“The soul of those great records”: The genius Neil Young thought no one recognised
Not every rock and roll pioneer will get the kind of credit they truly deserve. The music industry has never been known as the fairest business to get into, and sometimes someone can manage to do everything right and still find themselves on their ass with nothing to show for it while their musical offspring hit the big time. Although Neil Young could have cared less whether or not he became one of the biggest names in music, he felt that plenty of people deserved those kinds of accolades before him.
When looking at Young’s career, though, he seemed to do everything within his power to make sure he downplayed his musical ego. He had the power to create some truly timeless music when he wanted to, but if he were ever forced into a corner by his label to make something trendy, nine times out of ten he would go in the opposite direction and see what kind of freaky music he could put out.
Look no further than what he was doing on Everybody’s Rockin’. The whole point behind making that kind of album was because his management demanded that he make a rock album after one too many country-tinged records from him, so making a project made up of nothing but old-timey rock and roll songs that sounded 20 years old is one of the most hilarious pranks anyone could have pulled on their record company.
It took a lot of guts for Young to keep his integrity intact like that, but everything he did wasn’t only about his integrity. He knew he had a limited vocabulary on some of his instruments, but whenever he got a guitar in his hands, he could make it talk in a way that few others could, whether that’s the earnest folky styles that came out of his mellow material or when he plugged in and sounded like he was attempting to strangle his guitar whenever he played.
It may have sounded like dissonant noise, but there was always a method behind what Young was doing. He had been an avid fan of what made songs work, and beyond being a great guitar player, he knew that having the proper arrangement was what could make or break a song, and Jack Nitzsche was always one of the masters at creating the perfect backdrop to any classic rock record.
“Guys like Jack Nitzsche and people like that are geniuses. They need to be recognised. He may have pissed off too many people because he did too many things against the grain.”
Neil Young
But despite playing a hand in records by Phil Spector and The Rolling Stones, Young thought that Nitzsche never got his due, saying, “Guys like Jack Nitzsche and people like that are geniuses. They need to be recognised. He may have pissed off too many people because he did too many things against the grain. This is the soul of the Phil Spector sound. This is the soul of all those great records. This is the guy who wrote the riff for ‘Needles and Pins’.”
While many people in the know about session players realise the kind of genius Nitzsche, he’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to classic artists that don’t get recognised. There are sometimes people like Nicky Hopkins that get some recognition, but when looking at the production of a record, it’s hard to think of many Elton John classics without Paul Buckmaster’s arrangements, or listening to a Steely Dan record and not getting chills listening to Larry Carlton play.
So while Young has been given some credit for going against the grain and making some choices that the suits might not have liked, he knows that the people in the background were as important as the ones at the front of the stage. They might fall by the wayside, but anyone doing their homework needs to know about the kind of power arrangers have at their disposal.
