Prolific rock musician Neil Young, 78, is releasing his most copiously comprehensive box set yet: Neil Young Archives Vol. III (1976–1987), a heap of recorded history stretching across 198 tracks, 11 films and 28 hours. Fifteen tunes are previously unreleased, and you can hear one of the prettiest now, “Lady Wingshot,” premiering Aug. 21 exclusively on AARP for 24 hours.
Listen to “Lady Wingshot” by clicking on the video player above.
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It’s a midtempo duet with the late Nicolette Larson, Young’s partner on the 1978 hit “Lotta Love,” recorded Nov. 10, 1977, in Nashville. At the end, you hear persnickety perfectionist Young complaining that one guitar is “just a little louder than all the other ones.”
For Young, the archive is not a retirement hobby. He remains an active recording and touring musician, an outspoken environmental activist and a mercurial rock insurrectionist. He’s also one of the most demanding music historians alive, especially when it comes to his music. The limited deluxe edition of Neil Young Archives Vol. III (1976–1987), available at neilyoungarchives.com for $449.98 starting Sept. 6, holds 17 CDs and five Blu-rays, plus a 160-page book and a poster. (That’s $2.15 per tune or movie; there’s also a 17-disc CD box set of only the music for $240.) It spans 11 studio albums, including country/folk Comes a Time, grunge prototype Rust Never Sleeps, rockabilly detour Everybody’s Rockin’ and Kraftwerk-influenced electronic Trans.
The “Neil Young Archives Vol. III” box set.
Courtesy Warner Records
Tracks you’ve never heard before outnumber previously released versions of songs by about double: 121 to 62. The new ones are unreleased versions of live performances, studio cuts, mixes or edits.
The massive deluxe edition features his never-released albums Oceanside Countryside, Johnny’s Island and Summer Songs, and unreleased films Across the Water, Boarding House, Trans and Catalyst. Sprinkled throughout the collection are “Rap” tracks, with Young’s comments on recording details. Rarities abound. On “A Snapshot in Time,” Young is heard rehearsing with Larson and Linda Ronstadt. The 1976 European and Japanese tour by Young and Crazy Horse is captured in “Across the Water.” There’s even the 1982 comedy he codirected and starred in, Human Highway.
