Before the Goldrush: Neil Young, 'Sugar Mountain'

NEIL YOUNG HAS always seemed most comfortable with just an acoustic guitar. "Sugar Mountain: Live at the Canterbury House 1968," the third release in Young's "Performance Archive" series, is an entirely intimate and acoustic affair, and like "Live at Massey Hall 1971" before it, the recording has a bit of mystique to it.

Where "Massey Hall" was basically "Harvest" live — it was so good, producer David Briggs wanted to release those recordings as the 1972 album — "Sugar Mountain" could have been the introduction to Young the solo artist, since five songs come from his self-titled solo debut and the performance was recorded two days before the release of "Neil Young."

The CD/DVD set "Sugar Mountain" also comes with years of mystery around it.

The live recording of the title song had been available since the 1970s — released as a b-side on several Young singles — yet a recording of the full show had never surfaced. But with "Sugar Mountain" CD, we have 13 songs recorded over two nights in November 1968. Young was 22 (and fresh off the breakup of Buffalo Springfield) when he played these shows, and he sounds it. This is a nervous, yet confident Young, joking with the crowd between songs. There are nine spoken interludes, but they're easily skipped if you don't want to hear Young talk about his days of popping pills while working in a bookstore or buying his first car — though they're worth listening to at least once.

The Ann Arbor, Mich., venue didn't even prepare for much of an audience as the emcee who opens the album says, "I hope that the waitresses got to you. You really blew our minds because we only expected — a lot less people than showed up." The shows sold out.

Young was out to prove himself with his own batch of songs and some Buffalo Springfield mainstays. And in that sense, "Sugar Mountain" isn't so different from "Massey Hall." Both albums open with "On the Way Home" and both feature material new to the audience at the time. Where "Massey Hall" saw an established Young out to display a new batch of brilliant new material, "Sugar Mountain" is Young in his solo infancy.

The stereo recording suffers from a bit of noticeable hiss at times, lacking "Massey Hall's" clean and rich sound, but the performances are as strong as ever. "Birds," which would appear later on "After the Goldrush," is beautiful in its infant stages, and "If I Could Have Her Tonight" is simply serene.

At one point, Young riffs on "Classical Gas" for no apparent reason other than he wasn't sure what else to do. Then, he launches into the album's stirring highlight, "Sugar Mountain."

Before he started to play, Young announces he wrote the song in 1963, but hadn't played it in four and-a-half years. We wouldn't have any idea if he hadn't told us — it sounds as fresh as ever.

The farewell to youth is particularly poignant given the circumstances. As Young sings, "You can't be 20 on Sugar Mountain / Though you're thinking that you're leaving there too soon / You're leaving there too soon," one can't help but understand the song choice.

It's also great to hear rarities like "Nowadays Clancy Can't Sing" and "Expecting to Fly," both of which seem long lost among Young's vast canon.

While it may seem odd for Young to release "Sugar Mountain" so shortly after "Massey Hall," all the two really share is a format and a single song. They're two completely different snapshots of Young that — though only three years apart — show two very different men.

And while "Massey Hall" may be a better set, it's really a matter of preference. If you like Buffalo Springfield or Young's first solo disc, there's no reason not to enjoy "Sugar Mountain." But any fan of Young should know that a recording of Young this early in his career — in this kind of setting — is a treasure, regardless of what he played.

Written by Express contributor Rudi Greenberg

» Stream the whole album here.