closer to the cuts on the first two LPs, a melding of edge and sensitivity that was Neil Young’s trademark, the ability to rock out and be meaningful at the same time.

One of the great things about the guitar is style triumphs over skill. There are great technical players with barely a hold on the public consciousness, and then there are others whose sound we know immediately, that just rings right, so true, like Neil’s blistering notes in “When You Dance, I Can Really Love.”

When you dance do your senses tingle then take a chance

Wait a minute. The rockers, the dedicated listeners, they might have been on a date, but they never danced, if they even went to the school events. They were wallflowers, at best mirror stars. This is what separated Neil Young from his hardest core fans, HE WAS COOL! There were those patches on his jeans, the way he laconically laid on that couch, the album cover of “After the Gold Rush” was studied, for clues, it was influential.

Or is it his potential beloved who is doing the dancing? “While the lonely mingle with circumstance”?

I got something to tell you, you made it show
Let me come over, I know you know
When you dance, ooh ooh, I can really love

Between the music and her movement you become INSPIRED! To make a move. That’s one of music’s powers, it can infiltrate you, make you take chances, perform better than you ever have before.

I can love, I can really love, I can really love

This was the dream. Not getting on stage, those were gods, but having music lead you to the point where your dreams were fulfilled.

At this point, one of the most famous things about “After the Gold Rush” is not contained in the album, it’s “Sweet Home Alabama,” the answer track by Lynyrd Skynyrd. And the funny thing is, however great “Southern Man” and the rest of “After the Gold Rush” are, “Sweet Home Alabama” is better.

Oh, don’t get your knickers in a twist. The fact is “Sweet Home Alabama” is either the best or second-best song Skynyrd ever cut. That illustrates the power of inspiration, the Skynyrd boys were pissed, they had to blow back, to a track that was now ubiquitous on the FM rock radio that was everywhere.

It wasn’t until the fall of ’71 that the Allmans broke through nationally, with “Fillmore East,” the Brothers and the rest of the Capricorn crew and Skynyrd were giving us new insight into what was happening down there, when Miami was still dilapidated, when Nashville was seen as third-rate and Memphis was the dark place where Martin Luther King was assassinated. It was southern rock which opened the minds of northerners as to what was really happening down there.

Well I heard Mr. Young sing about her
Well I heard ol’ Neil put her down
Well I hope Neil Young will remember
A southern man don’t need him around, anyhow

MR. YOUNG! There’s that southern politeness, which still exists. Everything in the south is indirect. You don’t tell someone to close the window, you say you’re cold, the listener is supposed to figure it out. The key is not to offend, and the Skynyrd boys were offended by Neil Young, making both their track and its inspiration, “Southern Man,” staples to this day.

Now the truth is it was “Harvest” that put Neil Young on the pedestal, that demonstrated not only did he deserve to be in Crosby, Stills & Nash’s band, maybe he was better than any of the others. It was “Heart of Gold.” Not that “Harvest” was not great.

But “Harvest” could not have existed without “After the Gold Rush,” that’s how Neil Young got there.

Musicians want it. It wasn’t like today, they didn’t make it overnight. And Neil had been through a number of bands where he had not shined, where he had not been the star. And rather than calculate, he filtered his message for the masses on “After the Gold Rush.” Not that he was aware of how big the Woodstock movie would make him, what attention it would focus on him. It’s nearly impossible to deliver when eyes are upon you, but when you’re still on the way up, when you can feel it in your bones, your desire is at its peak, this is when you do some of your best, if not your best, work.

After dismantling his career, Neil Young got a second wind, came back into the public consciousness, with 1979’s “Rust Never Sleeps.” It doesn’t, and that term has become part of the lexicon. And since then, Neil has bounced all over the map, tried new sounds, discarded them, followed his muse, not concerned what the public thinks.

But it is “After the Gold Rush” that paved the way, that allowed Neil Young the freedom to experiment, to be him. Not everybody loved “Harvest,” the hipsters were getting off the bus as the newbies were coming on board. But “After the Gold Rush”? It was a stealth achievement, a hidden victory. There was no hit single. Fans bought it, then musos bought it, and then everybody owned it, you heard it everywhere, what was on the hit parade was irrelevant, if you wanted to know what was going on you listened to an album. And there were many turning points in this journey, most notably “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” and “After the Gold Rush” may not be quite that achievement, but it’s close, and nearly as influential.

But it was a different era. The world was smaller. Everybody could be reached. You could start at the bottom and ring the bell. And the youth, no matter where they grew up, where they lived, were on the same page, they rejected what came before, they were busy paving their own way, with music riding shotgun. We were still testing limits, albeit more personally than politically, and if you wanted to free your mind and get inspired at the same time you played…

“After the Gold Rush.”